See this page for links to articles on OpEdNEws that articulate both sides on the issues in the middle east. It is the goal of OpEdNews to air opinions from both sides to stretch the envelope of discussion and communication. Hate statements are not accepted. Discussions of issues and new ideas for solutions are encouraged. .It seems to me that Israel is doing a dry run on what is the future of warfare. Hezbollah is the "new" kind of enemy-- not a nation, not a conventional army or military.
This fact, that Hezbollah is not a nation, does not field a conventional army, causes consternation and even arrogant responses from political and military leaders. They say that Hezbollah is operating as a sort of state within a state" and that this is "not something that will work."
Well excuse me. Slap Nassrullah's wrist and send them to the back of the room. Hezbollah doesn't fit their idea of the way things used to be and that's why THEY, the old guard militarists are part of the problem...
I imagine that when the Navajo or Comanche Indians faced Gatling guns for the first time (if they even did face them--this is a metaphor), they were probably disgusted by this new kind of weapon. I'd guess that they felt it was unmanly, without soul or courage. Nonetheless it was another tool that signified the end of their rule of their territories
The post 9/11 world is a different place. Just like some diseases no longer respond to antibiotics, meaning, are no longer KILLED by antibiotics, some "enemies" no longer respond to air warfare. They no longer respond to destruction of national infrastructure.
It is shocking to me that Hezbollah and its growing world of supporters see a victory where I see a massively devastated land. They see success in simply surviving.
That's not much success to me. But I am not an Arab, not a Muslim, living in a land where monarchs, mullahs or where democracy has been taken over by religious extremists. I don't live in a land where hate for the west is taught to children in religious schools (Madrassas,) where the men have had little to be proud of in the way of nationalist, macho victories. So it does make some sense that, just like a Rocky, who stood in the ring, his face pummeled to a pulp, the Arab world cheers for Hezbollah for just standing up to the tough, bully Israeli army, and not falling down.
And that makes Israel the loser in this battle. Israel may have destroyed thousands of rockets and killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters-- maybe even five or ten times as many Hezbollah fighters as Israeli soldiers were killed. These things don't matter.
Let me be clear. I am not extolling Hezbollah. I am not congratulating or lauding them. I am observing some of the realities in the Israel and Lebanon.
Hezbollah did not fall. They kept the rockets firing. They kept fighting back at a massively more powerful Israeli army. And in the process, they won some other ground that Israel helped them to gain. Before the "sixth war" as it is being called, the Sunni and Shi'a Arabs were further apart. Before the sixth war, the Iranians were at more distant odds with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan... and now, that has changed. Now, in the Arab street, the Arab world, Hezbollah is held a bit dearer in the hearts of Muslims across the planet. This is a huge, devastating loss for Israel and for the USA.
For similar reasons, Iran, the sponsor and "cultivator" of Hezbollah comes out looking better, becoming better accepted as non-Arabs in the Muslim world. Iran, as what might considered one of the primary centers of Shi'a Islam, has succeeded in preventing Lebanon from becoming more democrat, more secular and less Islamic.
In a way, the Shi'a revolution is, like the early communist and socialist revolutions, a rejection of the monarchical ruling powers that run the nations where Shi'a "revolutions" and government takeovers are occurring. In that sense, the Shi'a urge to power is one that aims to liberate its people from tyranny. And like communism and socialism, Shiaism retains authoritarian, top down rule and control, with severe restrictions on freedoms. Iran is at the center of that Shi'a revolution. The US and Israel are helping Iran to build support through the Arab and Islamic worlds. The terrorist movements, which may not ALL be sponsored by Iran or other similar revolutionary, anti-monarchical states, clearly are synergizing with the Shi'a revolutionary movements in fighting monarchies like the one in Saudi Arabia.
When the US attacked Iraq, it helped put the Iraqi Shiites, allied with Iran, in power, something Saddam had been preventing for decades. Now, Iran has more access to an influence in Iraq than ever before, all thanks to the brilliant strategies of Donald Rumsfeld, the man George W. Bush puts so much confidence in.
The US and Israel, through their Lebanese experiment, have helped the public relations for all the terrorist organizations. Now it is easier for them to characterize themselves as freedom fighters, as liberation movements. It is easier for them to blur the difference between them and the Shiites who would take over democratic governments and impose Koranic law, in the name of furthering the Islamic faith.
These are the same right wing extremist Islamists who, by offering to care for the children of the poorest of the poor, are creating millions, through the Madrassas hate schools, of children, growing into adults, who hate the US, hate the west, hate Christians and Jews. And we will be funding their schools, because we in the US are buying billions in oil from the countries they have already taken over and which it looks like they will successfully take over.
So, another group who loses are those Muslims who value democracy, who, practicing a less extreme form of Islam, will be forced to live under Taliban-like conditions. And the Lebanese Christians have probably lost, because clearly, the "new" Lebanon will be dominated more than ever by Hezbollah and the extremist Islamists they represent.
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