Logical Thinking
Why did Israel invade Lebanon?
The very first reason was to bring back the two kidnapped Israeli soldiers. After 32 days of bloody war, Israel failed to even locate where these soldiers really are. Israeli officials, during the first days of the war, insisted that they will not even consider negotiating a prisoners swap with HA, saying that Israel won't tolerate such behavior from HA anymore. After 32 days, Israeli foreign minister said that Israel is welling to discuss exchanging of prisoners! WHY on hell did you rage a madness meaningless war for over a month, destroying a whole country when you were accepting such swapping procedure in the first place??!!
The second reason was that Israel wanted to eliminate HA arsenal once and for all. After 32 days, the mighty IDF (not sarcastic, in military considerations, IDF is a mighty army) wasn't even able to prevent HA rockets from hitting northern Israel, not to mention its fail in eliminating HA arsenal. Even though IDF used almost all of its power, they weren't succeeding in meeting the goals they set before the war.
Pathetically enough, PM Olmert adjusted his invasion goal to only addressing a "strong blow" to HA, so that its rockets won't threat Israel anymore. Those who think so are either stupid or ignorant; are you blind? Don't you see that you made HA even stronger than ever? Just last night, Mr. Nasrallah promised all the refugees that he will re-build their houses. Not only that, but he will give money to all these families so that they can rent houses and buy furniture for a year till their original homes are re-build. Israel has given Nasrallah a once in a life time opportunity to tell the shites that you don't need your government or your country, HA is your government, HA is your country and it is HA who will protect your interests. Israel helped HA to become a real country within country. And while Israel says that she can't live when there's a terrorist organization on its northern borders, now you made HA strong enough to influence and even dominate the Lebanese political scene, so that before you know it, you won't have a terrorist organization near you, but you'll have a terrorist country!
Israel has assassinated all efforts the Lebanese spent years trying to build a real independent country. Those who were against HA arsenal before July 12th can't even talk about disarming it now! In his speech, Nasrallah was clear: "We will not accept such debates about disarming us anymore". Those who were in favor of making peace with Israel can't even mention it nowadays; how can we call for peace, when Israel caused all this destruction in Lebanon?
March 14th movement, who was successful in getting rid of the Syrian influence in Lebanon, and who was trying to establish a real sovereign state, has lost all its cards now. You have brought us 30 years back, and you have allowed HA to establish itself victorious and to force his own terms on the rest of the Lebanese parties.
We won't give though, we are used to struggle for our beloved country, and we are willing to continue our struggle because we believe in a real independent sovereign Lebanon. But Israel, with its "stupid inexperienced" leadership, has cost us a huge boost we gained after years of struggling. A boost that we will need years to come to re-gain, in our struggle to establish our Lebanon.
Our hopes are now on PM Seniora, who by far, represents all of our hopes and dreams, and share with us the unconditional enormous love for Lebanon.
"Our choice is clear. We have chosen lif. We have overcome wars and destruction over the ages. We shall rise up again.”
PM Seniora, Beirut, July 27th, 2006
Posted by
FaiLaSooF
5 comments:
But Israel, with its "stupid inexperienced" leadership, has cost us a huge boost we gained after years of struggling
----------------
I can t agree with everything you say but this part is correct. I appreciate you ability to be thinking so rationally without descending in the morass of wild conspiracy theories under these circumstances.
My understanding of the matter is that Olmert, Peretz and Halutz mismanaged the whole thing on the gigantic scale. I was nt against this war and i do think that it s impossible to hit hezbollah without inflicting suffering on its shiite support base. If only because urban warfare and blending with civilian population became hezbollah's favorite tactics.
This war has become an unmitigated disaster for the both countries. Nasrallah is the king now and Asad lost the last trace of restrain. I think the worst is yet to come
But Israel, with its "stupid inexperienced" leadership, has cost us a huge boost we gained after years of struggling
Nasrallah was just dithering. He knew all along that he retained the power of initiative, that he could initiate an armed conflict with Israel and arrive at the current result. It is only a defeat for Lebanese democracy if you accept it as such.
Let me give you a parallel example. Over three centuries ago, England faced a similar problem: its new monarch, James II, having previously proved himself in battle on the world's oceans, now wanted to convert England back to Roman Catholicism. In its "Glorious Revolution" of 1688 the English exiled their lawful monarch and installed a Dutchman to take his place.
In short, the English risked their lives by choosing to maintain their values over blind patriotic loyalty to a crown they felt would betray their souls. As I recall, this Revolution was entirely bloodless.
Dear Solomon2,
It is clear that you don't know how things are in Lebanon. You can't compare Engalnd in 17th century to Lebanon now.
We are fighting for our country, we got rid of Israeli occupation once, then we got rid of the Syrian troops, and we will always work on getting rid of everyone who want to dominate us.
But solomon2, you can't NOT to agree that Israel last invasion only made things worse. If they were smart enough, they wouldn't have done such a thing, or at least, continue what they are doing till they can acheive something. Instead, they only killed civilians, and then realized they got stuck once again in "Lebanese mud" and hurried for UN to reach a ceasefire....
Are you sure that it isn't because you aren't familiar with 17th century England that you can't see the parallel?
You didn't "get rid of Israeli occupation once", not through armed confrontation, anyway. Israeli public opinion was such that, after the PLO artillery threat had been removed, people wondered more and more why troops had to stay. The PLO wasn't coming back. Occupation seemed like a dirty business. It was better for Israeli souls to depart and let the Lebanese be. If that meant not challenging the fiction that the Lebanese kicked out the Israelis, that was fine as long as there was peace. The dozen or so soldiers the Lebanese resistance killed every year were an additional grief for the Israelis, not the primary cause for their departure.
Along with most of the Western world, I applauded - just look at my blog! - at how the Lebanese wielded "people power" following the assasination of King Hariri (let us be frank, he was your king; he even meets the historical definition of a king) to kick out the Syrians.
However, as soon as politics went back behind closed doors matters started to fall apart, didn't they? All sorts of compromises, and then that self-serving clown Aoun, who as "General" had vowed to kick the Syrians out himself just before escaping to Paris, returned and cut his own deal with Nasrallah, gravely weakening the March 14th movement.
The bitter truth is that time and time again Lebanese have been divided along sectarian lines and this results in a gravely weakened state. Anyone with enough money and muscle - the French, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Syrians, the Iranians - can come along and dominate any central government fairly easily. Lebanese vote sectarian and are assumed to be loyal to whoever pays the bills - you heard Nasrallah's promises - and dividing the country by paying off one or more sects never seems to fail, they can dominate for a long time without Lebanese lifting a finger.
As a medical student, you must have looked on the bombardment many times thinking, "Wow, a few feet away and many more people could have been hurt. It happens often enough, we're lucky it doesn't happen more often." It wasn't luck. Lebanon survived the Israeli onslaught not because its people are tough but because Israel did its very best to minimize civilian casualties while attacking a Hezbollah that crouched behind and hid within the civilian population. Given the tonnage of bombs available to the Israelis, a raid that was truly aimed at the defenceless Lebanese population would have killed tens of thousands.
The truly pernicious thing about false propaganda is that even though you know it's false, you start to believe it bit by bit, unless you're very careful. It's a myth that "Israelis only killed civilians." Despite the limited civilian casualties, Israel did achieve something, as far as Israel is concerned: a substantial weakening of Hezbollah's military capability, and the demonstration that Hezbollah's "deterrent" was meaningless: Israel can conquer Lebanon anytime it wants to. But why bother if they don't have to? If the Lebanese gov't offered some encouragement and cooperation, the Israelis might have decided to stay and help uproot Hezbollah. But given the Lebanese attitude, why should Israel do all the dirty work alone? It would be difficult to do without Lebanese cooperation.
However, it looks like that opportunity is over now. The true choice, like that of 1688, is whether the Lebanese value "patriotism" over their democratic values. For sixty years Arab despots have used Israel to stir the cauldron of hatred that blinds and binds their subject populations. Nasrallah - who started this war, no matter what some people claim - is counting on the formula working yet again. How will you choose?
Solomon2,
When you wanna approach such a sensitive topic, you need to be unbiased. Not only were you biased, but you don't een want to consider the Lebanese points of view.
The good thing about fre media is that you can hear wha'ts going on on the other side of teh borders. Israel was "forced" to get out of Lebanon; because compared to Golan heights, Israelis were suffering too many casualties. Not a day passes that you don't see engagement between Israelis troops and lebanese (not only HA at that time, many diferent parties).
Israeli puplic opinion, the high cost of such meaningless occupation and let's fact it, the pressure from the international community (who wanted nothing but to put Syria and HA in the corner) lead Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. If it wasn't for our resistance, Israel would have still been occupying southern Lebanon, exactly like the case of Golan heights.
Please save me the crap about "Israel not targetting civilians". Israel tried its best to deivde the Lebanese community, but targetting one part without the other. That was the strategy during the first days of war. But all other Lebanese parties should solidarity though they said after war, we have some serious things to discuss.
more than 1000 casulties, mostly children, and you tell me "despite limited number of casualties"??!! what is a huge number in your thinking? 10000 and more??!! Have you no shame?!!!
About what happened last year. You need to undertsand that in Lebanon, majority can't rule alone, ou always have to consider the minority, and make sure that no one religious sector is left behind. March 14th lacked the shiites, and that was a huge problem; yes we were the majority, but we lacked the biggest one sector community! Then came the clown Aoun, ans being an ex-general, he can't work unless he's in the top of the pyramid, something that the rest of March 14th weren't accepting, so he turned into HA, he saw in Aoun a perfect CHRISTIAN ally. You really think that a government lacking shittes and Aoun's overwhelming christian support (at the time) could have survived? Compromises were a "MUST", I didn't agree on it then, but no other solution was in hand.
And no, not any one can come here and dominate the central government easily, and Israel is an excellent example to that. Five wars Israel had against Lebanon, and in all these wars, Israel was never succeeded. and if you are going to refer to 1982, then I want you to recall how May 17th agrement (though it was a good one for Lebanon) was refused and cancelled.
Solomon2, it is easy to be away and talk about "measured responses" and "the right of self-defense". But when you want to come and talk politics, you don't have the right to be biased, specially when you are NOT a part of the conflict. That is USA biggest mistake, and it seems it is yours as well.
Post a Comment