A New Enemy Gains on the U.S. ("It abides by no laws of war")

NY Times ^ | 7/30/06 | Thom Shanker

[frankjr]

POUND for pound and pounding for pounding, the Israeli military is one of the world’s finest. But Hezbollah, with the discipline and ferocity of its fighters and ability to field advanced weaponry, has taken Israel by surprise.

Now that surprise has rocketed back to Washington and across the American military.

United States officials worry that they’re not prepared, either, for Hezbollah’s style of warfare — a kind that pits finders against hiders and favors the hiders.

Certain that other terrorists are learning from Hezbollah’s successes, the United States is studying the conflict closely for lessons to apply to its own wars. Military planners suggest that the Pentagon take a page out of Hezbollah’s book about small-unit, agile operations as it battles insurgents and cells in Iraq and Afghanistan and plans for countering more cells and their state sponsors across the Middle East and in Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America.

To attack Israel, Hezbollah dispersed its fighters with no distinguishing markings or uniforms or vehicles. Fighters access the weapons only at the moment of attack, and then disappear. This makes preventing the attack all but impossible. It is a significant modernization of classic guerrilla hit-and-run tactics. Israel has been unable to significantly degrade the numbers of rockets because of this approach. Hezbollah fired more than 100 a day at the start of this conflict; they are still firing more than 100 a day, despite Israeli bombardment.

Hezbollah still possesses the most dangerous aspects of a shadowy terror network. It abides by no laws of war as it attacks civilians indiscriminately. Attacks on its positions carry a high risk of killing innocents. At the same time, it has attained military capabilities and other significant attributes of a nation-state.

[frankjr]

Plus when a terrorist is killed wearing street clothes, Hezbollah gets the benefit of media propaganda when CNN reports it as another "civilian" killed.

[Jumper]

Simple to win; separate the people from terrorists. Barring separation, bury them together. Terrorists by their very tactics require the cover of the populace. Islamic terrorism may well one day require destruction of Islamic populations -- pure and simple!

Looking at the Hezbollah tactics of using rocket fire on Israeli civilian population centers (not the Israeli military) and Israeli counter fire upon Hezbollah fighters -- this war will soon reach a point where the Hezbollah civilian population centers will have to be destroyed to ferret out the terrorist-tactic fighters who hide amongst their people.

[muawiyah]

Notice how Shales (and by extension his masters at the NYT) relishes the supposed success of Hezbollah.

[Jmouse007]

Ah the NYT is at it again, cheering for the enemy. I have never read the NYT describing American or Israeli fighting men in such glowing terms.

From their description it is plain to see that Hezbollah, is glorious in their eyes. I hope and pray that the NYT continues to lose readers and rots.

[mtbopfuyn]

Oh, no! The sky is falling!

[goldstategop]

Exactly. Hezbollah doesn't abide by the accepted rules of warfare. That's what makes finishing them off so difficult.

(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)

[2nd Amendment]

Civilians who consent to be under the protection of Hezbollah are combatants.

[montag813]

Why can't we make out "finding" efforts easier by using drones to unleash huge amounts of sleeping gas over swatchs of Lebanese territory, to render every person unconscious for 6-20 hours (this is possible), and then have troops safely move in to sort out the wheat from the chaff, as it were. Air and troops campaigns are so obsolete. We have such technology and must put it to use.

[kabar]

Israel has been unable to significantly degrade the numbers of rockets because of this approach. Hezbollah fired more than 100 a day at the start of this conflict; they are still firing more than 100 a day, despite Israeli bombardment.

Hezbullah has had years to build up its weapons supply. Syria and Iran have been providing them with arms for years. Hezbullah's supply is not infinite. They cannot fire 100 a day forever. More than likely, they are close to exhausting their supply. We need to follow the Bush doctrine. Go after the terrorists and the states that harbor them.

[sure_fine]

unless and until the east want to stop it, the only way this will ever be resolved is the final east-west war


it is Islam that we fight, every denomination of it

for them, it is everyone who is not islamic

[john drake]

U.S. military worried? Only if it causes an escalation in the war, which is probably inevitable anyway. Correct me if I'm wrong, the hezbollah are indiscriminate, murdering guerilla fighters that now are being further coached by Syria and Iran with more technically advanced weapons systems. Does that make them worse, yes, both for the Israelis (temporarily; as long as the Israelis continue their defensive war against them) and for the general civilian population they hide among, even more so. The free world has to come to grips with the fact that the very nature of this kind of fighting (cowardly by western standards) will require mass indirect killing of civilians. There is no way around it, as horrible as that may seem. It's war and people are going to die. I suppose if the Lebanese government had some testicles, it would've attempted to rid itself of this cancer years ago, but it too is afraid to take on this scum being supported by Syria and Iran. I assume that until those who want some kind of lasting peace in the Mideast (won't happen given the nature of islam) understand that Iran and Syria need also to be destroyed, that this type of fighting will continue and arise from time to time, as it always has. Israel is doing the right thing; it has to if it wants to survive. It's enemies once again are trying to use the MSM and their own self-created victim status to sway world opinion to their favor; I pray to God the West sees these vermin for what they really are; enemies of free peoples everywhere in the world. They are the new nazis and communists, using similar tactics, except guised in a religion. A religion that is not one of peace, but of constant war against all those not of it's own.

[duckman]

"United States officials worry that they’re not prepared, either, for Hezbollah’s style of warfare..."
The Hezzies train all their life to die, US trains to live and go back home to their families. How does one prepare for that? IMO

[cannonball]

"--- ability to field advanced weaponry ---"

Ahhhh -- WWII rockets are advanced weaponry???

[DoctorMichael]

Agreed. Amen.

[capitalist229]

Simple.

Take Beirut, annex Lebanon, saturate with IDF.

Rinse and repeat throughout ME until clean.

BUMP

[meyer]

"A New Enemy Gains on the U.S. ("It abides by no laws of war")"

That new enemy is the New York Times, but contrary to the headline, it does abide by the laws of war - propoganda is an effective weapon, and the leftists at the NYT know how to use it.

[nevergore]

Hardly...

Many are held there against their will, prevented from leaving as "human shields" for either preventing Israel from hitting them or if Israel does strike, their dead bodies serve as propaganda tools.

They are expendable pawns being used by Hezbolloh in their goal to destroy Israel and kill all Jews.....

[cydcharisse]

No, I didn't notice any "relishing" on the part of Shales. I did notice a pretty good description of Hezbollah's techniques.

[PGalt]

We are witnessing the greatest anti-freedom, anti-individual collective in the history of mankind.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Bald-er-dash.

Hezbollah isn't much different than the Japanese or the Hitler Jugend. The difference is the ruthlessness with which we are willing to prosecute war against them.

[F105-D ThunderChief]

"Plus when a terrorist is killed wearing street clothes, Hezbollah gets the benefit of media propaganda when CNN reports it as another "civilian" killed."

How has terrorists cowering in the midst of a civilian population become acceptable? No UN Security Council condemnation about that!

[johnny7]

More than likely, they are close to exhausting their supply.

Hard to tell... but even a couple hundred sorties a day can't keep replenishment arriving from Syria. Syria and their big brother Iran are the real enemy... and until these pestholes are fumigated... there will never be peace.

[ketelone]

Yuu try and refuse being under the 'protection' of someone weilding an AK, when yore unarmed, and have a wife, kids, and home to think of.

[calex59]

The times, making the news to fit their viewpoint. How do they keep coming up with this BS? Hezbullsh** is winning and "taking Israel by surprise"? We will see what happens at the end of this little dust up. Israel has only committed about 25 percent of their forces to this war and Olmert needs to really go all out if he expects to actually pulverize them but as far as being beaten as the NYslimes would have you believe, this is pure BS.

[AndrewB]

Why can't we make out "finding" efforts easier by using drones to unleash huge amounts of sleeping gas over swatchs of Lebanese territory, to render every person unconscious for 6-20 hours

The Ruskies already tried something like that. Didn't work out so well.

[sgtbono2002]

You have it Duckman. These guys cant wait to die their lives are so friggin miserable under Islamic laws they believe in an after life thats better. When you kill them you do them a favor. You cant compare that with the lives of people who believe in love and life.

When the doctor cuts a cancer from your body he also cuts a lot of healthy cells and tosses them out. Fighting Islamic whacko's unfortunately has to be done the same way.
Islamic want us dead. There is no such thing as an innocent Islamic no matter what clothes he is wearing.

[wita]

Or, as in this case the NYTimes. This article is meant to do one thing only, place the military of Isreal and the US in a negative light, while boosting the vision of Hez. Woodshed way past due.

[hellbender]

Although Hezbollah fights as a guerilla force, they get their weapons and other material from conventional nation-states who manufacture the rockets and ship them to the Hezzies. It seems to me the only way to defeat them is to go beyond Lebanon and deal with Syria and Iran. That in fact is what Bush once promised to do: take the war to any nation which supported and sheltered terrorists.

[YOUGOTIT]

And the New York Times will provide the terrorist all of the Secret data necessary to carry out the strikes against Americans.

[Peelod]

Why is ANY building south of the Litani still standing?

Only rodents, cockroaches and microbes ought to be permitted.

[Wolfie]

Tell the civilians they'll stop dying in large numbers when they stop supporting the terrorists. Hiroshima wasn't a surgical strike.

[Recon Dad]

There game is to wear down democracies. They know that we respond to our populations and if they just wait us out they win. We don't have the stomach anymore for protracted conflict.

[YOUGOTIT]

"this war will soon reach a point where the Hezbollah civilian population centers will have to be destroyed to ferret out the terrorist-tactic fighters who hide amongst their people."

As was the case in Nazi Germany, Tojo's Japan and Fascist Italy. Although we held back in Italy since the population decided to take matters into their own hands and kill the dictator.

History has been forgotten when one says civilians cannot be killed in total war. Civilian deaths are not avoidable in total war unless one wants to lose and come under control of the terrorist or governments who are making the war.

We are at war with a group that will only be defeated by total elimination or we all convert to Islam. It would seem that we have US Senators who want to lose this war and have some misguided thoughts that they will be in charge when the Mullahs will be in command. The terrorist do not care how many civilians they kill or are killed because they are cowards that hide behind women and children. The American people must come to understand that to win this war and protect our culture and freedoms the enemy must be eliminated from the face of the earth. People who are not involved will be killed because of the tactics of the terrorist enemies of civilization. To keep our freedom and culture that is the cost of war.

[montag813]

The Ruskies already tried something like that. Didn't work out so well.

I am familiar with the Opera house gas. It was a very unfortunate choice of weapon. There are a half dozen better alternatives. And I would even prefer the use of that gas, instead of sending troops in harm's way to go house-to-house, as we did in Fallujah.

[VOA]

Plus when a terrorist is killed wearing street clothes, Hezbollah gets the
benefit of media propaganda when CNN reports it as another "civilian" killed.

I was shocked when Anderson Cooper on CNN did expose a bit of the
terrorists mendacity.
On Friday night, CNN had "a day in the war" over an hour.
Cooper got into South Beirut with his crew. The Hizbollah got him
(and lots of other news crews) to come to an area where all the
ambulances for Hizbollah were lined up...
so that the cameras could capture the horror of these ambulances (with no patients
inside) roar off with their sirens wailing.
Completely staged photo-op and Cooper did say that it was a staged event
done by Hizbollah to promote their image.

I guess CNN occassionally tries to get people to forget their
softened stories from Iraq (for access to Saddam's people for stories).

[fortheDeclaration]

There game is to wear down democracies. They know that we respond to our populations and if they just wait us out they win. We don't have the stomach anymore for protracted conflict.

That is exactly what the Nazi's and Japanese thought also.

Never underestimate the U.S. resolve.

We lasted 8 years in Vietnam and left South Vietnam an intact nation.

The Communists only took over because of Watergate, a weakened Presidency and a Democrat controlled Congress, not because the American people gave up.

That has been the Media spin since the fall of Saigon.

[Panzerfaust]

"United States officials worry that they’re not prepared, either, for Hezbollah’s style of warfare..." The Hezzies train all their life to die, US trains to live and go back home to their families. How does one prepare for that? IMO

You simply train the US soldiers to facilitate the early death of the Hezzies.

[Farmer Dean]

The enemies belief in death should make him somewhat careless on the field of battle.This is a weakness we can exploit-a skilled sniper should be able to cause them some real problems for example.

[Stallone]

In order of priority:

1. Destroy Liberal Media;
2. Bomb Anything That Moves.

Next...

[G Larry]

Why isn't Israel flying drones over Lebanon to detect and preemptively destroy the terrorists as they aim their weapons?

[Vision]

That's when you start bombing entire cities.

[Comstock1]

This is the United Nations fault. Let me say it a different way: no organization in history has done more to allow the festering of open canker sores around the world than the United Nations and its so-called peace keepers.

Wherever the UN has footprints, the situation is never resolved. North Korea--technically still at war with--well everybody. Congo, still not resolved. Lebanon--what exactly is the UN definition of peace keeping--allowing one side to continually fire rockets at the other and then castigate the other side if it retaliates? The UN run camps are the main thing that let the Palestinian organizations hang on.

By not allowing these conflicts to come to a natural resolution, the UN makes things worse. It essentailly sat as a dumb witness while Hezbollah became a nation state unto itself. Now that nation state is armed with all the advanced weaponry that Russia, China, North Korea and France will sell to Iran and Syria.

Right under the noses of the UN observers, Hezbollah built networks of tunnels and reinforced bunkers that the Israelis are having a lot of trouble taking out.

This isn't just Kofi Annan's fault. It is the whole United Nations organization. They are more concerned with stability and cease fires than actually solving problems. Stability is not resolution. Resolution is stability. The inability to see the difference has cost thousands of lives all around the globe.

There is no better example of the saying "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" than what the United Nations does. The United Nations is a colossal failure at being anything more than a PR vechicle for itself and some of the worst governments in modern history.

[USMCVet]

Ping for later

[Amos the Prophet]

Note the article ignores the heroic efforts of Rumsfeld who has completely changed the structure of the US armed forces. The Pentagon is way ahead of these lunatics. We fought precisely the same war in Japan against kamikaze tactics. The small, independent US military force is in play in Iraq, Afghanistan and as black ops in Iraq, Iran and elsewhere.
Rice and Bolton are putting in place a new style of diplomacy. For the first time in decades they are adding teeth to our diplomacy. No more is the state dept merely a source of endless chatter.
For all the NYT hysteria we lack only the political will to succeed. We have the military and the diplomatic skill. It is the lunatics on the left that can sink us with their naive ignorance, not the mainstream of America.

[Bigh4u2]

"Military planners suggest that the Pentagon take a page out of Hezbollah’s book about small-unit, agile operations "

Uhhh. We already have them.

It's called 'Special Forces'.

This guy is a dope!

[300winmag]

To attack Israel, Hezbollah dispersed its fighters with no distinguishing markings or uniforms or vehicles.

Excuse me, but that's in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Is the same NY Slimes that demands we grant terrorists the same rights as American teenage shoplifters now cooing about how smart those terrorists are in being war criminals?

[johnny7]

...as the NYslimes would have you believe, this is pure BS.

What do you expect when the sources given for the article are an ex-Clinton crony and a lib at the Brookings Institute... peewits. Shanker's name befits him.

[nathanbedford]

You just do not get it, do you?

Hezbollah has already won this skirmish in the war on terrorism. It has managed to divide most of Europe away from America. America is bound hand and foot to Israel by our domestic politics and Europe is increasingly coming under the influence of its Arab/Muslim minorities. Soon, European politicians will have to show the Muslims more than just a little ankle and begin to really pander in earnest. American politicians will be driven in the other direction by the Israeli lobby.

Once a breach between America and Europe has been achieved, the Islamic fundamentalists will have have gone far toward winning the war.

On the ground in Lebanon, the Israelis have not demonstrated that their kill rate is high enough to sustain prolonged combat against hundreds of millions of Arabs. The Israelis have not demonstrated that they can protect their homeland against missiles. The Israelis have not demonstrated they have a solution to an indefinite reign of random missiles on their homeland from embedded civilian-shielded launch sites as far as hundreds of miles away.

Where are we winning? In Afghanistan the insurgency is turning sour. In Iraq, problems of casualties and squandered billions aside, we have managed to midwife the installation of a Shi'ite government which no doubt will be a proxy of Iran. Meanwhile, Iran itself inches ever closer to atomic weapons. Now Lebanon is in flames with Hezbollah having obtained every geopolitical strategic goal it could have hoped for. The price of oil is spiking and the effects on Western economies have already led to the twin evils of inflation and economic downturn with the economic growth rate recently being cut in half in America. Americans have turned against the war in Iraq with the real possibility that the Republicans could lose control of at least one house of Congress. The presidential election in 2008 looks grim for those who would actually fight a war against terrorism.

Where, where are we winning?

[RavenATB]

" Terrorists by their very tactics require the cover of the populace. Islamic terrorism may well one day require destruction of Islamic populations -- pure and simple! "

You may be right...

[baltoga]

Looks like warfare may come full circle to the times of Khan.
If a city resists then conquer it, kill the inhabitants and raze it.

Barbaric, but probably an effective method to eliminate any semblance of resistance since other neighboring cities would have a vivid example of what awaits them.