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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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 Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:26 pm Post subject: How Hezbollah Defeated Israel |
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Part One: Winning the Intelligence War
How Hezbollah Defeated Israel
By ALASTAIR CROOKE and MARK PERRY
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Our overall conclusion contradicts the current point of view being retailed by some White House and Israeli officials: that Israel's offensive in Lebanon significantly damaged Hezbollah's ability to wage war, that Israel successfully degraded Hezbollah's military ability to prevail in a future conflict, and that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), once deployed in large numbers in southern Lebanon, were able to prevail over their foes and dictate a settlement favorable to the Israeli political establishment.
Just the opposite is true. From the onset of the conflict to its last operations, Hezbollah commanders successfully penetrated Israel's strategic and tactical decision-making cycle across a spectrum of intelligence, military and political operations, with the result that Hezbollah scored a decisive and complete victory in its war with Israel. |
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| The abductions marked the beginning of a series of IDF blunders that were compounded by commanders who acted outside of their normal border procedures. Members of the patrol were on the last days of their deployment in the north and their guard was down. Nor is it the case that Hezbollah fighters killed the eight Israelis during their abduction of the two. The eight died when an IDF border commander, apparently embarrassed by his abrogation of standing procedures, ordered armored vehicles to pursue the kidnappers. The two armored vehicles ran into a network of Hezbollah anti-tank mines and were destroyed. The eight IDF soldiers died during this operation or as a result of combat actions that immediately followed it. |
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Finally, Hezbollah's ability to intercept and "read" Israeli actions had a decisive impact on the coming ground war. Hezbollah intelligence officials had perfected their signals-intelligence capability to such an extent that they could intercept Israeli ground communications between Israeli military commanders. Israel, which depended on a highly sophisticated set of "frequency hopping" techniques that would allow their commanders to communicate with one another, underestimated Hezbollah's ability to master counter-signals technology. The result would have a crucial impact on Israel's calculation that surprise alone would provide the margin of victory for its soldiers.
It now is clear that the Israeli political establishment was shocked by the failure of its forces to accomplish its first military goals in the war - including the degradation of a significant number of Hezbollah arsenals and the destruction of Hezbollah's command capabilities.
But the Israeli political establishment had done almost nothing to prepare for the worst: .... |
To read full article click here
Last edited by Big_Bird on Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:29 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:28 pm Post subject: |
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The above article is a fascinating account of the US-Israeli/Lebanon war. Yeah yeah, you're going to complain (well, some of you at least) Bush said Israel won the war. Well read this article and make up your own mind. It's my own feeling that no-one truly wins a war...
Gopher, if you want to join the discussion, stick to discussing the article rather than your thoughts on Big_Bird. I'm not interested in reading your musings on why I've chosen to post it. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Fri Oct 13, 2006 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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I just came across the follow up article:
Part Two: Winning the Ground War
How Hezbollah Defeated Israel
By ALASTAIR CROOKE and MARK PERRY
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The difference between "pushing" out a force and invading and occupying a town was thereby set, another clear signal to US military experts that the IDF could enter a town but could not occupy it. One US officer schooled in US military history compared the IDF's foray into southern Lebanon to Robert E Lee's bloody attack on Union positions at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, during the American Civil War. "Oh I can get there, all right," Lee's lieutenant said during that war, "it's staying there that's the problem."
After-battle reports of Hezbollah commanders now confirm that IDF troops never fully secured the border area and Maroun al-Ras was never fully taken. Nor did Hezbollah ever feel the need to call up its reserves, as Israel had done. "The entire war was fought by one Hezbollah brigade of 3,000 troops, and no more," one military expert in the region said. "The Nasr Brigade fought the entire war. Hezbollah never felt the need to reinforce it." |
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| Gone quite suddenly was a claim that Israel would destroy Hezbollah; gone too was a claim that only NATO would be acceptable as a peacekeeping unit on the border. On July 25, Israel also reported that Abu Jaafar, a commander of Hezbollah's "central sector" on the Lebanese border, was killed "in an exchange of fire" with Israeli troops near the border village of Maroun al-Ras--which had not yet been taken. The report was not true. Abu Jaafar made public comments after the end of the war. |
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Experts in the US were also beginning to question Israel's strategy and capability. The conservative Brookings Institution published a commentary by Philip H Gordon (who blamed Hezbollah for the crisis) advising, "The issue is not whether Hezbollah is responsible for this crisis--it is--or whether Israel has the right to defend itself--it does--but whether this particular strategy [of a sustained air campaign] will work. It will not. It will not render Hezbollah powerless, because it is simply impossible to eliminate thousands of small, mobile, hidden and easily resupplied rockets via an air campaign."
Gordan's commentary reflected the views of an increasing number of military officers, who were scrambling to dust off their own air plans in the case of a White House order targeting Iranian nuclear sites. "There is a common misperception that the [US] Air Force was thrilled by the Israeli war against Lebanon," one Middle East expert with access to senior Pentagon officials told us. "They were aghast. They well know the limits of their own power and they know how it can be abused.
"It seemed to them [USAF officers] that Israel threw away the book in Lebanon. This wasn't surgical, it wasn't precise, and it certainly wasn't smart. You can't just coat a country in iron and hope to win." |
To continue reading article click here |
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NAVFC
Joined: 10 May 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 6:46 am Post subject: |
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| Israel defeated Hezbollah you idiot. |
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Atassi
Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Location: 평택
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 7:07 am Post subject: |
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| Nobody defeated anybody. |
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canuckistan
Mod Team
Joined: 17 Jun 2003
Location: Training future GS competitors.....
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 8:14 am Post subject: |
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| Where is that corporal Shalit anyways? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 12:51 pm Post subject: |
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(1) It is already well established why you post what you post here;
(2) Others have seen your ill-tempered, confrontational attitude for what it is; and
(3) Nobody "wins" any war. You are too focused on your mission to undermine the U.S. (and, by extension, Israeli) position in world affairs to see this, however.
Last edited by Gopher on Sat Oct 14, 2006 1:36 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Oct 14, 2006 1:32 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
(1) I it is already well established why you post what you post here;
(2) Others have seen your ill-tempered, confrontational attitude for what it is; and
(3) Nobody "wins" any war. You are too focused on your mission to undermine the U.S. (and, by extension, Israeli) position in world affairs to see this, however. |
I just knew you couldn't resist! |
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