Israel....

[MikeWaters]

1. will shortly agree to cease fire
2. support for Hezbollah will significantly be strengthened
3. Hezbollah will still exist
4. Hezbollah will reload
5. Israel will have lost international credibility due to the images of dead civilians, seemingly entire cities bombed out (so called "pinpoint strikes"), and attacking civilian infrastructure (electricity, airport, bridges, roads, etc).

Everyday of continued fighting just digs the hole deeper. Trust me, this is what they are realizing. This is why they told the generals "no" to expanding the war on the northern front. Hezbollah in the end will rightfully declare victory.

[realtall]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

1. will shortly agree to cease fire
2. support for Hezbollah will significantly be strengthened
3. Hezbollah will still exist
4. Hezbollah will reload
5. Israel will have lost international credibility due to the images of dead civilians, seemingly entire cities bombed out (so called "pinpoint strikes"), and attacking civilian infrastructure (electricity, airport, bridges, roads, etc).

Everyday of continued fighting just digs the hole deeper. Trust me, this is what they are realizing. This is why they told the generals "no" to expanding the war on the northern front. Hezbollah in the end will rightfully declare victory.

You make it sound like Israel can't win.

I'm not sure that they can either.

Its difficult to win when a country is surrounded on all sides by its enemies, enemies who are all too happy to kill Israeli civilians(that's deliberately kill civilians). The enemy themselves blur the distinction between civilians and combatants as they themselves move on both sides of that line every day as some work normal jobs part time and kill Israelis part time. And those who are full time guerillas/soldiers/whatever protect themselves by surrounding their operation headquarters with civilians. Its hard to defeat an enemy who knows exactly how to use their enemy's morality against them while they(the terrorists) have no such hangups about killing the innocent.

[MikeWaters]

If I felt the Israelis could actually wipe Hezbollah out in a timely fashion without destroying a country, I would support it. Having a neutral force enforce the peace is a good second option.

An extended fight against guerilla forces in Lebanon is not a good option.

If we can't defeat such forces, Israel cannot either.

[ChinoCoug]

Originally Posted by realtall

You make it sound like Israel can't win.

I'm not sure that they can either.

Its difficult to win when a country is surrounded on all sides by its enemies, enemies who are all too happy to kill Israeli civilians(that's deliberately kill civilians). The enemy themselves blur the distinction between civilians and combatants as they themselves move on both sides of that line every day as some work normal jobs part time and kill Israelis part time. And those who are full time guerillas/soldiers/whatever protect themselves by surrounding their operation headquarters with civilians. Its hard to defeat an enemy who knows exactly how to use their enemy's morality against them while they(the terrorists) have no such hangups about killing the innocent.

If Israel is trying to avoid killing civilians with their precision equipment, why have they killed 20x more civilians than those wild Hezbollah rockets?

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by ChinoCoug

If Israel is trying to avoid killing civilians with their precision equipment, why have they killed 20x more civilians than those wild Hezbollah rockets?

Because the Israels are guaranteed to hit SOMETHING with precision munitions, but will often have bad intelligence and hit the wrong thing. In a way it is unknowable because the other side will ALWAYS say that it was only civilians killed.

Hezbollah on the other hand is just shooting in the dark. Half their rockets fall into fields or the ocean. Fire enough of them, however, and they kill their intended target: Israeli civilians.

Are you trying to argue that Israel is TRYING to kill civilians and Hezbollah is not? I don't think either one of those things is true.

BTW, and slightly off topic, I think it is a well taken point to note that we never would have won WWII on either front had we not been willing to fire bomb Drezden and Tokyo, that is, population centers. Loss of civilian life is awful, but it is the cost of war.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

BTW, and slightly off topic, I think it is a well taken point to note that we never would have won WWII on either front had we not been willing to fire bomb Drezden and Tokyo, that is, population centers. Loss of civilian life is awful, but it is the cost of war.

I strongly disagree on the firebombing. I think we would have won the war on both fronts without those two slaughters. When Japan was invading China, the bombed some cities and the US and Britian strongly condemned that as barbaric and morally reprehensible. A few years later we were doing it. On a much larger scale.

[Archaea]

The evolution of war has changed.

In a sense, WWII was still fought along the lines of old world war thought, namely make it so messy, kill enough people until the other side surrenders. We believed at the time that the firebombings were necessary.

In today's world, with the massive firepower we possess, it may be possible to defeat an organized army without the same degree of civilian loss of life. Any armed conflict is likely to lead to loss of civilian life.

Terroistic tactics essentially try to revert to old world warfare: make loss of life so horrible that the other sides wears down.

[Colly Wolly]

Hezbollah will rightfully declare victory? Wowsers. GO TERRORISTS!!!

[MikeWaters]

rightfully = truthfully

Meaning at this point I think Hezbollah is winning the military/political equation.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Archaea

The evolution of war has changed.

In a sense, WWII was still fought along the lines of old world war thought, namely make it so messy, kill enough people until the other side surrenders. We believed at the time that the firebombings were necessary.

In today's world, with the massive firepower we possess, it may be possible to defeat an organized army without the same degree of civilian loss of life. Any armed conflict is likely to lead to loss of civilian life.

Terroistic tactics essentially try to revert to old world warfare: make loss of life so horrible that the other sides wears down.

I am not so sure I would classify it that way. Certainly you can go back to the Huns or the Vikings, etc and find cases where they targeted civilians. But, prior to WWII, we didn't have the technology to kill civilians on such a massive scale. We certainly didn't do it in WWI. And in spite of the property destruction in Sherman's march, we did no such thing in the Civil War or other US wars. Like I said, once the Japanese started using planes to bomb cities in China, we reacted with horror and condemnation. This was not the continuation of an "old" method. It was a new and frightening development.

And there was not uniform support over the strategy of targeting civilians. The Tokyo firebombing was promoted by Major General Curtis LeMay. There was quite a bit of resistance, but he insisted and had the authority to push it through. He took a lot of criticism for it after the war and his military career never recovered. The bombs dropped on Tokyo did not detonate. They simply splattered burning blobs of Napalm over wide areas, ensuring that the wooden homes would catch fire as quickly as possible. There is an excellent discussion on the military discussions leading to the bombing in the movie: "The Fog of War" which focuses on the role played by Robert Macnamara who was an assistant to LeMay. An excellent history of the technical aspects of the bombing can also be found in the book "Flyboys" by James Bradley.

As for Dresden, that was largely payback for bombing of London. And while it wasn't exactly kept a total secret, it was downplayed and not widely publicized for quite a few years after the end of WWII. It was not something the Brits were particularly proud of. Dresden had no military significance. The bombers dropped bombs in a ring around the city so that the fire would work towards the city center. This way the heat would be more intense and there would be no avenue for escape. It was designed purely as a slaughter.