But they're all military targets, I'm sure...

[Little Raven]

Everything old is new again. Except the Romans did it better.

A high-ranking IAF officer caused a storm on Monday in an off-record briefing during which he told reporters that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut in retaliation to every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.

The officer said that the equation was created by Halutz and that every rocket strike on Haifa would be answered by IAF missile strikes on 10 12-story buildings in the Beirut neighborhood of Dahiya, a Hizbullah stronghold. Since the beginning of Operation Change of Direction, launched on July 12 following the abduction of two soldiers during a Hizbullah cross-border attack, over 80 buildings in the neighborhood have been destroyed.

Of course, the IDF quickly asserted that the reporters had heard him wrong. Or that the officer was wrong. Or something.

After the officer's remarks were published on The Jerusalem Post website as well as other Israeli news sites, the IDF Spokesperson's Office released a statement insinuating that reporters had misquoted the senior officer and claimed that the publications were false and that Halutz had never issued such a directive.

The IDF Spokesperson's Office later retracted its accusation that reporters had misquoted the officer and issued a second statement claiming that the high-ranking officer had made a mistake and was wrong in claiming that Halutz had issued such a directive.

Uh huh. One can't help but wonder exactly how a high-ranking officer makes that kind of mistake.

I think what's most surprising about this war (or not war, as the case may be) is how completely disorganized Israel seems to be. Nobody seems to know what's going on...and they aren't even making a very good show of it. First, Israel was going to break Hezbollah, (All the rules of the game will change!) now they're willing to settle for Hezbollah as a political player. (Ok, we can keep some of the old rules after all. Stop shooting us now, please?) The famed Mossad can't even seem to find Hezbollah, much less engage them. The Israeli airforce is doing a wonderful job making life miserable for the Lebanese, but the rockets keep falling, and even the IDF is now talking about reducing their accuracy, rather than stopping them. An international force is not acceptable. An international force is acceptable. There won't be an occupation. There might be an occupation. If there is an occupation, it will be different from last time. Somehow.

Given how Israel appears to be playing everything by ear, (for several reasons, most of them bad) I guess I shouldn't be surprised that reprisal is the only plan left in the playbook. There's certainly an air of tradition about it, and in times of crisis, people naturally reach for the familiar.

It isn't going to work, though.

 

[carlosMM]

Well, I guess this retribution thingy is not really something new. An eye for an eye, a tooth.... does that ring a bell?


It is disgusting, usually harms innocents more than the guilty, and is EXACTLY the reason why some guy nearly 2,000 years ago said one should not do it.
Of course, he was nailed to a tree for saying it, too



Israel has long claimed the high moral ground, which isn't in war. But as long as one ATTEMPTS to stick to it, that's good enough. Otherwise, one can roll over dead at the very start.
This, though, is a fallback into OT times, to the level of the Hezbollah.

 

[El_Machinae]

Wasn't this thread something like 4 pages long yesterday?

I think that I had asked Leatherneck for proof that Hezbollah had recently killed UN forces.

 

[Enkidu Warrior]

A very insightful post.

I think Hezbollah are an evil bunch of murderers who should be disbanded immediately, but right now they're comparing rather favourably with the IDF. Hezbollah are taking random potshots at Israeli cities with rockets less advanced than my cellphone, and yet are managing to kill a lower proportion, and a much lower absolute number of civilians than the IDF, which has every military technology under the sun.

There's a lot of talk of evil terrorists hell bent on murdering every Israeli civilian they can get their hands on, as contrasted with an Israeli military that would never target an innocent, but even the most casual glance at the statistics makes a mockery of this assessment. When it comes to killing, wounding and generally making the lives of civilians miserable, the IDF trumps all of its competitors in every area.

The IDF is is a murderous organisation that should be disbanded immediately, along with Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and any other of the numerous murderers plaguing the Middle East and beyond.