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Hezbollah Hacked Israeli Military Radio
florescent_beige writes, "Newsday is reporting that Hezbollah was able to monitor secure Israeli military communications, perhaps using technology supplied by Iran, during the recent Lebanon war. A former Israeli general, speaking anonymously, called the results 'disastrous' for Israel. The story reports that an anonymous Lebanese source said that Hezbollah might have taken advantage of Israeli soldiers' mistakes in following secure radio procedures. The radio gear uses frequency hopping and encryption." The article identifies the Israeli communications equipment as the US-designed Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System.
The real news is that this made it into the news. Not because it isn't news worthy but because it only makes sense to maintain a shroud of ignorance once you have actually cracked a channel of communication thus instilling your enemies with a false sense of security.
For instance during World War II, even after the allies had broken a German code or devised a method to figure out that day's cipher string, they would still go about their routine of acting like they didn't know what the Germans were going to do. Meaning that if a cargo ship was headed towards a line of submarines, they might find it best to sacrifice that cargo ship at the possibility of saving a warship later in the day. If they responded directly to communications, the Germans would continue to change the code or investigate ways to improve their encryption methods and upgrade Enigma. Necessity breeds innovation and you don't want your enemies feeling a strong necessity for better encryption. I'd like to cite my source but I don't believe Simon Singh's The Code Book is available online and that's where I read this.
How interesting that Hezbollah would have the shortsightedness to let this crucial knowledge publicly available. However, this can be expected when the primary morale boosting for troops and citizens is bragging about your capabilities. I highly doubt they consider the conflict over and suspect that Isreal will now heavily ramp up its encryption & security to the highest standards since I believe that's one of the few things the United States will not export to them (see Phil Zimmerman's FBI case file on exporting encryption programs to foreign soil).
As the department this summary is coming from reveals, guerilla warfare depends heavily on information like this. I'm surprised it's gone public that they had access to it.
My work here is dung.
Is there any reason to consider frequency hopping secure, or is that simply adding "security through difficulty"? I understand it has certain resistance to jamming, but couldn't a sophisticated outsider simply have a large set of receivers to monitor all possible hops?
John
Of course they'll say that they h4xx0r3d the Israeli radio. It's called PROPAGANDA. Unless confirmed, I'd call this FUD.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Maybe they haven't really cracked the code, they're just putting out false information to try to get the Israelis to switch to a different code. This would cause some confusion, thereby giving Hezbollah an edge.
If this is true then the US military is going to be throwing away a lot of expensive radio equipment over the next couple of months.
And all the text shrunk! CTRL "+"!
They should have used the New Testament Bible Code, not the Old Testament Bible Code.
There is a cease fire currently. The conflict is effectively over. Therefore, Hizbula is trying to get extra mileage by revealing this. It is probably not the most wise move since they might end up fighting Israel again in the future, so maybe keeping it quiet would have been of benefit. But there is a certain logic to revealing this. Basically they are saying "see we are not as primitive as you think and Israel is not as advanced as some people (especially in the muslim world) think - therefore defeating Israel might be possible". That's what they are trying to get out of it.
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Well with 6 billion dollars in U.S. aid per year, I think Israel can afford new radios.
Been going on for some time now. I have a friend at GD working on the encryption end of it. Of course he can't give any technical details but basically has said that they are doing a totally new communication system where everything, from the individual soldier on up, is linked and shares all information. It's an almost videogame level of information availability.
This will, perhaps, accelerate the push for that, but it's already been in the works for a long time.
Also nothing's saying that the US still uses the same system, or that they don't have additional scrambling on top of it.
For those interested, here is the original article. Compare for yourself the various comments.
Still a good reading and it explains why Hezbollah could say they had killed X number of troops or destroyed Y tanks before the Israeli military admitted to the losses. They were listening to the Israeli transmissions from the battlefield!
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
If Hezbollah actually had cracked Israeli radio codes why would they admit it? Isn't that just giving information to the other side?
The only purpose in saying this is to boost morale and cause doubt for the opposition. Neither of those requires actually breaking a code and Hezbollah is known for making boasts without anything to back it up.
Until their is actual evidence, or at least a quote from a non-anonymous Israeli military official, I don't see why I should believe this.
Just because it's on the internet, doesn't make it true.
Were they able to crack the Israeli's mini-bar?
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Prior to the US IRAQ invasion there were weekly stories focusing around how evil Iraq is... Iraq "might" be responsible for this, Iraq "might" have helped with that... The sort of "Iraq hurts kittens and little children for fun" but more subtle kind of stuff...
Now we have weekly Iran stories... There is no real evidence ever... For example there was this wonderful "Iran plans on executing girl for defending herself from rape" story... Completely fake, no known source, but yet got the internet all up in arms..
I feel this is yet another one of these stories... No proof... Can't be proven either way, perfect propaganda.
I agree with everything you said, although I doubt that the U.S. really has many export restrictions on encryption gear to Israel, except insofar as they're worried that the gear could end up in somebody else's hands besides Israel and compromise the U.S.'s own capabilities.
This is because it's not like Israel is that far behind the U.S. in terms of mathematics, computers, or encryption, so not exporting to them wouldn't change their strategic posture much at all, and would just deny business to a U.S. corporation in favor of a homegrown one (e.g. IMI).
If there are concerns about exporting to Israel, it's probably more because folks here are afraid that the stuff will be resold and eventually make it to countries that are hostile to the U.S., not really because anyone fears Israel directly. After all, although it's never been publicly admitted, I think there's a very good chance that the U.S. has given Israel nuclear weapons -- I doubt we'd bicker about a few lines of encryption code (that they could probably replicate domestically) if they wanted to buy it.
As to the idiocy of giving away your capabilities if you've successfully broken your enemy's communication system, you're totally right (and yes, it is Singh that goes into much detail about this in his book). However, it may be that Hezbollah either doesn't have the internal safeguards to prevent this type of leak, or is more interested in the public opinion to be gained through bragging than in actual operational superiority. (Or, is so convinced of their own superiority that they don't care, i.e. they've fallen victim to their own rhetoric; this doesn't seem implausible.)
Based on the past few conflicts and the reading I've done about them, the Israelis strike me as being pretty good at doing tough self-assessments and changing the way they fight in order to avoid repeating mistakes. If there is another Israeli/Hezbollah conflict (and I have no reason to believe that there won't be), I would look for some very different tactics on the part of Israel. This is the way war works: you see the greatest changes to tactics and strategy as a result of defeat or near-defeat than you do from victory.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Having used SINCGARS before (and for few years) they change frequency every few seconds. Add encryption to it and it would be nearly impossible to breach.
When I was in the military our base frequency changed everyday and our ciphers changed on a regular basis weekly and sometimes daily.
If they were exercising proper procedures the only way I think it could have happened is if they stole an ANPASS(If I remember the name correctly). It includes all the frequencies and ciphers that you would need. Three wrong passwords and it turned into a big paperweight. If that was stolen then they were not keeping track of sensitive items well enough.
Half of writing history is hiding the truth.
Single Channel Ground and Airborne Radio System
If that isn't nicknamed Cigars already, it should be!
[UID-HeinzIntel]
SINCGARS is about as secure as you can get. If the Hezbollah bomb boys managed to get into the system it's only because some Israeli recruit didn't follow procedure. Also, there were a lot of units from the IDF involved - how widespread is this?
...the IDF has been deploying SINCGARS clones using technologies and software from Redmond...
They have computers now? That means its just a matter of time before they download all our secerets!
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
If you know your enemy is eavesdropping on a method of communication, the prudent course is not to tell the world about it, it is to use that knowledge to send him *false* information, while continuing your real communication through some other (new) secure channel they hopefully do not know about.
One thing you can count on. They, or Iran, won't be able to do it the same way the next time around.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I think you hit it right on the head when you said "If they were exercising proper procedures," because that's a mighty big if.
I don't think it's hard to imagine that at least at the outset of the conflict, the Israeli soldiers might have gone into the conflict with a very distorted idea of the enemy; one that was incapable of doing anything more than listening to the latest propaganda on a 20-year-old shortwave set and cleaning their AK-47.
Thus, like the Germans with their Enigma, they got lax on the procedures, and were compromised as a result.
However, unlike the Germans, I suspect that the Israelis will get another shot, and will probably not be so cavalier next time.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Read the article very, very carefully, bearing in mind that since it's written by a journalist it might as well have been written by the Hezbollah PR 'n' Propaganda team.
What the article actually says about 'hacking' Israeli military radio communications is merely this:
Using technology most likely supplied by Iran, special Hezbollah teams monitored the constantly changing radio frequencies of Israeli troops on the ground. That gave guerrillas a picture of Israeli movements, casualty reports and supply routes.
So what precisely did Hezbollah do? Sounds like they merely verified that there was radio traffic on certain frequencies, and that it came from Israeli units, and then they were able to do a little direction-finding on it to verify where it came from. Look, imam! Funky radio traffic in the Bekaa valley that sounds like the usual gibberish exchanged between Israeli armor and base -- I'll bet there are Israeli tanks on Route such-and-such!
Well, gosh, big deal. Any amateur could do as much as easily. It's not right brilliantly clever to deduce when you get a lot of chatter on military frequencies in a certain neighborhood that there are military operations afoot in it. I mean, Hezbollah probably got as good or better "intelligence" about Israeli movements just by taking reports of survivors who counted the number of tanks that rolled over them.
Did Hezbollah actually decrypt communications, which would be an intelligence coup? Your logic argues pretty persuasively that they did not, because if they had they would have kept it a deep dark secret. In fact, they would have done their best to avoid drawing attention to their radio-interception program, lest it start the Israelis thinking. They -- or rather their Iranian paymasters -- would not have countenanced boasting about the operation to a damn fool journalist who would embellish it with wild speculation about 'hacking' secret Israeli radio messages.
Nor does the article actually manage to get anyone who might have known to say otherwise. It merely attempts to imply that they might have said it, or something like it. Hence statements like this:
The official refused to detail how Hezbollah was able to intercept and decipher Israeli transmissions.
A nice example of the old 'begging the question' fallacy, such as in the question 'Have you stopped beating your wife yet?' Maybe the official refused to "detail" how Hezbollah was able to decipher Israeli transmissions because, in fact, they weren't able to.
Or this:
But a former Israeli general, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Hezbollah's ability to secretly hack into military transmissions had "disastrous" consequences for the Israeli offensive.
"Israel's military leaders clearly underestimated the enemy and this is just one example," he said.
Hmmm....wait a minute, the direct quote only says the military leader underestimated Hezbollah. And what's the mysterious 'this' to which the general refers, which is an example of the underestimation? Interception and radio direction-finding? Or actual decryption? We don't know. The journalist implies, in the previous sentence, that 'this' means 'hacking' into military transmissions, and that this means interception and decryption. But does it?
If the anonymous general were willing to be quoted saying quite plainly: "Ayup, Hezbollah decrypted our most secret communications, damn 'em," then you can bet your last dollar the journalist would have used that very juicy quote. The fact that he didn't use that quote, or one like it, means he couldn't get it. And I'm sure he tried very hard, with all the artful questions he could. The general just wasn't willing to say those words. Because, almost surely, they would have been false.
In short, I think the odds are good that this is just another journalist whoring for Hezbollah, 'cause it makes a scary exciting man-bites-dog story.
So they intercepted all this encrypted data, and *still* got their asses kicked? Talk about the suck.
groups like Hezbollah are not military and are essentially made up of a bunch of thugs
I love when news bounces right off someone's ultra-thick skull. Hacking the enemy comms is just one piece of evidence among many that Hezbollah is much more militarly sophisticated that anyone assumed. Just because they are unable to invade Isreal doesn't change the fact that they were vastly underestimated by the people trying to kill them.
So they cracked communications such as
"We've killed everyone in the area, moving on to the next village."
"They are falling back in a northernly direction, sending missile salvos 1, 2, and 3 miles ahead of our mechanized division to thin out the runners and reduce resistance as we proceed."
"Good hit. They didn't have a chance."
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
What a shortsighted (and incorrect) view of the situation.
The arab Shia are the largest ethnic/religious group in Lebanon, at 30% (if you break it down by religion only, the Christians are larger, although there are many different, and sometimes conflicting, Christian sects). Hezbollah is their largest *political party*, which has a private militia that is more powerful than the Lebanese army (largely thanks to Iran and Syria's generosity, but also thanks to extensive training in fighting the Israeli army since the early 80's). The next largest political party, Amal, doesn't have near their level of support. Of course, don't think too mildly of Amal, either -- they fought Israel just as hard, even during this war, although they don't have Hezbollah's resources. Hezbollah is not only a major political party, but is the country's second largest employer, mostly for its network of government services that it provided to areas that the Lebanese government was either unable to or unwilling to provide to -- schools, hospitals, etc. Public service activism is one of the main ways that the party wins support, even down to the local level. I saw a documentary recently where one Hezbollah woman talked about an initiative she started in which Hezbollah families would stock medical supplies in their homes. Whenever anyone was injured, they could come and get treated for free, so that even if the hospitals were destroyed or taken over, people could get care. By doing things like this, addition to helping their own people, they rally support for Hezbollah at the same time.
Hezbollah has a very tight military discipline. They've been using what's termed "fourth generation warfare" by US military analysts. It combines classic guerella tactics with modern weaponry and a unique "peer to peer" communications structure. Weaponry is buried until used, then restored immediately, always in numerous, small caches, making it incredibly difficult to destroy. Local cells operate in their hometowns or other supportive territory, and are able to pick and choose targets as will. Groups communicate with their neighbors to exchange intelligence information; critical information is sent through hardened channels, sometimes even through physical runners. Overall strategy and reserves are controlled by Hezbollah itself. In the 2006 conflict with Israel, the army was bogged down in dealing with the local cells, in their supportive terrain.
Contrary to popular myth, Hezbollah (unlike Hamas and the other Palestinian groups) prefers not to operate around civilians. Not for a concern for the civilians' safety -- they'll confiscate buildings to use as shooting positions if needed, whether their owners like it or not -- but for their own safety. Hamas operates openly as a sign of pride and defiance. However, by doing that, it only takes a tiny handful of defectors to point out to Israel where they are and what they're doing. Hezbollah, on the other hand, prefers to operate in areas where nobody is around to reduce the risk of being exposed by defectors.
As we saw in the last conflict, they're a very effective military, and it's a big question mark on how to deal with them. It's almost funny how the major Arab powers were defeated one after another, yet this tiny band was blowing up warships and taking out hundreds of Merkavas, in addition to maintaining a steady rain of over 100 Katyushas per day throughout the entire conflict. And now their popularity is soaring -- not just in other countries, but even in Lebanon, where they started the conflict. Check out these polls. Check out this as well.
No, she's fine. My associate is vomiting for a totally unrelated reason.
:Colonel I suggest that ^H^H^H^ ALLAH OWNZ J00R B0X0RZ!^H^H^H^ insurgents.: :Shit. Switch over to IM! AOL encrypts EVERYTHING!:
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Big deal. Those tactics can easily be overcome with genocide, so they're unlikely to be practical in the wars planned for 2007 and 2008.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
and
Thugs indeed. - highly trained, skilled, well funded clever thugs...
You better stop buying oil too.
CigAAAHHRRRRRRRs, matey?
Well if you have two of them at two known positions, you could probably get a direction based on the time difference between the signal's arrival at the two stations. Or maybe you could do something with measuring the signal's phase shift. I've never sat down and worked out the problem but it seems like it could be done, on paper at least.
Some Googling reveals that somebody at least has thought of the same concept (and got a patent on it already, although it was filed in 1977, so I think that means it's expired now), no idea if they've ever put it into practice:
Determining azimuth of a transponder by measuring a plurality of phase shifts. Tomasi, Jean-Pierre, United States Patent 4,110,754.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
They didn't actually have to "hack" it at all. The encryption technology is really crude (and well-known) and American frequency-hopping gear follows predetermined sequences - these are also well known.
It's trivial for any reasonably equipped and fairly savvy military radio op to monitor these transmissions.
I agree. Iran did fund and supply Hizbollah during the Lebanon conflict. The claim by Hizbollah that they listened to Israeli communications during the war was probably true. No communication device is completely secure, and no military is invincible. Most likely, Hizbollah got their technology directly from Iran, or were lucky and captured a piece of Israeli communications hardware.
I visited Israel from the US on August 18, only 5 days after the cease-fire began. The northern part of the country was devoid of tourists, but the Israelis were not afraid at all, and were thrilled to see us. We saw rocket damage across the north, and Israeli tanks coming back from Lebanon. We also saw many off-duty 20 year old soldiers (male and female) at McDonalds with their M-16s. All were interesting sites that would scare the crap out of Americans. The Israelis are happy to have a soldier nearby, and the soldiers are required to carry their weapon at all times as long they are on active duty.
Seeing the real Israel gave me perspective that is not present in America. People here say "How you can Israel bomb innocent civilians?" Those people haven't seen who they are fighting against. The palestinians and arabs do not care about their land. They do not care about their people. They do not care about other people.
Israelis do care about the Palestinians... at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, which is run by Israel, 40% of patients are palestinian. Palestinians get FREE health care, whereas Israeli citizens do not. All nurses in the hospital are required to be bilingual in hebrew and arabic.
The palestinians do not want their own land, they dont want to do anything with the land they have. And, yes they do stand on top of their rubble and shout "we won". Because if they're not actually fighting for land or rights, then the battle itself is their victory.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
"Contrary to popular myth, Hezbollah (unlike Hamas and the other Palestinian groups) prefers not to operate around civilians. Not for a concern for the civilians' safety -- they'll confiscate buildings to use as shooting positions if needed, whether their owners like it or not -- but for their own safety. Hamas operates openly as a sign of pride and defiance. However, by doing that, it only takes a tiny handful of defectors to point out to Israel where they are and what they're doing. Hezbollah, on the other hand, prefers to operate in areas where nobody is around to reduce the risk of being exposed by defectors."
What the hell is this youtube video then?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aur_DmTIw70
And this one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68yOJVQA51E
I'm calling BS. Take your propaganda off of slashdot - I know how to use google!
If procedural errors can cause the entire system security to be breached, then I would say that the system is poorly designed. A properly designed secure communications system would not operate at all if correct security procedures were not followed.
Considering that the SINGARS family of radios are very diverse set of radios (PRC-119 being the most common), there are one of two possible scenerios that
could have occured (ranked from unlikely to likely)
Incidentally, this is my opinion and not fact so please do not take this out of context.
1) Israel was using an unsecure net (i.e. plaintext, single channel) - This is probably unlikely because as a fighting force, the Israelis are among
the best, specifically in the areas of tactical security.
2) Somebody lost a CYZ-10 encryption device (along with the physical key) - A CYZ-10 (without getting into specifics) secures the comm for the SINGARS.
If this happened and it was not reported, essentially Israel's ENTIRE theaterwide military operations would have been compromised, until a crypto
change-over (while unlikely), assuming that they did not rollover their crypto on a daily or weekly basis, they would have been totally open to anybody.
Again, I'm just speculating, but considering how important it is for us when we conduct combat ops, not to lose compromise comms, these are some real
distinct, possiblities.
Regards,
MBC1977,
(US Marine, College Student, and Good Guy!)
Regards,
MBC1977,
The Israeli military may just need propoganda to account for what's been widely considered a poor showing by it's forces in this "war" - especially considering the legendary status of Israeli military and intelligence. The citizens are not happy and are grumbling, they actually pay attention to what's going on in a conflict, unlike in the U.S, so this just might be to soothe them.
It's hard to trust what either side is saying when so much is at stake. The Hezbollah official who was showing off about their capability probably realizes Israel has the resources to make a far more secure and foolproof communications system, but he cannot pass up the chance to offer encouragement against a very tough enemy.
Hezbollah would like everyone to think about the advancing nature of Hezbollah technology and tactics, while Israeli leaders would like everyone to think of it is as a major fluke, which will be promptly patched up by "next time". The truth of what will probably happen next time is anybody's guess, but I'd rather trust what a military expert has to say than these guys or just any old reporter.
.. Now all they have to do is learn hebrew.
God Be Gone
In my experience the critical skill is the ability to get a BN CDR to allow the signal personnel to dictate the SOP for such a compromise. I can react to it, my problem is getting the proper reaction put in place in the sop and practiced so it can be done properly when needed.
Algerath
Still no clear path to '3. Profit', though...
You may be surprised to know that you're a part of the problem. Terrorism isn't anything special. It's just a mode of combat, the only way that a poor and backwards group of people can attack a wealthy nation located thousands of miles from where they live.
They aren't trying to exterminate us, they are conducting a war against us. Just like ANY war, one of the ways to end it is diplomatically. The war they are conducting has goals that they'd like to achieve, and only the most ignorant would think that they want to simply exterminate us.
I don't think that the average American would feel that our country has lost any respect at all if we tried to figure out what is pissing those people off so much, and figured out how to address that problem to remove their reason to fight. It's the only way any lasting peace will be achieved.
We could also do it your way and just kill them all. It's certainly a lot easier, since it doesn't require any of us to understand anything. We don't even have to vote. Plus, it makes great TV for Fox to play.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Historically, there have been a number of intolerant Islamic regimes. There have also been tolerant ones.
Look, I'm not a Muslim apoligist. I'm both an American and a born-again Jesus freak, and I do not want to live under Islamic government. But history is what it is, and you're painting with too broad a brush.
And woe to us if we go with genocide. Yeah, we'd win the war (at least for a few years). But we'd lose... I guess this is overstating it slightly, but we'd lose our humanity. Or at least something worth having, something precious to western civilization, the idea of treating other human beings with decency. (See Nuremburg for why this is important.) And we'd sow seeds of hatred that would last for centuries, rather than just for decades...
Pretty hard to find out where a rocket landed 10-30 miles away.. A bunch of the tanks were destroyed by mines.
I figured they had militants near enough to see what was going on through binoculars (therefore far enough away to avoid getting hit) telling them by radio where to aim and what they hit.
Retro-tech espionage... maybe I underestimated their techies.
You can't take the sky from me...
I also find interesting how you compare Hezbollah, a guerilla army with the German professional army of WWII. Lets get something straight. If Hezbollah is going to act as if its the under-equipped, under-armed, poor underdogs, they can't be launching HUNDREDS of rockets EACH DAY. They can't be hacking MILTARY COMMUNICATIONS. They can't be recieving cutting edge technology military aid for DECADES. By your logic, given the sheer ease and availability of firearms, body armor, explosives, training and auto shops to build technicals in the U.S., every citizen is, at minimum, in the National Guard.
Not to pick apart your post... but uhhh... I think we sowed the seeds of hatred that would last for centuries with the crusades. They still bring that up from time to time. Don't think we need to worry about that.
\ And it's one thing to say, "Yeah, our ancestors in other countries did that a thousand years ago, but, hey, we're not like that." It's quite another to demonstrate, both to the world and to ourselves, that yes, we are like that.
There is also the perspective that obscurity is not the same as security. If you have secret A and are trying to prevent B from knowing it, you can NEVER be certain that B does not have that information. If they obtain knowledge of A, and keep that hidden from you, then your obscurity becomes a weapon against you. This is the problem the Germans had once the Enigma ciphers were broken. By relying totally on obscurity, the Germans became extremely vulnerable. Obscurity is a VERY dangerous tool.
By far the best tactic is to assume the enemy could know everything - not necessarily that they will, but that they could. This introduces a degree of fault-tolerence into actions. It does not rely on an assumed weakness that may not exist (and therefore make those carrying out the action the weaker party), but assumes that the opposition is as competent and capable as it chooses to be. As this is often much closer to reality, it is a better assumption to make.
In terms of encryption, for example, using an obscure algorithm puts you at gigantic risk as it can't have had the eyeballs to verify that it is indeed secure. Furthermore, people are more likely to use weak keys, as they won't see the point in taking care, as they're working on the basis that they don't need to. A very stupid practice. The best you could do is make the algorithm public, utterly destroy any delusions of absolute mental superiority, and force people to work damn hard to use the algorithm correctly. If the enemy finds a fault and keeps it secret, they would have done so anyway, so you lose nothing. If Joe Smurf on sci.crypto finds a fault and publishes it, you will have time to fix the bug or switch to another method. Overall, you lose nothing.
Assuming the enemy is an idiot, merely because they're the enemy, is the best way to lose a battle or a war. Either that or acting stupid.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Well, there were interviews in Washington Post (and NY Times, but my memory can fool me here) about how the Hezbollah used to go into Christian villages and fire rockets and run away before the counter fire came.
Hundreds?! Can you give a source for THAT claim?
I am not a military expert, but I think history over millennia has shown two working ways of handling fanatical guerillas in bad terrain: (a) Hearts and minds of the civilian population and (b) clearing the area of people totally and not leave stone on stone.
"(a)" is hardly possible with the Shia by the Israeli border. Saddam Hussein did a variant of "(b)" with the Shia after their uprising -- outright atrocities in such a volume they stopped giving him trouble. A civilized country like Israel can't do that unless they are desperate (or the Palestinian problems would only be in history books).
Hezbollah isn't so much a guerilla as a dug down army division. Their problem is that they are easy to keep down using air -- and then use a big army unit clearing out area after area.
Let us hope none of the methods will have to be done -- and that the international community will keep its promise this time and make it a calm border. If Hezbollah continues to throw rock on the bear, it will certainly wake up again, angrier for every time it happens.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
The crusades were started by Islamic radicals butchering Christian pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem.
I guess I'd call that unprovoked terrorism.
It's funny how history repeats itself, sometimes.
I believe it was the willingness of Hezbolah fighters to fight to the death that the difference. In the past other fighters would break and run under superior fire power. Now they hole up and take casualities. I would bet they learned tactics from Iraq. Well dug in infantry that is willing to fight will always cause a lot of casualities. Even if a someone in Hezbolah intercepted some messages, they would have to then communicate their response to many groups of fighters widely scattered. I doubt the control and communication was that good. Particulary when any movement of significant numbers would result in a punishing air strike.
I had to reply to this ridiculous comment.
Israel cares so much about the Palestinians that Ariel Sharon order Sabra and Shatilla.
Israel cares so much about the Palestinians that they killed over 770 Palestinian children since 2000.
Israel cares so much about the Palestinians that they built the apartheid wall to rob them of their land.
Israel cares so much about the Palestinians that they're starving them.
And on another note: Israel apparently cares about their own Israel-Arab citizens so much they didn't even provide them with bomb shelter during the recent Lebanon/Israel conflict.
It's time to stop supporting racism and get you're facts straight.
That whole scuffle was Israel versus Iran-By-Proxy.
Yeah, obviously.
Personally, I love how the arabs can stand on the pile of rubble that used to be their infrastructure and shout "we won!"
Um... Notice how very few Israelis are actually disagreeing with that assesment? Victory isn't making piles of rubble. If you look at the larger picture, this was a victory for Hezbollah without a doubt.
The Israeli military is supposed to be one of the best in the world. They've fought a number of nations around them and absolutely trounced them. There was no way Hezbollah, some rag-tag little militia, was supposed to be able to stand up the IDF. When this conflict started, initiated by Hezbollah when the kidnapped those soldiers, Israel was brimming with confidence, setting their explicit goal as the removal of Hezbollah from southern lebanon.
Well that's not even close to what happened, now is it?
What happened is that Israel got hit very hard. They lost a lot of soldiers, and worse a lot of tanks. Their Merkavas are the most heavily armored tanks in the world and double as troop carriers to boot, but they got wasted by shaped charge mines and a more modern version of the classic Russian RPG. With good tactics and planning, Hezbollah was able to fight the ground forces of Israel to a standstill, taking what is for a guerilla conflict a very good ratio of casualties.
Sure, Israel destroyed a lot of infrastructure with a little "shock and awe" air power. Doesn't really do much other than harm the citizenry and piss them off. In the end, Israel couldn't do what mattered, and that's occupy the land that was and still is controlled by Hezbollah.
Make no bones about it. Hezbollah lured Israel into a fight at the time and place of their choosing, handed Israel an unexpected spanking, and sent them packing without giving up much of anything. They're stronger than ever now, both in terms of their support level and in terms of morale. The Arab underdogs beat the big bad Zionist bully, and you better believe others noticed. This little war is going to be studied for a long time, both to refine and improve the techniques used by Hezbollah, and to figure out how to counter them. At the strategic level, this was a stunning victory for Hezbollah and all the nations/groups that oppose Israel. It would be very foolish to view it otherwise.
Dumbest. Culture. Ever. And that's saying something on this silly planet.
Which? The one that declares victory standing on the rubble that used to be their infrastructure? Or the one that thinks whoever makes the most piles of rubble out of infrastructure wins?
The enemies of Democracy are
> resources. Hezbollah is not only a major political party, but is the country's
/. a few months ago). The one hit to a battleship was made by an Iranian guided missile system that was probably manned by Iranian technicians. It's doubtful that Hezbollah could pull that off on its own, though with extensive training they could probably man future missile batteries. It should be noted that the Israeli air force took out most of the Iranian missile batteries in about 34 minutes at the outset of the war, unfortunately not all of them however.
> second largest employer, mostly for its network of government services that it
> provided to areas that the Lebanese government was either unable to or unwilling
> to provide to -- schools, hospitals, etc. Public service activism is one of the
> main ways that the party wins support, even down to the local level. I saw a
Yes, but it's Iranian money; Hezbollah is basically an Iranian shell company. One could argue that they've bought loyalty with this money. But there's evidence that some of this loyalty has been frayed by anger at the pointless destruction that Nasrallah's group instigated.
There's also anecdotal reports about people who were ordered to stay put in southern Lebanese towns by Hezbollah gunmen, apparently to provide more human shields.
> Contrary to popular myth, Hezbollah (unlike Hamas and the other Palestinian
> groups) prefers not to operate around civilians. Not for a concern for the
> civilians' safety -- they'll confiscate buildings to use as shooting positions
> if needed, whether their owners like it or not -- but for their own
> safety. Hamas operates openly as a sign of pride and defiance. However, by
> doing that, it only takes a tiny handful of defectors to point out to Israel
> where they are and what they're doing. Hezbollah, on the other hand, prefers to
> operate in areas where nobody is around to reduce the risk of being exposed by
> defectors.
This may be true but many Hez fighters nonetheless operated extensively around civilians, sometimes in the same building but more often near civilian-occupied structures.
> As we saw in the last conflict, they're a very effective military, and it's a
> big question mark on how to deal with them. It's almost funny how the major
> Arab powers were defeated one after another, yet this tiny band was blowing up
> warships and taking out hundreds of Merkavas, in addition to maintaining a
> steady rain of over 100 Katyushas per day throughout the entire conflict. And
> now their popularity is soaring -- not just in other countries, but even in
> Lebanon, where they started the conflict. Check out these polls. Check out this
> as well.
As stated previously, there is also a lot of anger at Hezbollah for starting the conflict which wrecked people's homes across the south as well as parts of Beirut and set the country back many years in its economic development. Hezbollah has resorted to paying off returning families with $10K grants and crowing about its victory, while opposition editorialists have denounced Hezbollah for their reckless adventure.
Hezbollah certainly did not take out "hundreds of Merkavas"; I believe the number is more like 13, and the IDF is claiming that the Merkavas actually performed very well--probably would have done even better without this communications hacking disaster, and no doubt they have a lot more incentive now to get off their duffs and install the Trophy system (reported on
Given 4-5 more weeks, Israel would undoubtedly have degraded Hezbollah significantly enough that it would not be a threat again for a long time. Note how after claiming he would never cease fire, Nasrallah hypocritically sued for a cease-fire, and Israel's stupid government caved to U.S. pressure to call it off just when they were finally winning.
Privately, the Iranians are said to consider this war a disaster bo
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
Funny how whenever someone we don't like is up to something, we try to link it to someone who we're just itching to bomb.
Visiting Israel gave you this deep insight into Palestinians? You say Palestinians don't care about their land - could this be because any time they try to do something with it, an Israeli tank or missile will destroy their work? Or perhaps it could be because anyone trying to walk out in a field to try ploughing the land is an open target for Israeli snipers, or at the very least risks digging up a UXO. No, there is no practical explanation for the Palestinian state of mind, they must just be lazy people with no regard for their future or the future of their families.
Amazing powers of deduction. Please explain how your point of view is not racist.
Very nice piece of propaganda, by the way - it even got moderated to "insightful" on Slashdot!
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Therefore, the following:
Could really just mean:
1) we saw a lot of radio transmissions coming from over there, so we knew they were over there ("picture of Israeil movements")
2) we launched mortars/rockets a whole bunch of places. When we launched a mortar/rocket and immediately saw a radio transmission we had a "casualty report".
3) averaging over time we saw that radio transmissions made a line on a map, this we called a "supply route".
4) our anti-tank units would point their weaopns towards transmissions, "more effectively target advancing Israeli armor".
It never says that they broke any codes, but you can get useful information anyway.
My favorite quote doesn't fit into 120 characters. Now no one will like me.
The only victory is Hezbollah wasn't completely destroyed. They are shown as the kidnappers they are, show their utter lack of defiance and hatred to Israel, and the fact that they really don't care about their islamic beliefs (assuming Islam is really about Peace and tolerance as some of the muslim faiths have learned) Of course in a culture that rewards that it's a victory.
Say, what about all the /good/ things Hitler did?
... representative of the government it's pretending to go along with while making its own policy? Would that government have a say? Can you be a leading part of a democracy and a traitor wildly betraying its underlying principles at the same time?
/about/ all the /good/ things Hitler did?
1. Hezbollah *does* hide behind civillians, thank you very much. Not two months ago it was hiding artillery units - rocketry - in urban areas.
2. The fact that they're brainwashing them (al-manaar?), bribing (should I say "buying"?) their political supporters with Iranian cash (12,000$ per household payments?), and offering them a lifeline (employement? social welfare?) does not change the fact that this organization uses the political power thus purchased to push their agenda (as opposed to that of the people it bribed) and doesn't make them any less of what they are - a fundamentalist religious movement intent on zeal, provocation, further conflict and utter elimination of one of its neighbouring countries.
3. Hezbollah uses hitlerian propaganda tactics to brainwash, incite and worst of all teach hate starting at infancy, demonizing the west as lesser human beings. Ask any 3-year-old from a Hezbollah-funded kindergarden, he'll be happy to explain it to you using all the graphic terms you'd expect. All that Iranian money doesn't come for free you know.
4. Hezbollah is "a political party" when it needs to be, and a sovereign not answerable to the government it was claiming to be a part of (i.e. has its own military) when it needs to be. For the life of me I haven't figured this out. How *does* that work? What would happen in the hypothetical situation that it declared war against a neighbour? would it still be
In Lebanon, as it appears, you very much can. All you need is a solid supply of cash and guns.
You'd have to be either pushing a close agenda or seriously naive (I shy away from harder terms) to be giving the pitch about their legitimacy.
So... what
Case in point: doing any amount of good does not absolve you of doing evil or driving a zealous agenda opposed to any modern values (values cynically used by offending party left and right, often exagerated or simply lied about, to show the party's suffering and gather support, mind you).
Hezbollah, is busy putting on a snake-oil-salesman smile and buying political support from dirt-poor shia with a serious inferiority complex.
Fixing this would first and foremost mean its financial source be replaced with one coming from people that don't blindly hate and are thus socially compatible with the rest of the peoples of the modern world. With money come the macro interests being followed.
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I saw a live interview on Sky News (in the UK) with their correspondent David Bowden during the war, in which he said that Hezbollah did not fire rockets close to, or from buildings. Instead they typically fired from olive plantations. About three seconds later the transmission was mysteriously lost. Obviously it wasn't what the Israelis wanted viewers to hear. If the media misled people about this, then what is to say they didn't mislead viewers over the number of tanks the Israelis lost? Propaganda is a key element of war these days, and nothing can be broadcast from Israel without being subject to censorship. You really think Israel was winning? Why is it then, that during the last days before the ceasefire they came under the heaviest rocket attacks of the war? Also, the Israeli army is far from being outdated and under funded, complacent and under trained perhaps, but not under funded. Do you even know how much they get from the American government on a yearly basis? Surely you must have been aware of the arms shipments, consisting of the latest bombs that took place during the fighting? It caused a bit of fuss in the UK at the time. Don't trust without question what you see on the news broadcast, they show you what they want you to see, with the slant that they want it to have.
Without agreeing, or disagreeing with anything you've said, I'd like to ask you this...do you believe Israel is a totally innocent party that is free from having committed grievous acts against the Palestinians and Lebanese?
The only victory is Hezbollah wasn't completely destroyed.
And in fact are stronger than ever. Israel was going to completely destroy them, and instead they are the ones who left. Yes, that's a huge victory.
They are shown as the kidnappers they are, show their utter lack of defiance and hatred to Israel, and the fact that they really don't care about their islamic beliefs (assuming Islam is really about Peace and tolerance as some of the muslim faiths have learned) Of course in a culture that rewards that it's a victory.
I don't think you meant "utter lack of defiance" as that makes no sense; they showed lots of defiance.
Anyway, that's all a Western view of Hezbollah that was already held anyway. You'll condemn muslims who wage wars as not being peaceful, but give our own Christian religion a pass on waging war. Whereas middle eastern muslims are more likely to view Hezbollah's actions as just, and Israel's as those of a violent religion and oppressive state.
But if your point is that this was a PR loss for Hezbollah, then again you're wrong. In the places where it counts, this was a great PR victory for Hezbolah.
The enemies of Democracy are
The relevance of the Crusades today is practically nil compared to things that still have a very real impact like the legacy of British and French imperialism in the Middle East, or U.S. foreign policy in the last century.
English is easier said than done.
I don't believe Simon Singh's The Code Book is available online
At least the CDROM is.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
yet this tiny band was blowing up warships and taking out hundreds of Merkavas
"Tiny band": estimated 3,000 regulars + 10,000 reserves. Not exactly "tiny" by Middle Eastern standards
"hundreds of merkava tanks": 14
"blowing up warships": one ship was damaged and towed for repairs. Hardly blown up, definitely not in the plural
I must congratulate you on managing to compress so many lies into a singe sentence....
Which war were you watching? The one I was watching had a bunch of right wing Israeli politicians in an unstable situation looking for an excuse to go to war and boost their popularity - but it backfired and turned into a month long recruiting drive for Hizbollah paid for by Israel and the USA - making both Israel and the USA look bad. The USA was left in the situation of paying for a lot of weapons, having no say in how they are used, having eveyone hate them as they pulled missile fragments labelled "made in the USA" off their dead kids and the USA having to pay some of the money to clean up the mess.
The thing I don't understand is the claims that they are all just agents of Iran and that Palestinians have nothing whatsover to do with it - that's simplistic and stupid. A news program in my country had to apologise for saying this, but it is true that Hizbollah has a lot of Palestinians in it and it is true that Iran will sell weapons to any group that they share any ideals with. It is as stupid as Nixon trying to scare the USSR into putting pressure on North Vietnam and thinking the place was micromanaged out of the Kremlin instead of a bunch playing China and the USSR off each other. There is no way this is micromanaged out of Tehran, but it is also true that there is some involvement. Most of it is Israelis and Palestinians fighting it out in Southern Lebanon as has been happening on and off for a long time. Syria is of course mightily pissed off from losing their territory and is involved as well.
>> I'd like to ask you this...do you believe Israel is a totally innocent party that is free from having committed grievous acts against the Palestinians and Lebanese?
/fix/ it? An Israeli or Lebanese might make take this question with him to the ballot box. Some may reevaluate the moral
Shit no, though that's two very different puddles you're mixing there.
Palestinians? I don't agree with Israel's 40-year-old policy regarding them and the Jewish fanatics it funded to go live among them, I do agree there should be a barrier, I don't think it's fairly placed and I do think that barrier is better than no barrier (considering a fair one has no fighting chance in the Israeli ballot box, making it a choice between this one and none at all).
Lebanese? To a very very lessened degree, but still so.
To directly answer your carefully-worded question, is it a "totally innocent party"? no, by no means. Nobody is ever innocent in a war.
While Hezbollah has been issuing provocation after provocation since Israel left Lebanon in 2000, amassing more and more guns at the border, making incursions into Israeli territory, abducting people and firing across the border, I think the 6-year-old policy of taking it standing and ignoring it despite the pain was a policy that served Israel well.
Going in full-force did hurt Israeli interests (this is my opinion - Israel gained some, it lost some and it's really a matter of opinion of whether it was justified). To the point, choosing not to do so would have resulted in less innocent loss, both in life and in macro-effect on Lebanon as a nation and all its residents indirectly through the nation getting trashed.
But the fact that Israel could have acted differently (and thus has its hands in the responsibility pile) does not make an even moral ground. Again, just because the Hezbollah was not the only one playing this out and driving at the eventual outcome does not make it any less hitlerian in the incitement/propaganda/teach-kids-to-hate department, or any less a bunch morally bankrupt fanatics with a bought "electoral" base.
Looking at your question, it may be worthwhile to point out that Israel is
[a] A democracy. It follows the interests of the people who elect its government. Like any real democracy, its government cannot follow a narrow fanatical agenda without putting its political future on the line. The lebanese government, as of the time one of the parties had an armed militia running around declaring war on neighbours is at most a cynnical parody of a democracy upheld by a fundamentalist mob, and an externally-funded one at that.
[b] Motivated by security of its citizens and by removing the threats of armaments pointing at them, not by a religious crusade to dismantle it's neighbouring state and instill its religion on the area. If you're one of those who think the present Israeli incursion into Lebanon is either an imperialistic crusade or religiously-motivated, you're buying too hard into the abovementioned propaganda and should probbably take a shot at trying to prove such a claim.
[c] Not brainwashing its 3-year-olds to hate the people on the other side of the fence.
On the other hand, it would have (again, opinion) been much wiser for Israel to have refrained from retaliating a while longer and let the newly-established Lebanese system fall into place and do its own dirty laundry without the need to flatten half the country. We can speculate all day as to how much chance that had of happening, but I do think the Lebanese deserved (still deserve) a fair shot at it.
I daresay you're thinking along the wrong lines. You're thinking "who do we blame?" and "Who is right?" "Who is getting hurt?"
The answers to these are always self serving, and the real answer is always "Everybody", "Everybody" and "Everybody" respectively.
The questions smarter people ask is "What can we [each sitting in whatever place in the world he's sitting] do to prevent it from happening further? How can we
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Every country has radical loonies. One problem in that part of the world is we have idiots that pretend to have Jewish values but actually preach genocide with a major say in politics on one side and a bunch that want to drive the Israeli settlers into the sea on the other. It isn't going to get any better by trying to kill everyone that opposes certain views - that's how we ended up with people in Lebanon with nothing to lose becoming suicide bombers some years back in the first place, and it has since spread to Palestine and Iraq.
What can we do? We can only really deal with the people that are already talking with us because it will take years to build up trust with people that are blaming everyone in the outside world for the death of their kids. We can fix the things like missile paid for by the US Marines getting deliberately fired into an ambulance by an Israeli helicopter (I'm talking the incident several years back, not the recent ambulance incident). If we don't approve of such a use we can convice the government that the US taxpayer should not be paying for it, which will eventually trickle down to people in the Israeli army having to account for expensive missiles and perhaps only using them against military targets. We can also do things like insist that the Geneva convention is followed and not give free stuff to countries that defy it. We can't take the line that we'll let one side do bad things because the other side is also doing that - it's an excuse that most children grow out of so we shouldn't accept it from diplomats.
Every country has radical loonies, but not every country is run by radical loonies. Some countries actually have failsafe mechanisms to prevent the odd radical looney from doing too much damage in office. Things like provisions when a leader is to be removed. Things like separation between government and religion. Things like freedom of press. Things like elections. Things like a transparent system. Others simply don't.
Some (not all) are being taken advantage of due to this. Can you tell me what happens after Mubarak in Egypt? is there a system resilient enough to prevent radicals from taking power? Jordan? Turkey? Quwait?
>> One problem in that part of the world is we have idiots that pretend to have Jewish values but actually preach genocide with a major say in politics on one side and a bunch that want to drive the Israeli settlers into the sea on the other
I think that's a fairly good summary, though if you've been following either Israeli or Lebanese politics lately you'd have known said Israeli idiots have much less say than they used to and have and have largely alienated themselves to the marjority of Israelis (for the exact purpose you've quoted). The trend is good on the Lebanese side as well, Seniora's government, while having Hezballah cabinet members, is nothing short of miraculously pragmatic.
I hope we see more of this kind of trend on both sides, and in fact everywhere else throughout the middle-east.
>> It isn't going to get any better by trying to kill everyone that opposes certain views
Again, I couldn't agree more.
So... how do we get dubya on this train?
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Israel's Knesset bans all Arabs from cabinet posts in government, they're not as fair as you think. This is an absolute lie. There have been Arabs elected to and sitting in the Knesset (parliament) consistently since 1948. Arab citizens of Israel have more rights under the law than they do in any Arab country.
I think you should visit the country. Visit the occupied territories. Speak to the Palestinians there. Ask them why they live the way they do, and ask them what they want. Their answers may surprise you. I visited the arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem. Unless you are arab you will feel very uncomfortable. If you are particularly interested, you should visit Bethlehem, or Gaza. Show your support for the Palestinians and see how safe you really feel there. I highly suggest you visit the places of which you speak.
I not only saw arab villages, I saw Druze villages, Bedouin camps, and met Arab-Israelis. Not all arabs are bad. They make the best hummus and pita! The arabs were and will continue to be a nomadic people. They had no interest in settling the land. They moved to where it suited them. Not until colonialism in the late 1800s did they even experience structured government... Just over 100 years being governed, and it wasn't even by themselves. The arabs are not a stupid, lazy people.
I knew after seeing this article on Slashdot, that it would soon degenerate away from 'news for nerds'. Lets discuss cool technology from the region, like what is being developed to shoot down rockets using lasers: http://www.spacedaily.com/news/laser-00g.html
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Israel cares so much about the Palestinians that they built the apartheid wall to rob them of their land.
It's called the 'separation wall'. Much like the United States has a large wall between it and Mexico. Israel built the wall along the Israel-Palestine border to keep suicide bombers from coming into Israel. No land was taken from the Palestinians to build the wall. Since the wall has been built, there have been no suicide bombings in Israel.
I also want to point out that the websites you cite are about as unbiased as Fox News, with less credibility. Like I said in a previous post. If you feel that strongly about the Palestinians, you should visit the country. Meet Palestinians, talk to them, show your support for their cause.
One thing I forgot to mention... It was arabs who were shooting rockets at the Arab-Israelis, which is kind of ironic. The other ironic thing is that the other arab countries surrounding Israel refuse to let Palestinians into their countries. The arabs in other countries have a worse hatred toward the palestinians than they do toward the israelis.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Several things.
[a]
You're raising a mute point: Israel is well capable (and is often in the habit of) of manufacturing its own [A-A, A-G, you name it] missiles. If it won't be an american Hellfire, It'll be an Israeli-made Popeye.
Contrary to your understanding, the US taxpayer is not paying for it. Israel buying these missiles from the US rather than manufacturing it means more jobs in the US, more American companies and individuals earn income. It's money recycled from and back to the the American economy, not money spent.
Buying arms with american-provided cash saves Israel some (at the expense of jobs local manufacturing would create), but that will not prevent the next ambulance from being hit by a missile. One way or another, the missle stays in the equation.
Mute point, QED.
[b]
Regarding shooting ambulances (we'll take that as a case study, this goes similarly to other moral taboos)
What some fundamentalists do is prey on the fact that they are "morally unencumbered", yet the rest of the world they're selling the show to is not.
You speak of shooting at ambulances as a bad thing. Most of us would agree it is. Or at least used to be.
Used to be until people started taking advantage of that fact, smuggling bombs in them, even caught smuggling a bomb under the clothes of a woman made to look pregnant, with Hezballah following suit using them so smuggle guns. Consequently, ambulances passing Israeli checkpoints are now searched, to the great (and sometimes fatal) dismay of the (actually sick/dying) people inside them. The radicals are of course very happy about this as it can now point at Israel and yell "look at these inhuman butchers, searching/firing at ambulances!".
Sadly, the real butchers in this story are those who violate the taboo by taking advantage of the opposing side's respect for it to further their agenda. As of the moment this taboo is not respected by either side, the moment the ambulance becomes a serious security vulnerability that can and is used to transport terrorists, bombs or armaments, the taboo is (sadly, yet unavoidably) void, and ambulances become fair game.
So is life. You can't eat the cake and leave it whole.
The game has changed since the Geneva convention. It's only a matter of time before the official laws of acceptable warfare naturally adjust themselves to the new ballgame being played.
A game cannot be played when one side doesn't respect the rules yet can't stop whining about the other not following them at the same time.
Thus, when you say "people in the Israeli army having to account for expensive missiles and perhaps only using them against military targets" is again a mute point.
Not unlike my country, Israel doesn't use its army to dick around. It uses its army to defend its citizens. If the offender is an invading military, it points its arms to it. If the offender is a bunch of aliens, it will point its arms to it, and if the offender is a radical muslim army hiding in civillian clothes and carefully choosing their fortified positions to be near schools and mosques, that's where the arms get pointed.
Churchill bombed the living shit out of 200,000 civillians in Dresden because there were strategically significant targets there.
A threat is a threat and a war is a war. And yes, it's ugly. Smart people who don't want it prevent it, not cause/allow it to start and then bitch.
>> We can't take the line that we'll let one side do bad things because the other side is also doing that
Amen. Now if only everyone applied it to themselves and stopped justifying its wrongs by way of the other side's wrongs, wouldn't it be a nicer world?
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Ragtag militia gets 100 Million dollars a year from Iran
Ragtag militia has advanced wire-guided anti-tank missles
Ragtag militia has advanced anti-ship missles
Ragtag militia holds 11% of the seats in parliament
Ragtag militia's political bloc holds 27.5% of seats in parliment
Hezbollah destroyed or damaged up to 50 tanks. Israel has 3600
While fighting to a standstill, Israel was able to occupy ground up to 30km into Lebanon.
While fighting to a standstill, Hezbollah was able to occupy ground up to -30km into Israel.
Israel controls the land held by Hezbollah until an International force relieves them.
Hezbollah didn't expect a war at all
Israel currently occupies the land controled by Hezbollah.
ROFL
> Don't trust without question what you see on the news broadcast, they show you what
> they want you to see, with the slant that they want it to have.
Hm, I don't watch TV but I do read a lot. The Israeli army, especially the reservists, has had its budgets cut a lot in recent years, and its equipment is old. There's a famous report of some reservists obtaining new backpacks from a wealthy American relative because the IDF expected them to go with whatever they had. The tanks were also running outdated equipment. The Israelis asked for an accelerated shipment of bunker busting bombs from the U.S. and undoubtedly other less public items, but it's a bit of a stretch to say they were completely up to date with their equipment. Here is where Ariel Sharon really fell down on the job, thinking that war with Lebanon was never going to happen.
Hezbollah would like us all to believe they beat the mighty Israeli army through sheer valour and righteousness, but in fact it was more like a combination of Hezbollah competence and preparedness and Israeli unpreparedness for their tactics. The rematch will be different, I think, because a competent Israeli leadership would not make the same mistakes again, and I strongly suspect that the current leadership is going to be booted out. Hezbollah, meanwhile, has shown every card in their hand and will have to go back to the drawing board and reinvent themselves in order to take the Israelis by surprise a second time.
As for Katyusha launchers, there are satellite and drone photographs of the things sitting in courtyards of buildings; Hezbollah certainly didn't avoid dwellings, and the Israelis certainly didn't go after buildings just to be vindictive; every civilian they hit becomes another martyr and propaganda point for the enemy.
The heavy rocket attacks by Hezbollah were undeniably a very visible, if largely ineffective, aspect of their arsenal. I'm sure it made for great TV footage. The Israeli air force destroyed most of them, but it only takes one launcher to send 100 rockets a day, and they apparently had thousands of rockets hidden in caves and caches, so it was going to be a long, slow slog to get rid of all of them. I think the Katyushas were more impressive as a propaganda thing than as a strategic weapon; they hardly hit any military targets, and mainly were able to hit Haifa, a religiously mixed city known for its relatively harmonious Jewish-Arab relations (ironically).
Despite its losses, Israel was steadily degrading Hezbollah, and a few more weeks would have forced Hezbollah to stop firing Katyushas in order to avoid losing its last remaining rocket launchers, and losing men at a rate of 100/week would have reduced Hez as a fighting force. Israel could have and probably should have stayed a few weeks longer, because now Syria and Iran are sending tons of new equipment to Lebanon and rearming Hez as quickly as they can. Israel is certainly watching all of this; they keep sending their drones over Lebanon and it's likely they know where Nasrallah is and what he had for breakfast, and wondering whether to take him out or not. This fight's not over yet.
it's = "it is"; its = possessive. E.g., it's flapping its wings.
>I don't think that the average American would feel that our country has lost any respect at all if we
Yep thats right. Actually, arab people aren't generally different than we are (exception of various nutcases wako's around, but the USA has its plenty share too)
>tried to figure out what is pissing those people off so much, and figured out how to address that
>problem to remove their reason to fight. It's the only way any lasting peace will be achieved.
Its very simple, and not unreasonable actually..
1)The Palestinians want (at least some of) their land back, and they want their country back (it was where Israel is now). The Israelis don't want to give (any of) it back.
2)Arabs want the USA to stop funding Israel's army and govt, as they are going around the middle east bombing and terrorizing the palestians as well as their neighbors, and the arabs are absolutely sick of it. 9/11 and such was (a rather extreme) case of 'what goes around, comes around'.. see www.aljazeera.net for a daily rundown of what the Israelis do daily over there, all paid for with US free money, free bombs & free support.
3)If the Israeli's (and the USA) want 'terrorism' to stop, see point #1 above.
Basically thats it.. its very simple really.
>I don't think that the average American would feel that our country has lost any respect at all if we
Yep thats right. Actually, arab people aren't generally different than we are (exception of various nutcases wako's around, but the USA has its plenty share too)
>tried to figure out what is pissing those people off so much, and figured out how to address that
>problem to remove their reason to fight. It's the only way any lasting peace will be achieved.
Its very simple, and not unreasonable actually..
1)The Palestinians want (at least some of) their land back, and they want their country back (it was where Israel is now). The Israelis don't want to give (any of) it back.
2)Arabs want the USA to stop funding Israel's army and govt, as they are going around the middle east bombing and terrorizing the palestians as well as their neighbors, and the arabs are absolutely sick of it. 9/11 and such was (a rather extreme) case of 'what goes around, comes around'.. see www.aljazeera.net for a daily rundown of what the Israelis do daily over there, all paid for with US free money, free bombs & free support.
3)If the Israeli's (and the USA) want 'terrorism' to stop, see point #1 (and #2) above.
Basically thats it.. its very simple really.
What probably really happened was some ragtag bunch of Lebanese kids happened upon a broken IDF radio which was making all sorts of squawking staticky sounds, brought it to the local Hezbollah leaders, etc., and from there the story was born - "Hezbollah hacks IDF communications". The Israelis, for whatever reason, are obviously encouraging it - knowing it to be bunkum (what else can it be). Maybe the Israeli side thinks the spread of this story will lead to more American funding or equipment. They're probably right.
I think we find a way for the Republicans to remove a sitting President of their own party without committing political suicide - or replacing him with Chaney. The neocons set policy in that area for Bush and some of them act as if they are bent on bringing on armageddon.
You completely miss my point. Both of them in fact.
/particular/ ambulance incident. I believe everything you say about it, no need to get protective, I'm not going to discredit your witnesses.
1.
I haven't objected your claim about the missiles being american. I just made a complementary claim that preventing America from selling arms to Israel will accomplish nothing. Israel will still have missiles. Isreal itself is one of the largest hi-tech arms exporters in the world and is perfectly capable of satisfying all of its own misslie-manufacturing needs.
I'm saying your suggestion would achieve nothing.
2. You're talking about a
I'm trying to tell you that many of the taboos you and I were raised on, such as conduct dictated by the Geneva convention is now in some places and times, void.
I'm not implying the rules were broken by the people in the ambulance you are describing. They were probably not. They were, however, broken. By others. But the fact that they were broken changed the rules of the game.
Israel is in a position where its enemies do use things like ambulances and hospitals as cover for katyushas or bombs, which are later used for the very very immoral purpose of randomly butchering civilians.
I am not saying ambulances should be shot at, I much prefer it the way it used to be, when such resources were regarded as "sacred ground".
But in a world where this is not respected, where they become legitimate means to stash and move arms or bombs, the taboo starts fading away. As of today, September 2006, Israeli don't trust palestinians and probbably Hezbollah in ambulances. I frankly can't say I blame them, and suspect that under circumstances where this is not respected by an opposing side, you and I would act in much the same way.
>> My point is that military actions are very cheap for the current Israeli government with little personal consequence or accountability
I understand your point. I can only suggest that some of the accountability is there. Israel's government and its use of their national resources - their money, the lives of their soldiers, etc - is fully accountable to the Israeli people. If they feel the government did not serve the purpose of protecting them adequately, they will elect another.
As for accountability towards damage done in Lebanon - Israel is very unlikely to be be made accountable for it. The only one who has the power to make them accountable for it is the US, and the US is pretty grateful to Israel for having done their (and your, btw) dirty work cooling off the Hezbollah a bit.
Furthermore, Lebanon (as a country) is indirectly responsible for what happened to it by being negligent of its duties to police its turf and prevent armed fanatics from harassing its neighbors. The middle east has a special spot in hell for countries that are too weak to keep their internal affairs under control and thus take care of their own interests. These countries are the ones that get beaten up every time someone uses their weakness to harass someone else. Lebanon will have to work hard to pull itself out of that group.
>> and foreign aid being used to run some of it.
As I said, does it really matter if you get hit by Israeli-made or American-made bullets? You sound like you believe that if the US were to stop selling Israel arms, Israel will not have arms. Rest assured, it will.
-
killing infidels was kind of ok at the time in the east too, they weren't mickey mousing it exactly,
a huge glut of trained warriors who at the time found themselves with nothing to do but 'rape and pillagize' whoever the fuck they wanted (hint: local peasants and whatnot, since the vikings/etc were pacified)
a humongous surge in secular interest in religion, due to the huge simony (selling church offices (bishops, etc), done by non church people) scandal,
eventually emperor Alexuis got roughed up a few times by some thugs, eventually got his hood all but taken (think he claimed byzantium st. crips) and asked his kind of distant friend in the other christian posse (uhm, west st. catholics? i forget) and his homie didn't just send some troops, he rallied
a whole motherfucking crusade to retake jerusalem, handed out crosses (or his uhm, underlings did) and promised heaven to those not good enough to survive (don't know about virgins though, think the muslims got them there).
also, war is good for business, especially if you're a emperor or somesuch trying to consolidate power with a bunch of bored, but trained warriors sitting around not being good neighbors.
whewww....boy, wish i had stuck with oversimplifying everything like you, woulda saved me alot of typing...
whoever agrees, disagrees or whatever, i won't be reading your replies after already wasting time with this piece of pedantry.
and now, back to oversimplifying encryptions export rules!!!1131!@1 the good vintage ones!!#@1!!
oh wait, i already passed that one up...
must...learn...to...resist...
- I'd prefer not to.
from WikiP. of course, i do know the difference between HUAC and McCarthyism technically, i'm not sure to what GP refers to as to what the brits confirmed (everyone the Sen. accused and slandered turned out to be communists? indeed?)
but McCarthy was a damned UNAMERICAN cunt himself, in my not at all humble opinion, even if he is distinct from HUAC.
hiring the HUACs staff director when he finally did get his own committee with breadth to investigate communists, and his behavior (which was not above the HUACs at all, and in ways, perhaps more ostentatiously worse) throughout his career in the limelight (read about all his lied up war stories sometime, there's a good number of them)...ahem...
i forgot what i was saying...damn commie brain rays...
- I'd prefer not to.
First, please read up on war laws -- it is frigging illegal to use civilians for shields in a war. As it is to explicitly target civilians. Hezbollah did both, at the same time!
Second, afaik, counter artillery is so fast that they only go after values on an arillery radar. Often/usually, the artillery doesn't really know what they shoot back at! Because of that, Hezbollah was probably trying to get Israel to kill civilians for propaganda values rather than to get shields.
Third, an army that as a matter of planning use civilians for cover to shoot at other civilians -- and you blaim the side shooting back equally?!?! Talk about double standards.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
ofcourse you're toally ignoring the fact that israel has unilaterally confiscated (i.e. stolen) quite some plots of land, including part of jeruzalem and the golan heights. if israel wanted peace, they'd start implementing resolution 242, and give back all the occupied territories.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I'll state the next point more clearly - US aid money is being used by the current Israeli goverment to buy weapons. Looking at these two points you will see that US citizens can do something about irresponsible use of these weapons if nothing else. If they have to buy the things with their own money they may think twice before firing half million dollar missiles at non-combatants and the people at the blunt end blaming it on the USA when they read the markings on the fragments.
As for the Geneva convention - I don't think the next US administration will have the same view of abandoning it no matter which party gets the presidency. It's purpose is to stop the very sort of atrocities Saddam is on trial for, and it makes it difficult for any nation that does not adhere to it to denounce others. I don't think we should drop it just because the propaganda of the time is that it is OK to torture anyone we see as a threat.
I don't think that the average American would feel that our country has lost any respect at all if we tried to figure out what is pissing those people off so much, and figured out how to address that problem to remove their reason to fight. It's the only way any lasting peace will be achieved.
We already know what they want, it has never really been a secret. As Islamist extremists, their ultimate goal is to unite all the Muslim lands under a new Caliphate (an Islamic government uniting church and state), and expand its control to the entire earth. This means that they will have to overthrow many of the existing Arab governments to install clerical rule and Sharia (Islamic law). Their plan also includes retaking control of "lost" possessions, like Spain and the formerly Muslim controlled areas from Greece to Austria. Beyond that, they want to expand Muslim control to all of Europe, Africa, Asia,
What is "our" role in this? Their preferred outcome is that we all convert to become Muslims. That was Bin Laden's first demand in his letter to America.
There should be nothing novel in this. Recently, Palestinian extremists forced two Fox News reporters to "convert" to Islam after taking them hostage. There is a long history of this.
He also wants us to jettison the Constitution and adopt Sharia law, stop drug & alcohol use, homosexuality, sexual immorality, sleeping around, adultery, charging interest on loans, etc., etc. At least it would be easy to remember the penalty for many of these infractions: death, death, death, etc.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
If you are going to be a troll, at least don't be a stupid and boring one.
The EU doesn't classify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization -- so they break war laws, according to EU. It breaks international law to be a terrorist organization, by definition. You can't defend Hezbollah's behaviour.
Afaik, Israel hasn't targeted civilians as primary targets. If nothing else, that would be stupid, since they can only lose by doing so -- in international opinion and in internal opinion in Israel. (You will get misses and wrongful targeting in any war. That is legal.) Also, Hezbollah have an interest in getting civilians killed -- and could influence the count of what the dead was...
Also, since you obviously know even less than me about counter artillery fire, why don't you read up on the subject before blaiming one side for shooting back at people targeting their civilians...? Because that is what every damn army will do on the planet.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
Which war were *you* watching? This war was initiaited by the Hez, unless you believe crossing the border into a neighbouring country and kidnapping to be peaceful actions. Your ignorance with respect to ties between the Hez and Iran is so unbelievable that you must already have an unremovable SEP field in place.
For any half-aarsed security you're going to have to encrypt the signal further.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
You argued that since Hezbollah is a terror organization, it can't break war laws.
I answered that "argument" with that EU, amongst others, doesn't consider Hezb a terror organization and that it is friggin' illegal to be a terror organization anyway (by definition, they do things that would be classified war crimes if a state did them). So it is quite equivalent.
I really can't see how your definition game can matter, since committing war crimes like targeting civilians (by EU definition) is about as bad as being a terrorist organization. At least troll well if you have nothing to say.
I argued that -- Afaik, Israel hasn't targeted civilians as primary targets but that if you have an air bombing campaign, you will hit civilians -- it isn't war crimes and that Hezb had lots of control over which dead was counted as civilians and which were counted as Hezb (almost none, strangely enough).
You point out that Amnesty and HRW accused Israel of bombing civilian infrastructure needlessly (HRW reformulated the initial claims to be that they couldn't find Hezb where Israelis had bombed, which is logical since there will be mistaken targeting -- and it isn't believable they can have an opinion when being shepherded by Hezb through bombing sites, check other documents on their sites). Which isn't relevant for my point, either. (Others in this thread have pointed out documented cases of where Hezb really integrated Iran's, sorry, their infrastructure with civilians.)
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
If they weren't being vindictive, how do you explain this?
g
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/lbn-010906-action-en
There is no Bible in Judaeism, let alone a "New Testament." The Torah is pretty much the same as the first 5 books of the Christian Old Testament, but that's about it.
No kidding, Webster. That's was the whole point of the quip. Even though you *understood* it, you didn't *get* it. Weird. Maybe because it was a Judaeism vs Christianity joke in the middle of a Judaeism versus Islam thread?
For future reference:
Oh, thank you, Master Po! :-P May I make another attempt at snatching the pebbles?
Jokes are usually better when they're relevant, or at least intentionally irrelevant.
It WAS intentionally irrelevant. Argh! You hecklers!
Look, just because the joke worked on a level invisible to your hyperliteralism, don't take it out on me. :)
ObSheesh: Sheesh!
Nice reading but I am afraid you exaggerated a bit. Of course they are popular. Every winning party is and they won this struggle or it seems so fo now. Now Iranians will buy them new HW and Europeans build new infrastructure. Nice deal is it not?
But as I said you exagerated slightly, for instance: where from did you take these hundreds of Israeli tanks being destroyed? Speaking in plural about blown up warships is not close to reality either, is it?
Any war, this included, is fought by people on the front lines as well as by wider economy. At the end winner is who can prevail in both places - it is as important to obtain fighters (and there is enough frustrated young man available) as it is to have finance to buy hardware for them and pay for their training. Looking on the prices of oil and the fact that mullahs in Teheran have no respect for life one can deduce that as long as Iran has oil so long Hezbollach will last.
It may be that once oil runs out situation will deteriorate quickly - especially if Iran obtains WMD till then - as the frustration of the people will need to be channelized somehow but we have some way to go to achieve this 'holy' goal still.
Maybe the mullahs lose power and terrorism will stop one day. Maybe Israel will reach peace agreement with Palestinians. I would not bet my money on any of that though.
No, it was the USA verses Iran by proxy. While Iran was helping Hezbolla, the USA was providing Israel with sat intel, communications intercepts and all the weapons they could handle.
It's a warmup for the real thing which is likely to start within the next 12 months. Just after the midterms I reckon.
My history book says that is the reason why the United States, the most powerful nation in the world, engaged in a disasterous series of wars which slowly ground down their standard of living, eroded their influence, and either squandered their wealth or transferred it to a very small group of people. In the mid-21st century, the republican form of government was more inefficient than ever. The national debt had ballooned to over a hundred trillion dollars and less than a third of the population had any meaningful work. The formerly great nation fractured into separate pieces, and promptly went to war against each other using the remnants of the still terrifying power of the leftover military equipment. For over three-hundred years, liberalism was dead on the Continent. Not even Canada or Mexico were safe from the second American Civil War, and both of those countries were completely looted and depopulated in the genocidal wars. About a hundred years ago, there were over a thousand separate American states, each run by warlords and their families. That was when General Todd Bandrowski united all of the states under a single flag through a series of wars that lasted more than 60 years - most of his life. Now General Todd Bandrowski's daughter, Monica Lewinsky Bandrowski rules the Holy Empire of New Dakotalina which covers most of the North American continent, and has almost 130 million impoverished citizens. Their major industry is religion, which employs a mere 3% of the poplulation.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
That was the most eloquent advocacy of genocide that I have ever read.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Now, make sure you don't elect politicians whos most vocal suporters are kin to hurry up the end of times thus precipitating the second comming of Christ.
It may very well be that humanity is fucked by two polarized groups of lunatics.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Excellent post, agree on 4GW, but "taking out hundreds of Merkavas"?
HUNDREDS??? Sources please!
A quick web search points to (possibly) over 100 disabled, which can be anything from a busted track to total destruction. The percentage that burned/exploded or were blown up sufficient to be total losses is hard to guage.
'Hundreds" would be destruction on the level of that inflicted on the Republican Guard in Gulf War Part 1!
It would be difficult to hide that many kills (discreet tank recovery, transport, and refurbishment would be no mean feat!), and that level of loss would be a traumatic defeat for the IDF.
There would be no way to hide trailers carrying that many machines to the rear.
It would be an impressive chunk of the whole IDF Merkava fleet:
http://www.waronline.org/en/IDF/arms/merkava.htm
"Overall the total number of all Merkava tanks produced as of 2001 is estimated at 1280 tanks, although as opposed to most other sources, according to Jane's Defense Weekly, the IDF operates about 1,050 Merkava mk.2/2B and 700 Merkava mk.3/3B/BAZ tanks.
Assuming the more widespread number of 1280 tanks is the correct one, we see that during the last decade (1990-2000, taking into account the stopping of production in 1990/91), some 480 to 680 Merkava mk.3 tanks were built, meaning a rate of production of about 50 tanks per year.
Although the capability is there to produce no less then 120 machines a year, the funding most likely isn't."
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
"one hit to a battleship"
e l/navy-equipment.htm
Israel has never had a battleship or anything nearly that large. Missile ships are their mainstay.
Here's a recent list:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/isra
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Total bullshit. The Israelis have given up the Sinai, Gaza, and significant portions of the West Bank, and got nothing but more death and destruction at the hands of the Muslims as their reward. The Paelstinians would already have a country (which they stole from the Jews centuries ago, by the way) if they had stuck to the Oslo accords and given up the gun and bomb.
Nothing Israel does is ever good enough for the Arabs and their sympathizers in the West. The Muslims want ALL of Israel. And every Jew and Hindu slaughtered. And every Christian slaughtered, enslaved, or converted to Islam. And the destruction of liberal democracy. And the imposition of Sharia law in all nations.
This is not a secret conspiracy or the ravings of a tiny minority. It is shouted openly from the pulpit of mosques all over the world every single day. Vast majorities of the Muslim population hold to these beliefs. They are not good Muslims if they don't.
I'm not interested in negotiating with such people. Hand-wringing, guilt-ridden, thumb-sucking, root-cause-contemplating Western liberals have nothing of value to contribute to this problem, nor do cucumber-sandwich-eating Arabist diplomats.
The only answer to this problem is for the armies of the civilized nations to provide speedy martyrdom to each and every Muslim who seeks it. Eventually the jihad gene will be bred out of the population, and those who remain can learn to live in peace with everybody else.
Too much Law; not enough Order.
I can see where you are coming from but I do not consider myself part of the problem. :-)
This is not "my" government nor are these "my" big fortune 500 businesses who they
are fighting. If somebody gets killed that otherwise causes me trouble or even downright
harm, then I welcome that death. I would love to tell you more here but going any
further than that could land me into serious trouble
I am sure that the terrorists understand that it does not make any sense to blow up innocent
civilians because any such an attack would only benefit their enemies. I know of few major
attacks that have not been a false flag maneuver by what I would call the true terrorizers:
for example western govnerment agencies that blow up subways and trains to frighten the populace.
In fact, I am certain that only very few terrorist attacks have occurred in the past decades,
otherwise we would have had so many more attacks against police stations, military and
intelligence installations and maybe even the IRS or whatever else that kind of scum happens to
be called in your country.
Okay, I realize I'm replying to a joke that isn't trying to do more tie the first available news article to the most obvious rebuttle, even if they don't really match, but still.
Both sides claim victory
But only one discussed sacking those responsible for the "victory".
Ragtag militia gets 100 Million dollars a year from Iran
Ragtag militia has advanced wire-guided anti-tank missles
Ragtag militia has advanced anti-ship missles
Ragtag militia holds 11% of the seats in parliament
Ragtag militia's political bloc holds 27.5% of seats in parliment
While Israel spent over $9 billion on defense last year, and also receives aid from the U.S. On paper, it isn't supposed to be a contest. Based on Israel's boasting before the war, it wasn't supposed to be a contest. They've faced the full-fledged national armies of recognized modern states. This is a "rogue terrorist group" that despite its role in politics and de-facto rulership of the south, is not part of the Lebanese military. Yes, they have anti-tank missles (the majority being RPG-29s, not wire-guided) and just enough anti-ship weapons to keep Israel on their toes. Again, this is not the same as a full-fledged modern military, like the IDF is supposed to be. They are a guerilla force vs 1st-world military.
Hezbollah destroyed or damaged up to 50 tanks. Israel has 3600
Wow, that's even more than I thought! I had last heard it was less than 20. You do realize that is a lot of tanks, don't you? That's 50 MBTs in 38 days. That's more than twice what the U.S. has lost in three years of fighting. For a tank that's touted as having even more survivability than most other MBTs, that is a truly sad showing.
That's more than 1% of their entire tank force, hundreds of millions of dollars worth of equipment, in just over a month in combat vs an enemy that can field neither armor nor air power. You're distrubingly disconnected from reality if you think "only" losing 50 tanks is anything but a disaster for Israel.
While fighting to a standstill, Israel was able to occupy ground up to 30km into Lebanon.
While fighting to a standstill, Hezbollah was able to occupy ground up to -30km into Israel.
30km is pathetic when you're chasing after a guerilla force, who routinely retreat and give up villages and then come around to re-take the village you just left. That just means the farthest they drove into Lebanon was 30k, not that this actually represented military gain. Your second statement makes it look like you think Hezbollah actually wanted to invade Israel, which is retarded. Hezbollah didn't want to invade Israel, they wanted Israel to invade Lebanon so they could fight the IDF in their home turf where all their tunnels, pill boxes, and kill zones were prepared. Those 30km were Hezbollah's killing grounds, and as long as the IDF was stuck there they were in fact at a standstill.
Israel controls the land held by Hezbollah until an International force relieves them.
Your conflation of "is present in" with "controls" is rather amusing. Funny that the article you cite doesn't make it sound like Israel "controls" the land -- usually, if one of your helicoptors crashes in land you control, you're able to send rescuers to get the crew. I guess the problem was that Hezbollah didn't agree that IDF controlled it!
Hezbollah didn't expect a war at all
If Nasrallah said he didn't expect the Katyusha missles launched at Israel to kill civilians, that he thought they'd turn into flowers and bring peace between their peoples, would you believe him? You might, if inexplicable credulity served your purpose.
Yeah, Nasrallah didn't expect Israel to attack, despite Israel attacking the Palestinians after Hamas kidnapped a soldier just prior. That's believable. Or just maybe he's spinning it because he's trying to counter the criticism leveled at Hezbollah for provoking Israel, indirectly causing the destruction wrecked by IDF's bombing campaign? It's blatant P.R. to make Israel look brutal. Nobody with any sense actually thinks Hezbollah didn't want war.
ROFL
Your catch phrase I assume?
The enemies of Democracy are
Yep. we're definitely transmitting on two different channels here.
/CONDITIONED/ on buying weapons. The US does not only give money to Israel, it gives money to Israel UNDER THE CONDITION that this money will be used to buy weapons from the US, which creates more jobs and more export in the US. Between us boys, the US cares (and will care, regardless of which administration is in) more about creating more jobs for its citizens than about either Israeli or Lebanese lives.
/under the condition/ the money is used to buy US (military) products. And the American people have been very happy with this arrangement for the last half-century or so. I don't see that changing.
/YOU/, as they are your fanatics.
/make/ them, and judging by Israeli behaviour to date, they'll probably stay armed to the teeth with itchy trigger fingers forever.
... /NOTHING/ to do with propaganda. It has everything to do with moralless fanatics who abused the rules. That's when the rules get tougher and everybody suffers. It's like living in a city that has never known robbery. Nobody locks the door. But the moment robberies start, everyone starts to lock up, which makes everyone more miserable, but there is not enough trust to go around to avoid it. The geneva convention is built on trust - trust that all sides adhere to it. Lacking that trust, as in the case of the Hammas and the Hezbollah, it's worthless. Welcome to the real world.
You're busy blaming the US for giving Israel financial support. I get your point, and am well aware of this.
The US support is
This treatment is not unique to Isreal. The US gives money to every country that serves its interests. Why to you think the Egyptians are flying F-16 fighters and using M-16 rifles? what about the Turks? The Quaitis? The Saudis? The US is giving money to every country it can that will serve its interest,
You're all fixated about blaming the US, which is exactly the kind of attitude that will get Lebanon screwed over and over again. It's not who about who sold guns to Israel. It's about armed agenda-driven fanatics that should be kept on a leash. By
Look at your cousins, the Palestinians. Look at how far blaming and avoiding their own responsibility got them. Think very hard if you want Lebanon going down that road.
The important thing you don't seem to understand is that regardless of who you blame in your private little blame-game (WHO gave Israel weapons?! YOU! Americans! Look what you did!), I'm saying it doesn't matter at all who gave them weapons. Israel WILL have weapons no matter what you or I or George W. Bush does. Even if you prevent all the countries of the world from selling Israel weapons, they will still have weapons. They
You're wasting your time and effort climbing that blame-America tree.
You'd probably be wiser to do support Lebanon in doing what Jordan and Egypt did - "If you can't beat them - befriend them".
>> I don't think we should drop it just because the propaganda
I think you're not getting it. I'll make it in several simple points for you:
1. Nobody wants to drop the geneva convention. Not you, not me, not the US. If it were just between us when we make war, it would have been working.
2. What will make you drop it very happily is when someone will start using ambulances to kill you. This happened to Israel, and now Israel delays for searching and under certain conditions even shoots ambulances. If someone uses ambulances to kill YOU, YOU will shoot at them too. We all - you, I prefer to shoot an ambulance and live than to respect the taboo and get killed by someone who doesn't. This has
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They both claimed victory. They both claim they sacked the other side. Where's your source anyway?
Again, cite your sources. The point I made was that Hezbollah is certainly not a "Ragtag militia" as the parent suggested.
"Ragtag militias" don't get an annual funding of $100M.
They did indeed have wire-guided missles. Where is your source that proves otherwise?
Again, where are your souces?
Do I even have to ask for sources again? The point is Hezbollah lost ground. Period. If Israel was doing badly and lost ground, you can bet Hezbollah would have taken that ground from them. If Hezbollah's master plan was to let themselves be invaded by Israel (which Nasrallah didn't expect would happen) then you would have to admit it was a pretty stupid plan.
Sources? The IDF was not fought to a standstill - they could have completely rolled over Lebanon. Yet it is true to say the politicians (especially Olmert) were fought to a standstill and forced the IDF to stop as a result. Weak politicians != weak military.
Almost as funny as you citing absolutely nothing at all!
As for the Iran ties - do you really think they are all Iranian agents? This isn't James Bond. While it's convenient to blame absolutely everything on people far away instead of a bunch of Palestinians that were kicked over the border or pissed off Syrians next door or actual Lebanese it is really a juvinile attitude but it has been getting press. The Algerians do it too in a more extreme case - they were blaming their problems on Afgans!
>> By talking about the issue I become an enemy without even seeing anyone in the group you are talking about, communicating with them in any way, condoning their actions in any way or even going to Lebanon?
By no means, we're not enemies.
You became the proverbial master of your country, not the enemy. I was just stating that it comes with responsibilities, such as keeping the people who violate the principles of your society's chosen system and hurt your national interests - on a leash. The country I live in - Australia - does it with police and prisons and courts, the US does it likewise, Israel (mostly) does it likewise, Lebanon should too if it wants to be a respected country and if its government wants to be treated like a government. Last I checked, unleashed Lebanese fanatics opened a war against Israel, not the other way around. Israel's genocide-preaching fanatics were not a part of this ordeal.
Letting someone other than the government run around with assault rifles, anti-tank munitions, rockets etc means not taking care of your fanatics. This does not imply I am accusing you of affiliation with them, quite on the contrary, you seem quite pragmatic and open on the subject.
I teach my kids to embrace responsibility, not throw it around like blame. I warmly recommend you teach yours the same. Responsibility is power.
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They hacked israel radio transmission?? how stupid is that?? want to attack other country but let the them here what you are saying... Is it part of their propaganda bcoz they cannot killed the Hezbollah?? ..
;)
Hezbollah is terrorist?? If someone take your land and want to kill your mother, father and sisters, won't you try to protect them???
Who invade their country? In their eyes the israel troops is the terrorist.
Yup its true that Hezbollah kidnap one of their enemy, but the israel also kidnap lebanon men. Don't the lebonan people also have pride? Did israel think other people life is like animals life and they can killed others without any mercy?
i've seen a documentary after the invasion, the Hezbullah is their hero bcoz they really hate israel and their family members are all Hezbollah, so if the israel attack the Hezbollah houses, of course they will protect their house..
about the hacked, i think it is part of the propaganda to bcoz they ashamed they cannot killed the Hezbollah
i am not anti-jews but its just my opinion
I also dont agree some of the muslim bomb restaurant and holy place. bcoz killing innocent people will not solve the problem and believed every one have their right to live once in this world
As long as you completely ignore your (Lebanon's whoever is in charge there) responsibility I don't buy that self-serving rhetoric.
/could/ have been a bomb. Quit this habit of throwing trust and morals at westerners (your "We can't just act like barbarians!" bit) while utterly ignoring your countymens utter lack of these morals that led to the breach in trust. The trust (between Israel and whoever operates your ambulances ) is apparently no longer there. They don't trust you to let ambulances do their job. Hezbollah breached the trust. Cope. And if you really want to blame someone that bad, blame them.
Israel didn't invade lebanon to "occupy" it. It's neither settling it, or claiming the land, it doesn't even want or intend to stay there.
It went in to do what your country screwed up doing - something that is Lebanon's duty - to keep its nutcases from arming to the point of having a formidable force, then from staging attacks on your neighbours. Until you can acknowledge that
[a] This is your country's responsibility
[b] That your country majorly screwed up in curbing this
[c] That this led to your neighbour getting harrassed since 2000 (and I'm actually quite surprised Israel chose to hold its guns for 6 years and didn't kick Hezballah's ass much sooner)
and
[d] The invasion of Lebanon was to curb this immediate threat.
If you can't acknowledge these facts, you're no different from the self-serving-rhetoric-preachers of the Hezbollah that understands not what personal responsibility is, and we have no basis for a discussion.
You seem to be suffering from exactly the same symptoms as most Israelis who don't give a rats ass about what their crazed genocide-preaching fanatics are doing in Gaza and the west bank - they don't care, they ignore that the people on "their side" harrasses the other side, they prefer to bury their head in the sand and pretend it is not happening.
You're exactly the same as they are. Hezbollah has been harassing northern Israel since the Lebanon pullout left and right, putting more and more weapons - guns, rockets etc on the border, raiding Israel, firing at settlements, abducting people... You don't seem to give a shit about that (and I daresay you didn't give a shit before July when Israel invaded - as nobody was busy putting an end to it.
So you the Lebanese people did not give its government a mandate to leash the Hezballah, and now the Lebanese people paid the price of negligent self-policing policy.
You eat what you cook, mate.
Oh, and regarding the ambulance.. That's where you just don't get it. Ever since your Hezballah countrymen put weapons in ambulances, it quite factually
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All I'm saying really is we shouldn't simplify things to us versus some nebulous them that can be dealt with by any atrocity. We can't stop other nations commiting atrocities but we can convince our governments that we don't want them done in our names - and we can question them when they lie to us.
LOL!!