Surely He Can\’t Be Serious

19 July, 2006. 278 words.

I normally consider the Counterterrorism Blog an excellent source of (real) news and insights. This post is no different: The Israeli Incursion into Lebanon: Strategic Considerations. But I have to wonder about one seemingly incongruous point Mr. Gartenstein-Ross makes. He wrote, “Hizballah has proven to be a far more effective fighting machine than Israel anticipated.” I’m not an expert of course, but I have trouble believing that Israel found Hezbollah’s dinky little militia to be anything more than a small speed bump on the road the victory. (I also have trouble figuring out the proper spelling of “Hezbollah” and/or “Hizballah.”)

I don’t know anything except the few bits and pieces I hear on the news and the Internet, but the Hezbollah military doesn’t sound like a terribly effective fighting force. Israeli military casualties have been somewhere in the range of non-existent to not-enough-to-bother-mentioning. Hezbollah has only managed to randomly fire missiles into Israel, and a lot of them haven’t hit anything except the ground. (Certainly none of them have hit any military targets.) The missile strikes only serve to further convince Israelis to support their government, and to give NBC’s Martin Fletcher some exercise running from bomb site to bomb site looking for damage.

Mr. Gartenstein-Ross also wrote, “Hizballah has already shown that it’s capable of taking on the Israeli military.” Huh? From what I hear, Hezbollah has been reduced in force by around 50% after just a few days, while Israel continues to wage war unabated. That doesn’t sound like “taking on” a military to me. It sounds like the terrorists are getting their butts kicked, much like they always do in direct engagements with real soldiers.

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