This is a painful post to write.
The Israeli papers have only hinted at it but AP is reporting 12 to 14 dead soldiers and another 25 injured and on their way to hospitals.
UPDATE: Israeli papers are now reporting 9 dead, 3 severely injured and another 24 injured.
Anybody want to talk about disproportionate attacks right now? It’s clear that they weren’t disproportionate if Hizbullah remains this capable after nearly two weeks of war. By the way, they have launched 1400 rockets into Israel as of now and have threatened Netanyah next. Hitting Netanyah would require missiles with 100 mile range.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the initial failures by Halutz’s IDF that led to this war. I wrote with the hope that the IDF would show those to be anomalies and Halutz would be vindicated. As of now it seems that rather than the IDF pushing Hizbullah into a corner, it is Hizbullah killing Israel’s young men. The causes are not hard to figure out: poor planning, poor intelligence, poor execution or a combination of those. My guess is that poor execution is the least problem, if it is one at all. That leaves the other two issues. The IDF seems unprepared for this adversary and the type of fight in which they are engaged.
Let’s not minimize this, we are seeing an existential war for Israel. Even if it is taking place in Lebanon, a show of real weakness by Israel and a serious depletion of Israeli fighting resources (how long will it take to rebuild the IAF’s arsenal?) will encourage others to enter the fight or to start one very shortly. Syria has already been on their highest alert for a number of days and has sent unguarded warnings to Israel not to deploy forces too close to their border. That’s a small step away from perceiving that they would find it advantageous to attack anyway. Iran is monitoring as well, and even Jordan’s king has said publicly that if Israel continues attacking Lebanon, it could lead to war.
The politicians and the IDF need to entirely reassess the nature of this war and Israel’s adversary. This is not just Hizbullah – the tactics, arms and training are too sophisticated. This is a proxy arm and by extension, apparently, a part of the Iranian army. They have spent years planning for an Israeli incursion, building fortifications and tunnels, arming themselves to the teeth and preparing for a rocket and missile attack on Israel’s population centers. The IDF seems to have seriously underestimated the extent of Hizbullah’s development as a force and has fought this war accordingly.
Thus far Israel has resisted calling up large numbers of reserves and has not gone into these villages full bore. The Israeli government has also consistently changed their public statements (and subsequently their actions) about how they plan to fight this war. This morning even George Bush said on the radio that he has been told consistently by the Israelis that they knew this enemy best and how to handle it. He then added with some sarcasm that it seems that events are proving this wasn’t the case. George Bush said this!
If the death toll the AP is reporting is correct, then either we are being fed disinformation, or the politicians and even the top generals believe things that aren’t true. Either way, there is clearly no time to lose here. If what it takes to take over every Hizbullah-run village is the loss of 10 or 20 or more Israelis, something has to change. It is time to change the tactics and goals of this war. According to Olmert, Israel is only using a small percentage of its capacity to fight. They need to change that to a much higher percentage and fast. They need to reconsider whether there are better tacticians among the general staff of the IDF and if so, give them the opportunity to organize the Israeli attacks. Fast. And hit hard. Why is that village still standing, most of the civilians are gone? And stop denying the truth because it weakens everybody’s faith in the Israeli government and the IDF. Let Hizbullah be the only liars here.
The “yihyeh b’seder, mah ata lachutz” (“it’ll be alright, what are you worried about”) mentality is the opposite of what is needed to win this tough war.
UPDATE: see this:
However, officers in the Golani and Paratroops Brigades charged that the IDF employed insufficient force before the soldiers were deployed to search the homes. They said that once the civilians had been told to leave the town, the army should have regarded Bint Jbail as a battlefield and destroyed any home where Hezbollah guerrillas were suspected of hiding.
They also charged that not enough aircraft were used to attack targets.
The IDF’s modus operandi in southern Lebanon in recent days has sparked great debate among all ranks of the army. Many field officers argue that insufficient forces are being deployed in the fighting and that the army is being ineffective against Katyusha rocket launchers.
Hezbollah doesn’t want to die. If they did, they’d come out and fight like real men, instead of hiding behind civilian women and children.
I just found this story; for Blair is begining to make sense again. This is a new kind of war, and Israel is at the frontline of it. I hope it prevails because the alternative is that we’ll all become hostage to extremists. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s victory is imperative.
I don’t think that it was Israel that underestimated Hezbollah. I think they underestimated the unity that should of formed. The UN held more accountable and things should of been into action before Israel had to do this. US was talking about Iran and the threats were esculating into as a matter of fact! I for sure thought we would all be on board together on this and make it work. Like negotiations should of been happening and the President of Lebanon should have made some kind of promise, as a beginning to immediatly rid Hezbollah in his country. We should of dropped leaflets to them so they could of got out but all so show them somehow they are being manipulated. They only see on tv what they want them to believe and it is working! It should not stop us from attacking Iran! Looked like Chavez and Amajean where about to make out, damn! I’m not jewish but it doesn’t take a jew to see evil Lance!! Nasrallah, figures now, to know his son is buried in that cemetary in Israel, and he is still alive. He must feel quilty! If he is hiding in Iran that is good enough to bomb the sob!!
Ali, sorry, those people are hostages. The world needs to be rid of this devil Shiite aixs, otherwise it is you they will be targeting.
You cannot let them take over Israel.
THey must be stopped now.
You are dealing with an enemy who wants to die, you must punish them.
This is no time for liberal pansying. Yes, Israeli lives are worth more, because the enemy started this.
Your kind of thinking is dangerous and foolish. You must get over this averiah.
I wish the IDF would stop fighting this war like a public relations stunt and start realizing that only by a display of overwhelming force -including the bombing of villages- somesort of quiet will be achieved.
An army should never ever sacrifice its own soldiers to minimize civilian casualties.
The result of Israel’s disproportionate weak response will be a future filled with katusha attacks.
Lancethruster, are you having some difficulty getting through the Jew-sense ™ technology?
themiddle – You’ll never know what I read because I never learned how to so well.
Thanks for proving my point, I’m not good at points myself.
Now, now Lanceswallower / Goatthruster / Neo-Nazi, I hope you haven’t been reading too much Walt & Mearsheimer.
Did anybody else hear Walt on NPR yesterday, by the way? They set it up so it was him against an Israeli scholar out of Brandeis and Walt was not contested on any of his assertions.
Dear NPR, next time, there are about 2743 people out there who could actually debate Walt, in case you really want to know why he’s wrong on so many issues that relate to this conflict and America’s role in it.
Jewsih Mother – false dichotomy pretending that the choices are a magical chocolate factory or a whimsical North Pole workshop. The only reason the choices have become so polarized is because of the Boogeymen and their propaganda. Even at the childish level of “goatthruster” and changing the text of my posts shows that the Zionist agenda cannot win when honesty is involved. Facts are like Russian armies to Nazis.
YOU have created a world where Snuffleupagus and the Care Bears can be considered heroes for standing up to the Wicked Witch of the West! This thrice-convicted pedophile says godspeed to them in their righteous quest.
There is war and there is peace. War has nothing at all to do with valuing people’s lives who are on the other side. It is not considered nice to be mean to people who are thoroughly disarmed and your prisoner. However, until they are thoroughly disarmed or your prisoner, you are only supposed to not TRY to hurt civilians on purpose. No Israeli ever has ON-PURPOSE, TARGETED a civilian. They have killed plenty of civilians. But it was not what they were trying to do, and they were prosecuting a war. They seem to be leafleting and actually telephoning civilians to try to get them to leave. There is so much information around about the other side shooting from among civilians, using them for cover, that is not worth citing or posting links.
Politicians – and other people – are allowed to change their views when it hits the fan. That has a way of affecting people’s views, depending. That is OK.
We need unity not carping.
Neo Nazi, don’t worry so much. There are plenty of places live a full Muslim life, and Jordan is 70% Palestinian as we speak. I assume you are a US patriot? I am. This is about ideas not ethnicity.
I also, like you, wish life were not so painful.
In Lebanon, like in Jenin, the Israelis suffered fewer military casualties when they used methods that were likely to cause more civilian deaths, like bulldozing neighboods and extensive bombing campaigns. I wonder though, about the ethics of this trade and the mandate to protect civilian life as much as possible. Many say that the civilians are gone now from S. Lebanon, but there are a lot of people who even when warned about impending attacks are unable to leave their homes for various reasons. Illness, family situations, the roads already having been blown up, fear, etc. Obviously it is better to displace people than kill them, but shouldn’t we be worried about displacing them too?
It seems that Israeli soldiers’ lives are being valued more than Lebanese civilian lives. Of course some civilian casualties are unavoidable, but if they could be avoided by putting more troops on the ground rather than bombs in the air, we’re not talking about the inevitable, we’re talking about priorities.
We deleted a comment? Did it appear on the front page? Sometimes things go into the spam filter and unfortunately while I’d like to say that we are perfect, it does happen that we might erase a real post in there by accident sometimes. Since you are a “Neo-Nazi” I have a feeling our filter’s unique Jew-sense (TM) technology probably caught your comment and flushed it down the toilet where it belongs. How ironic.
damn straight biatch.Tomorrow you get a full frontal lobotomy, courtesy of ZOG.
As my comment to alexbmn was deleted, I can only observe (from here and other pro-Zionist sites) that a crucial element of the Zionist Brave New World is the total control of information and elimination of any dissenting opinion no matter how innocuous. Which is really somewhat of an ironic comment, as I am a Neo-Nazi.
Josh, I live in the US and am not in any army.
Second, the Cabinet called up three reserves divisions today. Oddly, they didn’t call me first to inquire about my opinion. Maybe they read Jewlicious – they should! – but chances are they did this on their own based on the information they have at their disposal which I suspect is slightly more voluminous than the information you and I possess about the situation.
Third, the economic impact of having reserves in place and widening the attack on Hizbullah – something, which as I quote above, Golani and Paratrooper commanders are demanding – will be mitigated by the impact of shortening the war. Don’t forget that Israel’s northern economy is suffering.
Fourth, Syria is on war footing and has been on war footing for days. It will take a single bad breakfast for Assad OR the appearance of weakness and unpreparedness by Israel to have Syria enter the fray. I don’t know whether you’ve read about 1973, but Israel wasn’t prepared and the 2-3 days it took to get the reserves into the field in the Golan almost cost Israel the war…and the state. The loss of Israeli lives in having given the Syrians this advantage in ’73 was significant by any measure and far greater than what we have seen in Lebanon thus far or actually in all those years Israel was in Lebanon. We do not want another ’73 on our hands.
Fifth, your escalation scenario is correct overall from my point of view, but your point #3 is far too brief and misses the reason for the escalation which was, apparently, poor intelligence. The Israelis didn’t seem to anticipate the strength of the Hizbullah resistance, all of its locations, its type, their overall rocket launching capabilities or their missile capability. These guys shot an anti-ship missile at an Israeli warship that actually had its defense systems off because they had no clue that such a missile was in the possession of Hizbullah. I’m not saying, nor do I believe, that Israeli intelligence failed altogether, it is clear they have significant intelligence on their enemy. But it seems they have missed some crucial information. The problem is that once you realize that only some of your intelligence is correct but there are also gaps, you wonder what those gaps might be since they represent the most significant source of danger to your forces.
There apparently was also a flaw in the transmission of intelligence to the commanders in the front lines. According to reports in the media – which doesn’t mean the info is true – intelligence existed about Maroun al-Ras but was to be released only in real time because of its sensitive nature. It seems it didn’t make it into the hands of forces before they went into that village and positions. As I recall 4 soldiers were killed in that battle (another was killed yesterday although the IDF now controls the area). This failure is reminiscent of the Kerem Shalom failure where intelligence existed and in that case actually given to the IDF, but had been acted upon improperly or not at all. That ended up causing the deaths of two soldiers and the kidnapping of one. There was a commission of inquiry about that event and perhaps there hasn’t been time to implement its recommendations, but these mistakes cost lives and they are happening under Halutz’s watch.
Sixth, this is most definitely an existential war. Failure in this war will cost Israel dearly in future wars and attacks. Hizbullah is more than just Hizbullah, it is the front line of two states that seek to do nothing less than destroy Israel. Hizbullah is their laboratory for testing Israel, its resources, its weaknesses and strengths, its ability to do combat and its desire to win. If Israel receives a failing grade on any of these, it will be attacked by larger forces because they will see weakness. Even if Israel doesn’t show weakness, Hizbullah remains a laboratory that can provide valuable information about how to fight Israel. This is why they need to be crushed.
But don’t just listen to me on this, check out Ha’aretz’s editorial today. This is Ha’aretz, not Arutz Sheva, and not some egalitarian, Zionist, Suburban Jew who lives in the US.
I don’t think Ha’aretz wants wider conflict or a deepening war. I know that I don’t. In fact, I wish Israel had run a much smaller campaign against Hizbullah after the killing and kidnapping of the soldiers a couple of weeks ago. But once you are in, you have to go in with the intention of delivering a crushing blow for reasons I mention above. we saw this in Jenin where soldiers lost lives because the IDF didn’t want to damage buildings and wanted to fight with civility. They stopped losing soldiers when they started bulldozing the buildings in their path. And you know what else? They were vilified anyway by the international community. The 8 Golani soldiers who were killed yesterday were ambushed while doing urban door to door fighting. Perhaps a different approach and deeper forces in place would have saved those lives. Will more lives be lost with reserves in place and a stronger force arrayed against Hizbullah? I don’t know, but I think the odds of winning quickly with fewer casualties will improve. I also think we don’t have a choice.
I’ll leave you with the views of the editorial by this fine LEFT wing, dovish Israeli newspaper which has no qualms about criticizing Israel and its military regularly:
The Israelis are making a major mistake, in not flattening that dopey bin village how you call it?
I have seen such posts on YNET all day long.
Olmert is a deplorable PM.
Josh F you analysis is wrong on so many levels its just scary.So those reserves that crushed three countries in six days ,and turned the tide of war from the brink of defeat in 1973 are poorly trained? The most powerfull army in the middle east has not been able to reduce the numner of rockets being fired at it bya small guerrila group after two weeks of action and Israel has taken considerable casualties on the ground while achieving nothing of strategic value and you say Hezbolla is being pushed into the corner.THe fact that Iran’s proxy is going toe to toe with the army and surviving is ok with you ,I guess. Whatever was left of Israel deterrence has totally been thrown out the window.Its a scary day when Haaretz editorial tells the goverment to be more agressive and not be stuck in the bubble of 1982. Today the goverment has decided to disregard the army’s (YES THE ARMY’S NOT MINE)advice to broaden the ground operation and continue with the useless course of action. Israel has lost.
I’m curious what the error was, feel free to e-mail me about it, and not waste the blog’s space. Oh, and sorry to everyone about the poor grammar and typos. This is what you get for posting before you pray.
[Ed. note: for a former chanich, I will remove typos, but as for the grammar? I don’t have that kind of time…EDK]
Josh! Great analysis! But for one minor glaring error, so unimportant that it’s not worth mentioning further, your analysis is pretty much right on the money. Todah.
Your posts have been getting me more and more frustrated every day i read them, and so please allow me to express just a few points.
You talk about a massive deployment of force. Well, tell me, where do you suppose that will come from? Israel has four infantry brigades. From what i read in the newspapers, Golani (the mechanized brigade) and Tzanchanim are fighting up North along with all of the elite units from across the green army, and a considerable amount, if not all of the mechanized combat engineers. Givati is fighting in the south, with Nachal holding down the fort on regular security along with reservists. As to tanks, Israel has three brigades. 401 and 7 are fighting in Lebanon, while 188 is in Gaza. In other words: Israel’s standing ground forces are fully deployed. That means that a larger deployment of ground forces would involve calling up a significant number of reserves.
Now, let’s think about such an implication. First, from a tactical poitn of view. Reserves are poorly trained, poorly equipped and in poor shape. So, that means that reserves will fight much less effectively, ie. higher casualty rates. Second, let’s think strategically. A mass reserve call up first of all has a crippling affect on the economy, one that will continue to propogate long after this conflict is finished. Particularly, as this is not expected to be over and done with in a week or a few days, to sustain thsi fight we will need a country that is still operating. While the economic costs have been left out of the media, in defferance to the human costs, they are already significant, and while we can choose to ignore them, they are not something the cabinet can ignore when making strategic decisions. Second, while the public will support a mass call up at first, after a little while that support will wane, and it is quite possible that a mass reserve call up, and the expected reserve casualties will undermine the currently strong public support for the Israeli government. Israel’s army continues to fight only by virtue of the public support.
Another point, a mass reserve up is a declaration of War. A real War, with a capital W. Right now, this is still perceived as an extensive, though limited conflict. A mass call up, and a real War will definatley threaten Syria which is already very concerned and scared, as you pointed out, they have their troops at a very high level of alert. The one thing we really don’t want to do now, is start a regional war.
The last thing, and perhaps this is what underlies all of this, is that I don’t know about you TM, but I have very little interest in killing anybody next week. I assume, from the rhetoric you’ve been using, and from the level of familiarity you display with these decisions, that you too are a reserve combat soldier if not at least a mid-level officer. So, I assume you have also weighed thsi judgement, and you have thought about all of the idfferen things that you could be doing this summe,r nad apparently you have come to the decision that killing hezbollah guerillas, deestryong lebanesse villages and shooting the occaisional pregnant lady are the best ways tha tyou could spend your summer. While I respect that decision of yours, I have a feeling that my attitude is more reflective of the Israeli ‘man-on-the-street.’ We all support Israel and the IDF, however, I doubt that most students and middle-aged men really want to go picking up their file right now. Let us all remind ourselves of the underlying situation. At the end of the day, Hezbollah is not an existential threat to the state of Israel. they are a nuisance, a significant one, one that should be dealt with. However, the fact remains that is a war of choice, perhaps a good choice, but still one of choice, and every Israeli knows that.
Last idea, as to your supposed intelligent mistakes. Israeli intelligence on the northern border and in Lebanon is very good. Israel knows where things are, what is hapenning. Hezbollah is not a new enemy. We have fought them for years, and we wer efully aware of what wheapons they were stockpiling and what was going on up north. Here is the chain of mistakes that I think did happen. 1 – When Hezbollah kidnapped the soldiers, they did not expect a massive response. 2 – Israel did keep the initial response fairly limited, but I don’t know if you remember what hapenned two weeks ago, Hezbollah said that if we strike Beirut, they will shoot at Haifa, and then, guess what, the next day, apparently not intentionally Hezbollah shot Haifa. So, that forced Israel’s hand to further the attack to Beirut. 3 – Israel expected it’s initial response to be overwhelming, to change the rules on teh ground, make Hezbollah back off a bit. However, they were forced to expand the attack considerably, and it became a strategic battle, with bombing beirut and everythign else. Now, the ante was raised, and Israel was forced to set as its goal the disarmerment of Hezbollah and everythign else we know. 5 – Hezbollah, is now backed into a corner. Before hand, they could have gotten away with firing a few rockets and then stopping, now this has become an existential war against them. If Hezbollah is disarmed and forced away from the border, they are effectively defunct. So, now, Hezbollah will not shooting no matter what, and will resist every Israeli move to the end. What I listed above are the ‘mistakes’ if you will. it was a classic series of escalations that neither side intended on or desired. Now Israel is trying to do what it can to injure Hezbollah, to push them away, to stop the rockets, but the long term goal isn’t really their destruction nor was it ever. Calling up massive reserves will only ratchet up this escalation even further bringing us, the Lebanese and the rest of the region to places we really don’t want to go.
thr question is this will Olmert now surrender, or pursue the operation to victory,the way HAARETZ(FOR GOD’S SAKE HAARETZ)says it should be.
Very good analysis. This level of casualties is not acceptable. Presumably it is due to Israeli attempts to minimize civilian casualties.
Yup, see this:
“At Thursday’s cabinet meeting, a number of ministers are expected to express bitter criticism of the handling of the war in the north, including its aims and the nature of the ground operations particularly following the heavy casualties in Wednesday’s operations.
Military sources claimed Wednesday that the IDF’s current tactics are having an insufficient impact on the Katyusha rocket launchers and expose the soldiers to excessive danger. The criticism was mostly aimed at the decision not to employ large ground forces in Lebanon, which would give the IDF a significant advantages over a guerrilla force.”
lancethruster FOAD. Anyway if true this post makes the news MUCH easier to take.
http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/07/the_battle_of_bint_jubayl_and.php
Ynet the comments are awesome for the most part. People are saying, flatten those villages, the big one Bin tink tan or something.
Big tink tan, you are history.
The truth is, we should all be saying Tehillim at every spare moment.
MURDER as cover for THEFT is *not* SELF-DEFENSE!
Zionism is no different than South African apartheid. And Zionism has corrupted the political process in the US. The move to a police state in the US is based on the Israel/Mossad model. Thanks a bunch, guys. Heckova job!
JM, just go to Ynet, Jpost or Haaretz. It ain’t me.
Geoff, it seems that while many have departed, there are still civilians in these villages. We had this experience in Jenin and lost 23 soldiers in large part because of concern about civilians. They have been warned to leave and this is war. They must leave or consider the reality that they may be hurt.
I don’t think the sky is falling either. I do think the failures are costing precious lives and I believe that a different approach is needed in some cases. Just as an example, I point to public pronouncements by politicians that have taken significant swings since this war began. Is there anything more important than credibility when people are being killed?
No, it is not in plain view for all. It is a matter of how you want to look at things.
It is way, way, way too soon for pronouncements.
Everything may not be all right, but the sky isn’t falling, either. You said it yourself, the IDF is facing and an enemy that is well trained, well armed, and has had 6 years to prepare for exactly this scenario – casualties are, unfortunately, going to happen.
However, keep in mind that his is supposed to be the capital of south Hizballahstan – it is going to be extremely well defended by Hizbollah’s best “men”. It won’t be easy, but the IDF will prevail.
BTW, I read on ynet, that the IDF claims there are a few hundred civilians left in the village, which is why they haven’t leveled it.
Fair enough, JM. I’m afraid it’s not me, though, who is bringing out the bad news. It is in plain view for all.
Loose lips sink ships.
Negative talk does not help.
Unreasonable expectations about speed and cost are, well, unreasonable.
And possibly worse.
Armchair brilliance is exactly that.
We all mean well. At least Michael posted a Psalm. You fathers out there, hug your children little more because they know what is going on. And talk positively.
Anybody in New York can go to Wash. Sq. Park and look up at what it says over the big Arch there.
At least Israel knows what it’s facing. Better now than later, even if this campaign could have been waged before Iran funnelled $100 million to H.
Eyal, no idea.
Tom, if mechanized forces are at a disadvantage, don’t send them in. The force that was killed today was infantry anyway.
As for the success of the air campaign, all I can say is that this is what is expected. However, we don’t know how successful it was overall because we don’t know what intelligence Israel might be missing. Certainly, based on Hizbullah’s strength in the South, it’s hard to call the air campaign a huge success.
Zed Zed, how many of those civilians were Hizbullah members?
TM, do you know if the IDF released a list of the injured soldiers’ names?
Middle, perhaps you should widen your focus to include the air campaign, in which Israel exercised complete dominance. That part of the war went well (or according to plan, put it that way).
And Alex is right. The landscape favors defense by those who know it well and have a greater stake in retaining it. Israel’s mechanized forces, tanks etc., may not be of much use in mined, hilly terrain with an entrenched enemy. (Shades of the campaign led by Albert Kesselring in Italy, seen as the textbook fighting retreat. Our tanks availed us little in that similar, hilly environment.)
It is still disproportionate becuase of the civilian deaths inflicted by the IDF.
By the way – STOP KILLING CANADIANS – FFS!
Alex, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a conventional war or not. Planning, intelligence and tactics dictate success or failure. I also don’t think this was a budget issue or an issue of not believing in fighting. They certainly attacked heavy-handedly from the air and I would venture that part of the problem is their expectation that the fancy toys will be sufficient to win easily.
Ben David, seriously, is this the time to be talking about secular and religious? Cuz among the dead Israeli soldiers thus far, I saw a number of kibbutznikim who were likely secular and certainly represented disproportionately to their percentage of the population. You want to talk about different mindsets, that’s fine, but let’s leave the religious wars to other discussions – nobody fighting is paying attention to who is wearing a kippah.
If it were me, I would flatten those couple of villages that have Huzzies in them.
I don’t see any problems in this. I would prefer to save even one Israeli casualty. BTW, some of these guys who live, their lives will be shit. They will not have the same physical capacity and abilities as before.
I would also advise Israel to drop the nuke on Iran.
At some point. This thing is getting out of hand real fast.
Israel’s only hope, since they don’t follow my strategy in sentence # 1, is to make this a world war.
I am once again, deeply dismayed by Israel’s so called actions.
But I am not boycotting, I will be there as planned in a couple of weeks.
Hope to see all the jL’s there.
… and the “intolerably heavy” casualties during the years we occupied southern Lebanon – the ones the leftie Mother’s Groups wrung their hands over?
Just over twenty men a year.
By the time this is over, we will (G-d forbid) have “recouped” the “peace benefit” of the past 6 years – with interest. With civilian casualties.
The Yom Kippur War – the hubris the led up to it, and the dissillusionment that followed – were the first crack in the secular elite’s hold on power.
This war will likely finish the job – or at least cause similar political and social upheavals.
TM those were conventional wars of maneuver.Where hundreds of thousands people were involved on all sides.Look lets be honest 13 years of “piss process”,the army losing prestige,slashing budgets ,reducing training time for reserve, and only fighting piss poor Palestinian lamoids mostly from Helis, wasnt going to help things.And lets not forget here we have an army that DOESN’T BELIEVE in military solutions.
Adam, Israel used to have a 1:10 and even much higher ratios of casualties against its enemies. Even if Hizbullah lost 50 fighters, the ratio here is far too low.
In any case, the point is that if you go back to the statements made by the Israeli political and military leadership at the beginning, a week ago and today, you see a significant change. No longer are we talking about destroying Hizbullah and a simple air campaign. All of a sudden we are moving to weeks of future hard fighting with ground forces and eventual occupation of S. Lebanon…and Hizbullah will only be weakened not destroyed. All of this in just two weeks?
after the ambush in Jenin (13 dead as well by the way) the IDf adjusted its tactics ,hopefully it will do the same today.
well you pretty much sum it up perfectly.But it is the politicians fault that the ground operation is limited and lacks much strategic purpose, and that for two and a half weeks nothing was used except airpower.However casualties in urban fighting against a determined guerrila enemy are unavoidable.But as you pointed some of them have been due to poor intelligence,and neglidgence.
Here’s the thing though..unfortunately casualties are going to come. Hezbollah has the “home field advantage” not to mention the geographic advantage of being up in hills, mountains, etc…firing down on advancing IDF troops. Another thought; I was just reading the APs report of this as well…and no where in the article does it mention the number of Hezbollah casualties (which by all accounts have been fairly massive in these attacks).