To echo Gollevainen...
Keeping your head cool and posts related to only military matters when possible is one of the most strongly enforced rules in SDF, keeping discussions fueled by logic and rationalism, as opposed to emotions and nationalism. From what I can tell, there isn't necessarily a problem with the topic itself, it's the manner in which we discuss it. If we can discuss politics with only facts and logical conclusions, then okay. (I hope)
I've ranted enough on why I like this place, here's what the current Middle East situation looks to me.
Here's my take on why Hezbollah (or any of the current insurgencies) can't lose this fight against the "West". Let me make an example by examining how the former Soviet Union fought its war in Afghanistan...
At first Soviet operations were directed mostly against the Mudjahidin(sp?), until they figured out that there was wide popular support for the resistance movement, and switched to an arguably terrorist strategy of genocide and destruction. Bombers hit entire villages, seeking to destroy the infrastructure supporting the resistance fighters. "Free-fire" zones were established along main roads and the areas surrounding them, anything within the zone was pretty much wiped off the face of the earth. Plus, crop fields, irrigation systems, food storage warehouses, and other facilities vital to Afghan atriculture were destroyed in an attempt to drive people off of the land.
A large portion of the population was forced to flee to neighboring Pakistan, Iran, or the cities... what with famine, enormous slaughter of livestock, etc. You can find similiar descriptions of Soviet ops in Afghanistan pretty easily on the net. After examining this, several points are obvious :
1) There was a time when the US was horrified by Soviet tactics and brutality in Afghanistan.
2) The Soviet campaign didn't work.
3) The campaign pretty much created Al-Qaeda and the international jihadist movement. While the US also shares a portion of the blame for founding Al-Qaeda and arming the Mudjahidin, that's not the whole story. Certainly, we helped it along, but what really set things off were the extremely brutal Soviet military operations rallying the jihadist community.
Similiar conclusions will probably be drawn after this conflict between Israel and God knows who else when this is over.
What's the alternative to all this brute force? Well from a non-military perspective, it revolves around true and open dialogue, plus security pacts, true support for grassroots democracy, practicing what we (the US) teach, trade agreements...
Obviously, military responses will still be necessary, but they should be short, accurate, and hopefully piss off the surrounding citizenry as little as possible. It's hard and will probably take along time and self restraint, but it's better than setting the infrastructure of surrounding areas back a decade every few years with conventional war.
Maybe this post is political, I don't know. I've tried to keep it as neutral as possible, simply pointing out why I think that Israel (and arguably the US) will be seen with even more animosity by the world after this.
