Ground to a Halt (NYT ... Robert Pape ,,, Lebanon)

[mom cat]

NYT

Editorials

Ground to a Halt


By ROBERT PAPE
Published: August 3, 2006
Chicago

ISRAEL has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power won’t work either. The problem is not that the Israelis have insufficient military might, but that they misunderstand the nature of the enemy.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom, Hezbollah is principally neither a political party nor an Islamist militia. It is a broad movement that evolved in reaction to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in June 1982. At first it consisted of a small number of Shiites supported by Iran. But as more and more Lebanese came to resent Israel’s occupation, Hezbollah — never tight-knit — expanded into an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious and secular aims.

In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less comparable to, say, a religious cult like the Taliban than to the multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960’s. What made its rise so rapid, and will make it impossible to defeat militarily, was not its international support but the fact that it evolved from a reorientation of pre-existing Lebanese social groups.

Evidence of the broad nature of Hezbollah’s resistance to Israeli occupation can be seen in the identity of its suicide attackers. Hezbollah conducted a broad campaign of suicide bombings against American, French and Israeli targets from 1982 to 1986. Altogether, these attacks — which included the infamous bombing of the Marine barracks in 1983 — involved 41 suicide terrorists.
More at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03pape.html?ex=1154750400&en=274cdd5c1cf26497&ei=5087%0A

[Demeter]

1. Important And Cogent Analysis

If only we had some brains like his in the GOP. Or anywhere else in the power structure. We have got to get the crazies, madmen and idiots out of power.

[Hoping4Change]

3. Hear hear. nt

K & R

[mom cat]

6. As someone who has really studied suicide bombers, he knows of

what he speaks. We tried bombing viet Nam back to the stone age, and look what happened. People resist occupation.

[Little Star]

2. K&R

[ChairmanAgnostic]

4. how dare he?

Doesn't he know that things are white and black, either you're with us or you are the enemy? that this is a global war on terra? That democarcass is spreading throughout the region and that soon they will all share in the success of Iraq?

[mom cat]

7. BUT: We need to spread de MOCKracy, or democarcasses or

whatecer it is we are supossed to be spreading.
I just want to spreas peace and justice and reality based education ... like we are killing our planet for instance.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

8. damn straight, Mother feline.

I suspect that all of the those here who are against Israel's attacks in lebanon + all the voices decrying the repeated missile attacks by H'zbullah, and those here against Mr. Bush's Little Iraqi Invasion would all agree with you and your aims.

[mom cat]

9. and you too anti fast shits!

[leveymg]

5. An occupation Hezballah will just revert to form. This is the worst

thing possible for Israel and us to be creating a lot of less disciplined, less cohesive Lebanese splinter groups that are going to revert to suicide bombings and hijacking airplanes. Maybe worse.

Olmert and Bush, you idiots - what an incredibly stupid thing to do.

[Lindacooks]

10. But I was told in another thread that Hezbollah wasn't a grass roots

movement.

If the civil-rights movement of the 1960s wasn't grass-roots, what was?

[eridani]

11. There are a lot of similarities

There were non-violent activists, establishment types and armed self-defense types (some of whom later became gang-linked). All were against second class status for black people.