(Note, I’m still traveling in East Africa but found a functioning computer and internet connection)
Israel’s self-inflicted wound becomes uglier and more deadly with
each passing day and the situation will only worsen in the coming days
as it tries, but fails, to dislodge Hizbullah from southern
Lebanon. Both Newsweek and the New York Times
(A Disciplined Hizbullah Surprises Israel With Its Training, Tactics
and Weapons) have had first rate reports on the belated discovery by
Israel that Hizbullah has a professional Army. According to
Newsweek:
Hizbullah is proving to be something altogether new, an Arab guerrilla army with sophisticated weaponry and remarkable discipline. Its soldiers have the jihadist rhetoric of fighting to the death, but wear body armor and use satcoms to coordinate their attacks.
Their tactics may be from Che, but their arms are from Iran, and not
just AK-47s and RPGs. They’ve reportedly destroyed three of Israel’s
advanced Merkava tanks with wire-guided missiles and powerful mines,
crippled an Israeli warship with a surface-to-sea missile, sent up
drones on reconnaissance missions, implanted listening devices along
the border and set up their ambushes using night-vision goggles.<!–
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NEWSWEEK has learned from a source briefed in recent weeks by Israel’s top leaders and military brass that Hizbullah even managed to eavesdrop successfully on Israel’s military communications as its Lebanese incursion began.
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STEVEN ERLANGER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. writing in the New York Times note that:
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As the Israeli Army struggles for a fourth week to defeat Hezbollah before a cease-fire, the shipments are just one indication of how — with the help of its main sponsors, Iran and Syria — the militia has sharply improved its arsenal and strategies in the six years since Israel abruptly ended its occupation of southern Lebanon.
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Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters “are nothing like Hamas or the Palestinians,” said a soldier who just returned from Lebanon. “They are trained and highly qualified,” he said, equipped with flak jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes Israeli uniforms and ammunition. “All of us were kind of surprised.””,1]
);
//–>
NEWSWEEK has learned from a source briefed in recent weeks by Israel’s top leaders and military brass that Hizbullah even managed to eavesdrop successfully on Israel’s military communications as its Lebanese incursion began.
STEVEN ERLANGER and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. writing in the New York Times note that:
As the Israeli Army struggles for a fourth week to defeat Hezbollah
before a cease-fire, the shipments are just one indication of how —
with the help of its main sponsors, Iran and Syria — the militia has
sharply improved its arsenal and strategies in the six years since Israel abruptly ended its occupation of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah is a militia trained like an army and equipped like a state, and its fighters “are nothing like Hamas
or the Palestinians,” said a soldier who just returned from Lebanon.
“They are trained and highly qualified,” he said, equipped with flak
jackets, night-vision goggles, good communications and sometimes
Israeli uniforms and ammunition. “All of us were kind of surprised.”<!–
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One fellow not surprised is Pat Lang. Pat and I have been saying for several weeks that Israel was entering a bar fight without taking stock of who was in the bar. In his latest trenchant analysis Pat reminds us that:
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There have been Arab guerrilla armies before. The "Arab Revolt" against the Turks in WW1 was in part a campaign fought by Beduin guerrilla forces and in part a conventional war fought by "regular" units of infantry, cavalry, etc. led by former Ottoman officers of Arab extraction and advised by the British and French.
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In the Iraq of the ’20s and the Syria and Palestine of the ’30s Arab guerrillas fought colonial and Zionist forces for years. In the end they all were defeated by the application of technology, western methods of warfare, and police methods imported by the colonial powers from such places as India and Ireland.
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The Lebanese Hizbullah "Arab Guerrilla Army" is something different. What Newsweek describes is a force in transition, a force becoming a real army. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote in "People’s War, People’s Army" that a national resistance movement’s armed force must "evolve" from political agitprop activities to guerrilla war and eventually to the status and capability of regular armed forces if it is to succeed in defeating its enemies and seizing " a place at the table" in its country’s future.
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Some will say that Hizbullah’s army is not a "national force." They will say that it is merely a cats-paw of the Iranians and the Syrians. They will say that the money and the equipment are Iranian. This is all true, but the polling today in Lebanon indicates that the Lebanese (both Christian and Muslim) believe Hizbullah’s army to be a national force. I would welcome comments in regard to that polling.”,1]
);
//–>
One fellow not surprised is Pat Lang.
Pat and I have been saying for several weeks that Israel was entering a
bar fight without taking stock of who was in the bar. In his
latest trenchant analysis Pat reminds us that:
There have been Arab guerrilla armies before. The “Arab
Revolt” against the Turks in WW1 was in part a campaign fought by
Beduin guerrilla forces and in part a conventional war fought by
“regular” units of infantry, cavalry, etc. led by former Ottoman
officers of Arab extraction and advised by the British and French.
In the Iraq of the ’20s and the Syria and Palestine of the ’30s Arab
guerrillas fought colonial and Zionist forces for years. In the
end they all were defeated by the application of technology, western
methods of warfare, and police methods imported by the colonial powers
from such places as India and Ireland.
The Lebanese Hizbullah “Arab Guerrilla Army” is something
different. What Newsweek describes is a force in transition, a
force becoming a real army. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote in “People’s
War, People’s Army” that a national resistance movement’s armed
force must “evolve” from political agitprop activities to guerrilla war
and eventually to the status and capability of regular armed forces if
it is to succeed in defeating its enemies and seizing ” a place at the
table” in its country’s future.
Some will say that Hizbullah’s army is not a “national force.”
They will say that it is merely a cats-paw of the Iranians and the
Syrians. They will say that the money and the equipment are
Iranian. This is all true, but the polling today in Lebanon
indicates that the Lebanese (both Christian and Muslim) believe
Hizbullah’s army to be a national force. I would welcome comments
in regard to that polling.<!–
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I think that the Lebanese/Israeli war is pounding the "arch" of Lebanese society with a hammer, driving the "keystone" into the arch and tightening the fabric of cohesive national resistance to Israel. That keystone is now painted with a yellow flag.
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Israel is in trouble and it is time for the Bush Administration to throw the neo-con crazies out of the White House and the Defense Department and embark on a diplomatic effort to keep Israel’s military intact. Otherwise, the Israeli Army is likely to break itself on the hills of southern Lebanon and the United States will not be able to do anything other than express regret. We have our own "turd in the punchbowl" to wrestle in Iraq. Meanwhile, Hizbullah stands a good chance of expanding its influence and power, not just in the region, but throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Let’s remember, it ain’t just Americans who love a winner.
