A smart, successful war

[kentuck]

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/746315.html

<snip>
This is not only a just war, but also a smart and successful one. There is no need to go on at length about its justness, but there is a dispute over its success and whether it was managed wisely. Most of the political and military commentators have few good things to say about this aspect. They are critical of the wisdom of the political echelon and point to the supposed foolishness of the military. Thus there is a vast gulf between the majority of the public and the media.

<snip>

In the first week of the 1982 war, between 6,000 and 10,000 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed. This time, in about three weeks of fighting, about 700 Lebanese civilians and more than 300 Hezbollah men have been killed. In 1982 Israel provoked Syria and sought to drag it into the war (and almost succeeded). This time Israel is trying to leave Syria out of the war.


In 1982, the government of Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon set out to create a chain reaction with the aim of bringing about a new regional order. The intention was to get the Christians in Lebanon, under Bashir Gemayel, into the ranks of leadership of the country so that they would expel the Palestinians to Syria, in the hope that from there they would move to Jordan and establish a Palestinian state there. This time Israel wants to leave the pro-Western government of Fouad Siniora intact, and to undermine Hezbollah without doing too much damage to Lebanon's fragile religious-ethnic-political fabric.

These limitations stem from the Israeli interest and from an explicit American request. They are the reason not only for the American support, but also for the understanding of the majority of the world's countries, including the tacit understanding of most of the Arab states. Similarly, the majority of Lebanese both in Lebanon and abroad want to see Hezbollah defeated and humiliated.

[Bob3]

1. Rule of thumb - if someone has to say how well it is going

how successful it is, it's not going well. War is not that complex - it's brutal and horrible, but it's not complicated. This should be filed right along side the National review Article on how we were winning in Iraq.

[OneBlueSky]

2. "There is no need to go on at length about its justness" . . .

um . . . there most certainly is . . .

this war, like most wars, is not what it is publicized to be . . . it is a US proxy war between, the true target being Iran . . .

like most wars, it's a racket, designed to fatten the coffers of Halliburton, Bechtel, oil companies, and arms dealers . . . political considerations are secondary, or even nonexistant, to the war makers . . . their true agenda involves money, power, and control, not "ending terrorism" or responding to attacks on Israel . . . those are just the their public excuses . . .

War Is A Racket
by Gen. Smedley Butler

http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

- more . . .

http://lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm