The Perfect Soldier: Special Operations, Commandos, and the Future of Us Warfare by James F. Dunnigan
More Books by James Dunnigan
|
Dirty Little Secrets
Israel's Plans Unfold
by James Dunnigan
August 1, 2006
Discussion Board on this DLS topic
July 21, 2006: The Israeli attacks on Hizbollah military
facilities are having an effect, with rocket Hizbollah launches down by
more than half (to about 40 today). Israel has several thousand troops
in southern Lebanon, and they are going after the Hizbollah rocket
launching teams. The Israelis have found that their tactic of dropping
leaflets warning civilians to stay away from residential areas used to
store weapons, and especially rockets, has worked. Despite Hizbollah
efforts for force civilians to stay in their homes, the the vast
majority of civilians fled villages and neighborhoods where it was
known Hizbollah was storing rockets. Thus most of the Israeli bombs
destroyed rockets and housing, not people. The UN has not accepted
this, but has bowed to media spin and pro-Hizbollah propaganda, to get
behind the terrorists, and accuse Israel of using "disproportionate
force." The UN is demanding a cease fire (which, to Hizbollah, is
interpreted as a pause before the next round of attacks on Israel).
Despite frequent UN rhetoric about the benefits of democracy, they
appear to have an imperfect grasp of how it actually works. For
example, if a terrorist group were to fire a thousand rockets into any
democracy, the citizens of said democracy would demand military action
against the attackers, not a cease fire and avoidance of
"disproportionate response."
Israel is now moving into the second week of a three week military
operation. The first week was mainly a bombing campaign to cripple
Hizbollah's ability to easily move men and munitions around, and to
destroy Hizbollah facilities, particularly rocket storage sites. The
air campaign has hit about 1,200 targets so far, including some 200
rocket storage sites. There have been about a thousand Lebanese
casualties, less than one per air strike.
The second week has small groups of ground troops going into
southern Lebanon to investigate suspected rocket storage sites. This
tactic has uncovered those storage sites Hizbollah was able to build
and hide from Israeli air and satellite reconnaissance. So far, about
half the Hizbollah stocks of rockets have been destroyed, while about a
thousands of the rockets have been fired into Israel. It's currently
estimated that Hizbollah had some 14,000 rockets, mostly smaller
(122mm) ones.
Hizbollah had also trained several dozen teams of men to get the
rockets out of their storage sites and launch them into northern
Israel. In the third week of the Israeli military plan, more troops
will go into southern Lebanon, and Hizbollah fighters killed or driven
out. At that point, Lebanon or the UN can be invited to come in and
take charge of the area, with some guarantees (a big sticking point)
that Hizbollah will not move back. If that doesn't work, Israel has the
option of creating a 30-40 kilometer deep neutral zone in southern
Lebanon. Several hundred thousand Lebanese civilians have already fled
that zone, and may not be allowed back in until something is done about
Hizbollah.
|
|
