Israel's IDF Got Handed Their Ass

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
1

If Israel’s government accepts the latest UN resolution it will undeniably prove it.

  1. The proposal DOES NOT call for the disarming of Hezbollah. Uhh, wasn’t that the whole point?

  2. A Systematic withdraw from Lebanon as UNIFIL and the Lebanese Army take their place. (Later to be replaced by French soldiers, LOL!!) Like any of those boys want a piece of Hezbollah after Israel cried Uncle.

  3. An “embargo” to prevent Hizbollah from resupplying across the Syrian border. And exactly who is going to be monitoring this since the IAF will be unable to fly over Lebanese Air space? Oh yeah, UNIFIL in their “observation towers”!! LoL

4)Still won’t prevent the “terror” of a kaytusha rocket dropping on your head if you live anywhere around northern Israel.

5)A prisoner swap to be done later on after the “cooling off” period. Probably along the lines of 500 lebanse/palestinians for 2 IDF soldiers. (They could have done this first and saved the IDF’s reputation)

6)Nassarallah gets off Scot free to continue his crusade, politically stronger and in short time militarily also.

7)Will have to give back Shebaa Farms since Israels occupation of it for the last 30+ years.

Damn, I would say that is a SLIGHT change from the original proposal one week ago. I guess realities on the ground will change your diplomatic tune pretty quick. Everyone knows Israel is terrified of actual casualties but believing strictly in an air campaign to disable a fully armed guerrilla militia is retarded. Especially one that’s been preparing for this day for the last 20 or so years and is itching for a fight.

So where does Israel go from here? I’m very curious to see how Olmert and the boys try and explain this massive f@#k up. Unfortunately for him, the Jewish people are a little more on point than us americans since they are the ones living in shelters. I doubt he makes another election cycle like our uber foreign policy strategist “Dubya”.

2

I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard a lot of things that lead me to the conclusion that Israel is, from a military point of view, well, fucked.

The Hisbollah is resisting a lot better than everyone thought they were capable off. How is it they can continue to fire those blasted rockets?
The Israeli troops show bad morale. According to the media, they suffer from a lot of friendly fire.
Many orders seem to contradict each other. The “Security Zone” was supposed to be two miles deep, then five miles, now it’s at least fifteen miles. And whats with that major offensive?

The dilemma is, if they pull out now, their reputation as THE middle east military strongman will be damgaged, with incalculable consequences. If they do not, casualities will rise, international reputation will suffer, their president might topple.

Maybe the media just exaggerate, but I’m curious how the situation will evolve.
What do you think?

3

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard a lot of things that lead me to the conclusion that Israel is, from a military point of view, well, fucked.

The Hisbollah is resisting a lot better than everyone thought they were capable off. How is it they can continue to fire those blasted rockets?
The Israeli troops show bad morale. According to the media, they suffer from a lot of friendly fire.
Many orders seem to contradict each other. The “Security Zone” was supposed to be two miles deep, then five miles, now it’s at least fifteen miles. And whats with that major offensive?

The dilemma is, if they pull out now, their reputation as THE middle east military strongman will be damgaged, with incalculable consequences. If they do not, casualities will rise, international reputation will suffer, their president might topple.

Maybe the media just exaggerate, but I’m curious how the situation will evolve.
What do you think?
[/quote]

I’ve posted this before, but here it is again. This site has a break down of most militaries in the world, well, as much as you can get from a civilian company. Cehck out the introduction piece and the history,wars and enemies. a number of countries get training for anti-terrorist units for Isreal.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/index.html

4

I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.

5

[quote]vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.[/quote]

Exactly correct.

6

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.

Exactly correct. [/quote]

Hmmm, or it might be they just underestimated the dificulty of this operation.
And I don’t think the islamic media has been that successful. It’s rather the general public attitude (at least here in Europe) that has a hard time understanding the legitimacy of that whole invasion.
Personally, I don’t care much. If a country harbours terrorists that have been elected and who kidnap soldiers- well, bad decision.
Anyway, I would prefer not to see the Hisbollah triumph over some conflict the media will not hesitate to mark as “Israel’s Vietnam”.

7

[quote]Solomon Grundy wrote:
Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard a lot of things that lead me to the conclusion that Israel is, from a military point of view, well, fucked.

The Hisbollah is resisting a lot better than everyone thought they were capable off. How is it they can continue to fire those blasted rockets?
The Israeli troops show bad morale. According to the media, they suffer from a lot of friendly fire.
Many orders seem to contradict each other. The “Security Zone” was supposed to be two miles deep, then five miles, now it’s at least fifteen miles. And whats with that major offensive?

The dilemma is, if they pull out now, their reputation as THE middle east military strongman will be damgaged, with incalculable consequences. If they do not, casualities will rise, international reputation will suffer, their president might topple.

Maybe the media just exaggerate, but I’m curious how the situation will evolve.
What do you think?

I’ve posted this before, but here it is again. This site has a break down of most militaries in the world, well, as much as you can get from a civilian company. Cehck out the introduction piece and the history,wars and enemies. a number of countries get training for anti-terrorist units for Isreal.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/index.html

[/quote]

I don’t understand for the life of me what that’s supposed to prove. The IDF is widely considered the best military in the world. That doesn’t change the fact that by all accounts Hezbollah is standing up to them ably (like the Chechens vs. the Russians, the only other non-state force to do that, as others have pointed out). Acknowledging the reality on the ground doesn’t make you a cheerleader for the bad guys. Something the Bush Administration has yet to understand.

A good early look at the issue from Bill Lind:

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_7_18_06.htm

8

[quote]vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.
[/quote]

It’s not really about international public opinion, Israel has ignored that countless times in the past (see Occupied Territories) and remains something of a pariah state. It’s about domestic Israeli opinion, which is currently strongly behind the war, but that could change. Read up on the 1982 invasion, an Israeli named Gil Merom wrote a decent book on the subject.

9

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.

Exactly correct. [/quote]

The World War II analogy that has been making the Fox News/National Review rounds for awhile now is painfully simplistic and stupid. As bad as they are, we should be negotiating with Iran and Syria. This isn’t to say capitulate, or renounce force, or even remove pre-emptive war from the table (I have a feeling we’ll see more of those in the years to come). But we negotiated with the Soviets, who were much more of an existential threat than Islamic fundamentalism.

10

[quote]vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.[/quote]

I would think Israel is also calculating how involved they can get in the war without endangering the Lebanese government. They have at least spoken of disarming Hezbollah and training/supporting the legitamate Lebanese army. I think they want to escalate the war without upsetting the county’s stability too much, or bring the Syrians/Iranians into the fray.

Again, pure speculation.

11

Cmon Vroom and Zap, cut the moral cheerleading bullshit. This is a discussion about geopolitical strategies that are unfolding before our very eyes. Morality and discussing who is justified with whatever action is a waste of time. The REALITY is Israel is fighting a war in the Middle East with the WHOLE world watching…

And getting drilled…by a 5000 strong militia. That is serious business, like to the point it has NEVER happened before. Thus Israels dilema, do you turn your cards over and go “all in” or do you fold now and try and figure out what the hell went wrong while a couple hundred million Arabs get to watch Nasarallah talk big shit all day on Al-Jazeera? The suspense is damn near killing me and you want to talk about Hezbollas unmoral “tactics”? Give me a break. Maybe you need to read up on how guerrilla soldiers operate.

The WHOLE point is to fight where you live with a whole bunch of “innocent” family members around. That way if you die shooting at the enemy, good. BUT, if you die from a bomb flattening the house you were using to shoot the enemy, WHILE (A key point here) some of your family is in the house, even better. Why? Because CNN and the Red Cross will surely take note and let the whole world know that some “civilian” buildings were targeted. Its a Win/Win situation for the guerrillas and a very effective PR campaign when they pull a couple of women and kids out of the rubble.

And you better believe Al-Jazeera will show every gruesome second of it, totally uncensored, pissing off every Arab from here to Antartica. How can you argue that logic? I’m sure it would please you if those “terrorists” did an honorable thing like a Pickett’s charge on Haifa while singing the Hezbollah fight song but believe me, they’re not stupid. Crazy? Yes; but stupid? No. Now back to the discussion at hand, if Israel declares victory and accepts this resolution, what next? Hezbollah won’t be driven out of anywhere since they will just bury their guns again and wait for the next Iranian “humanitarian aid” shipment to show up. Israel’s invincibility will be shattered and believe me, that region of the world has LONG memories and alot of guns itchin to be fired.

12

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.

Exactly correct. [/quote]

See how far off you are Vroom? Zap agrees with you.

13

ODogg is right. Hezbollah is fighting a textbook guerilla fight, they win as long as they don’t lose. Every day they continue to launch rockets into Isreal is victory.

Hezbollah is also fielding some pretty advanced anti-tank missles that are allowing them to fight the Isreali army. They are using the Sagger AT-3A, the Metis-M and the Kornet missles, all with thermal night sights.

There is also some evidence of advanced electronic countermeasure systems being deployed by Hezbollah. Apparently the Isreali ship that was hit with the silkworm missle was unable to employ its defense systems due to jamming.
This war is teaching us quite a bit about the Iranian capabilities and how they would fight the United States if they had to.

The Isrealis are pretty suprised by the sophistication of the Hezbollah communications, weapons, and countermeasures. They are in quite a bit of dilemma, do they continue the fight and face more international criticism or do they pull out and appear to be defeated.

14

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
Solomon Grundy wrote:
Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard a lot of things that lead me to the conclusion that Israel is, from a military point of view, well, fucked.

The Hisbollah is resisting a lot better than everyone thought they were capable off. How is it they can continue to fire those blasted rockets?
The Israeli troops show bad morale. According to the media, they suffer from a lot of friendly fire.
Many orders seem to contradict each other. The “Security Zone” was supposed to be two miles deep, then five miles, now it’s at least fifteen miles. And whats with that major offensive?

The dilemma is, if they pull out now, their reputation as THE middle east military strongman will be damgaged, with incalculable consequences. If they do not, casualities will rise, international reputation will suffer, their president might topple.

Maybe the media just exaggerate, but I’m curious how the situation will evolve.
What do you think?

I’ve posted this before, but here it is again. This site has a break down of most militaries in the world, well, as much as you can get from a civilian company. Cehck out the introduction piece and the history,wars and enemies. a number of countries get training for anti-terrorist units for Isreal.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/index.html

I don’t understand for the life of me what that’s supposed to prove. The IDF is widely considered the best military in the world. That doesn’t change the fact that by all accounts Hezbollah is standing up to them ably (like the Chechens vs. the Russians, the only other non-state force to do that, as others have pointed out). Acknowledging the reality on the ground doesn’t make you a cheerleader for the bad guys. Something the Bush Administration has yet to understand.

A good early look at the issue from Bill Lind:

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_7_18_06.htm[/quote]

If I wanted to prove something I would first have to choose a side in this debate. I haven’t stated what that side is at this point. The post I made was for information only. The site that I provided has alot of info on almost any country, but not much on Hezbalah. If it had I would have provided it. Or you could check the site for yourself.

15

[quote]Solomon Grundy wrote:
GDollars37 wrote:
Solomon Grundy wrote:
Schwarzfahrer wrote:
I don’t know if it’s true, but I’ve heard a lot of things that lead me to the conclusion that Israel is, from a military point of view, well, fucked.

The Hisbollah is resisting a lot better than everyone thought they were capable off. How is it they can continue to fire those blasted rockets?
The Israeli troops show bad morale. According to the media, they suffer from a lot of friendly fire.
Many orders seem to contradict each other. The “Security Zone” was supposed to be two miles deep, then five miles, now it’s at least fifteen miles. And whats with that major offensive?

The dilemma is, if they pull out now, their reputation as THE middle east military strongman will be damgaged, with incalculable consequences. If they do not, casualities will rise, international reputation will suffer, their president might topple.

Maybe the media just exaggerate, but I’m curious how the situation will evolve.
What do you think?

I’ve posted this before, but here it is again. This site has a break down of most militaries in the world, well, as much as you can get from a civilian company. Cehck out the introduction piece and the history,wars and enemies. a number of countries get training for anti-terrorist units for Isreal.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/israel/index.html

I don’t understand for the life of me what that’s supposed to prove. The IDF is widely considered the best military in the world. That doesn’t change the fact that by all accounts Hezbollah is standing up to them ably (like the Chechens vs. the Russians, the only other non-state force to do that, as others have pointed out). Acknowledging the reality on the ground doesn’t make you a cheerleader for the bad guys. Something the Bush Administration has yet to understand.

A good early look at the issue from Bill Lind:

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_7_18_06.htm

If I wanted to prove something I would first have to choose a side in this debate. I haven’t stated what that side is at this point. The post I made was for information only. The site that I provided has alot of info on almost any country, but not much on Hezbalah. If it had I would have provided it. Or you could check the site for yourself.
[/quote]

Fair enough, it’s just rare to see someone post information on a topic without at least subtly taking a position. Based on your comment about the Israelis and anti-terrorist training, that’s what I thought you were doing. I apologize. But as someone who I believe is ex-infantry, I’d be curious to hear what your view of the situation is.

16

[quote]vroom wrote:
I can’t believe what you people are saying. I guess the fact that Hezbollah hides amongst civilians and they look like civilians until they pick up a gun has nothing to do with the situation?

Seriously, all the Hezbollah fighter has to do is walk around unarmed in civilian clothes until it’s time to launch a rocket… then run and be a civilian again.

What has happened is the IDF has been hamstrung by international public opinion, masterfully orchestrated by the Islamic media.

I thought the world had learned about appeasement during WWII. Apparently not.[/quote]

Everyone around the world knows that the US and Israel are held to a different standard.

Tough sh!t for us an tough sh!t for Israel.

Modern militaries are not designed to fight guerilla warfare. That is War Planning 101.

To pretend that we did not know this would turn out this way is pathetic. We can always blame the media for our F up.

It is ironic that this happened to a PM that has no military back ground.

Does that sound like another world leader in over their head in another conflict in the Middle East?

If you are not prepared to carpet bomb the area and turn it into a pock marked glass plate then you are asking to have your @$$ handed to you.

17

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:

Fair enough, it’s just rare to see someone post information on a topic without at least subtly taking a position. Based on your comment about the Israelis and anti-terrorist training, that’s what I thought you were doing. I apologize. But as someone who I believe is ex-infantry, I’d be curious to hear what your view of the situation is.[/quote]

I can see where you would get that. I like to hear how a debate progresses sometimes before I take a stand. That doesn?t mean that I am likely to change my view, but I like to hear what others have to say. In my opinion Israel can hold its own and has for a long time. This time they are fighting on two fronts. If anyone can succeed against this kind of enemy it would be Israel. Hezbollah standing alone is one thing, but add the support of Iran and others and they become much more of a threat. If Israel accepts anything less than the disarming of Hezbollah it will be a terrible mistake. They do not have the resources to draw this out. If I were in Israel?s place, I would not stop or back down. Collateral damage may be a necessary evil in this case. Israel will need to make the Lebanese unwilling to provide resources to Hezbollah and make them a mutual enemy. I believe the second to be more important taking into consideration the religious difference. One thing that comes to mind about weapons and tactics: Israel was one of the first to use drone aircraft effectively in combat. This alone allowed them to take out Syrian anti-aircraft batteries in prior wars.

18

[quote]Odogg wrote:
Cmon Vroom and Zap, cut the moral cheerleading bullshit. This is a discussion about geopolitical strategies that are unfolding before our very eyes. Morality and discussing who is justified with whatever action is a waste of time. The REALITY is Israel is fighting a war in the Middle East with the WHOLE world watching…[/quote]

Moral cheerleading? Not at all. Perhaps you didn’t catch what I was saying? Israel is setting up rules of conduct for itself that make things much more difficult.

Ahahahaha. Are you on crack? Where do you get your news? Hezbollah has had a decade to prepare for this. Nobody is surprised that they are hard to identify and hard to kill.

However, to claim Israel is suffering in some major way is just silly.

Oh, so now the entire issue is that the leader is going to be alive and to claim he stayed alive while Israel was invading a portion of Lebanon?

Hahahaha. Who really gives a shit? How can you claim it actually means anything. Now, indeed, you are playing up on silly tactics and claiming they are significant.

Only in some areas. Where people are aware of it, and believe it, it really doesn’t have much effect. However, there are people out there that are all upset over the civilian deaths and are happy to blame Isreal.

LOL. You mistake my intent, greatly. My intent with my comments is not to complain about the tactics of Hezbollah, but to complain that Israel should not allow itself to be repressed by world opinion.

Duh.

You are crowing like there is some victory to be had here. All we are talking about is a failed ability to change the situation.

So, at some point rockets or human bombs will make their way back into Israel, you can get on here and cheer about it again, and Israel can stew for a while until it decides to go out and kick some ass again.

However, if they are going to get the military involved, they need to let the military do whatever it needs to do in order to achieve military victory – within the modern rules of warfare of course. The fact that the enemy doesn’t follow them is immaterial.

The moral of the story is don’t pick a fight with someone who is going to kick your ass. Israel is trying to be “nice” and is suffering for it.

19

[quote]BH6 wrote:
ODogg is right. Hezbollah is fighting a textbook guerilla fight, they win as long as they don’t lose. Every day they continue to launch rockets into Isreal is victory.[/quote]

Damn, you guys are as good as the Bush administration at spinning things. Hezbollah is basically toothless, causing a few civilian deaths per day, and they are somehow winning.

[quote]Hezbollah is also fielding some pretty advanced anti-tank missles that are allowing them to fight the Isreali army. They are using the Sagger AT-3A, the Metis-M and the Kornet missles, all with thermal night sights.

There is also some evidence of advanced electronic countermeasure systems being deployed by Hezbollah. Apparently the Isreali ship that was hit with the silkworm missle was unable to employ its defense systems due to jamming.[/quote]

According to Israel they didn’t expect such an attack and weren’t even ready to defend against the possibility. It’s called surprise. It happens sometimes.

[quote]This war is teaching us quite a bit about the Iranian capabilities and how they would fight the United States if they had to.

The Isrealis are pretty suprised by the sophistication of the Hezbollah communications, weapons, and countermeasures. They are in quite a bit of dilemma, do they continue the fight and face more international criticism or do they pull out and appear to be defeated.[/quote]

They decide to get serious about fighting or they wait for the UN to step in and offer an acceptable out. All they want is the security represented by a de-toothed Hezbollah.

If a cheaper way, in human lives, becomes available, they take it.

20

[quote]Marmadogg wrote:
If you are not prepared to carpet bomb the area and turn it into a pock marked glass plate then you are asking to have your @$$ handed to you.
[/quote]

You guys really show your colors when you suggest Israel is having it’s ass handed to it.

You wish.

Look, all you are describing is the difficult realities of the situation. Cheering on Hezbollah because Israel is restraining itself just seems somewhat silly to me.