Of all the news to come out of yesterday's Israel-Hezbollah cease fire, this item is particularly noteworthy -- Israel Humbled By Arms From Iran:
After one of the fiercest confrontations of the war, Israeli forces took the small town of Ghandouriyeh, east of the southern city of Tyre, on Sunday evening, hours before a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations took effect.
... Outside one of the town's two mosques a van was found filled with green casings about 6ft long. The serial numbers identified them as AT-5 Spandrel anti-tank missiles. The wire-guided weapon was developed in Russia but Iran began making a copy in 2000.
Beyond no-man's land, in the east of the village, was evidence of Syrian-supplied hardware. In a garden next to a junction used as an outpost by Hizbollah lay eight Kornet anti-tank rockets, described by Brig Mickey Edelstein, the commander of the Nahal troops who took Ghandouriyeh, as "some of the best in the world".
Written underneath a contract number on each casing were the words: "Customer: Ministry of Defence of Syria. Supplier: KBP, Tula, Russia."
Brig Edelstein said: "If they tell you that Syria knew nothing about this, just look. This is the evidence. Proof, not just talk."
Since these weapons were not from the evil US, this fact has to be hard for liberals to swallow.
It also illustrates what seems to be a previously unheard-of weakness in the Israeli defense strategy: the failure of Israeli intelligence to detect these weapons and the failure of Israeli commanders to develop battlefield plans around their anticipated use. Ralph Peters wondered about this a few weeks ago, and his concerns now seem to be well-founded.
It is more than obvious that Hezbollah is no longer a rag-tag bunch of "freedom fighters" armed only with rifles and "hope." They are a professionally-trained terrorism force armed with the latest millitary technology. And if we value our own lives, we should we should consider every other terrorist organization, especially Al Qaeda, to be their equal.
It appears that Muslims have decided on a Viet Nam-like protracted, low-intensity war strategy for dealing with Israel rather than direct military combat under the flag of a sovereign nation. The Lebanon campaign is looking more and more like a Syria-Iran controlled "unwinnable" proxy war whose sole aim is to wear down the Israelis and break their will to fight.
Iran and Syria have also helped Hezbollah develop a (so far) winning political strategy by separating their military and political wings. The political wing of Hezbollah has completely infiltrated Lebanese politics and the infrastructure of southern Lebanon. With foreign money, the political wing of Hezbollah builds roads and schools and hospitals, and in the eyes of the UN and Europe this qualifies them as guardian angels of the Lebanese people. And it seems to be working, since a large portion of the Lebanese people seem willing to ignore the destroying angels of Hezbollah's military wing in order to keep the blessings of its political wing.
But don't let the humanitarian works of Hezbollah fool you. If their goal (actually Syria's goal and Iran's goal) is accomplished -- and especially if it involves the inconceivable element of an Israeli disarmament -- then Iran and Syria will hit Israel with everything they have, including nukes.
The question is, will the US and the world community just stand by and watch, or will they step forward and do something about it?
Whatever happens, Christians should pray for peace and pray that the hearts of the Muslims are changed in such a way that warfare and suffering will be avoided.
(JayTea at WizBang has come up with another good metaphor for Hezbollah.)
It's odd you blame this on Liberals, since most Jewish people in America are liberal.
Jaxebad
Posted by: Jaxebad | August 15, 2006 at 12:40 PM