Israeli Commandos get Caught in Lebananon ; 1 killed in Operation

I would have to solute you if you believe all Israelis are saying.

I fully expect Israelis to lay out all the evidence for the UN and world public to support their case by now if they really have hard evidence. Oh, not happenning.

 

proxywars are nothing new. the US is too chicken to fight the russians so it supplied the taliban. the US was too chicken to fight the arabs so it supplied israel. etc.

the point is israel clearly violated the cease fire.

stick to making video games. and stay out of geopolitics.

 

DaDakota has as much right to state his geopolitical views as you do. It's your right, and perhaps duty, to dispute an opinion, but please do not discourage the free exchange of ideas. Let's adhere to the Deckard Dictum: "Keep D&D Civil."

 

Why doesn't Israel produce surveillance photos showing the transportation of munitions across Lebanon's border? That's what I meant in my post. Of course, these aren't intermediate missiles and launch pads like the Soviets had placed, and were placing, in Cuba, but surely they could come up with some proof of what even Hezbollah's supporters must acknowledge is going on. I know the missiles landing in Israel are proof of their existence, and everyone knows they are not being manufactured by Hezbollah, but it would help Israel a great deal internationally, and they certainly need to help themselves there somehow, after laying waste to large chunks of Lebanon.

It could be that they are hidden in trucks, because of their size, or even transported in parts by mule over the mountains, but one would think that so many missiles, over 10 thousand, would leave some photographic evidence. I know we have satellites that can read a license plate on a car. Of course, one 747 transport from Iran could carry hundreds of missiles and other arms. I just wonder how much we know (the US), and if we are really holding back intelligence on the importation of munitions to Hezbollah from Iran and Syria for reasons of our own.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

Duh? Cuban missile crisis satellite photos -- went completely over my head. However, I still do wish we had someone like Stevenson who could communicate so effectively in the U.N.

I was barely a real teenager at the time so I wasn't tuned into politics -- just the fear of how to survive thermo-nuclear warfare. I've got to move the politics of the Eisenhower years higher on my reading list. I remember Camelot with the fondness of a first love, but it was the Eisenhower years that shaped so much of the early 1960s.

 

Give us all a break, with all due respect. Here's a excerpt from a very good overview of the Korean War, which has some details that even surprised me, and because of having relatives who fought in it, I've always had an interest.

From the Organization of American Historians:

Soviet Involvement in the Korean War:
A New View from the Soviet-era Archives

By Mark O’Neill

In order to begin to understand the military, political, and diplomatic forces that shaped the Cold War, it is useful to start with what we now know of the Soviet Union’s military participation in the Korean War. Before scholars gained access to previously top secret Soviet-era archives in the early 1990s, they could only guess at the extent of Joseph Stalin’s direct involvement (1).
That the Soviets trained and equipped Kim Il Sung’s Korean People’s Army (KPA, the North Korean Army) and supplied weapons to Mao Zedong’s Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) has never been in doubt. However, the wartime activities of Soviet MiG-15 fighter pilots, radar operators, and anti-aircraft gunners were, until recently, kept secret. U.S. Air Force pilots often reported hearing Russian spoken over the radio and sighting distinctly non-Chinese pilots while fighting in the northwest corner of Korea known as “MiG Alley,” but the extent of this involvement was unknown. Recent research in the Soviet-era archives in Russia not only verifies the direct involvement of Soviet units, but also provides an inside view of Stalin’s high-level diplomacy and the military deployments that implemented these policies. This evidence indicates that the Soviet dictator pursued a policy designed to ensure Chinese troops would shoulder most of the burden of defending East Asia (2).

As the alliance between the Western powers and the Soviet Union disintegrated at the end of World War II, the Soviets began arming and training Kim Il Sung’s forces in North Korea, while the United States did the same, albeit less lavishly, with the forces of Syngman Rhee in South Korea. For the better part of the late 1940s, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union had any interest in promoting a conflict on the Korean peninsula. By 1949, however, the situation had changed dramatically.

The Start of the War

Between 1945 and 1950 the relative importance of North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK) had not increased dramatically, and Stalin had refused Kim Il Sung’s repeated requests for permission to invade South Korea. By 1950, however, Stalin saw an opportunity to build on Communist success in Asia and, by so doing, relieve some of the pressure on the Soviet Union in Europe. He also sought to bring Mao’s successful revolution into line with the Soviet Union’s foreign policy goals.

In April 1950 Kim Il Sung again begged for a chance to unify Korea, promising that the campaign would be over in three days. Stalin gave his permission, provided that the Chinese agreed to support the North Korean action (5). Mao, in desperate need of Soviet military and economic aid, quickly agreed. Mao also released over sixty thousand combat-hardened ethnic Koreans from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) for duty with the Korean People’s Army (KPA, the North Korean Army).

Mao’s release of the PLA veterans assisted the North Korean army as it drove south. The combined forces quickly pushed South Korean and U.S. forces (rushed in from Japan) into the Pusan perimeter in the extreme southeastern corner of Korea (6). Nevertheless, superior U.S. air power managed to slow the North Korean offensive (7).

While the United States rallied the support of the United Nations during the fortuitous absence of the Soviet representative, Stalin and Mao negotiated the level and price of Chinese involvement. In August 1950, the Soviet Union redeployed some of its MiG-15 units already in China to the Andong airbase along the border between Manchuria and North Korea. In this position, the Soviet jets could cover Chinese military forces massing along the border and prevent U.S. air attacks on Manchurian targets. However, Stalin ordered Soviet pilots not to cross the Yalu River into North Korea, even after several errant U.S. bombers crossed this border (8).

In September U.N. forces landed at Inchon behind KPA lines and simultaneously broke out of the Pusan perimeter forcing the KPA to withdraw from South Korea. In early October, as U.N. forces prepared to cross the 38th parallel into North Korea, negotiations between Stalin and Mao intensified. In late September, Stalin took the extreme step of ordering two Soviet fighter regiments to defend the North Korean capital of Pyongyang. Soviet Minister of Defense Aleksandr M. Vasilevskii pointed out that these units, equipped with outdated propeller aircraft and lacking radar and anti-aircraft defenses, would be extremely vulnerable to U.S. air attack. Vasilevskii also noted, while moving to carry out Stalin’s orders, that it would be impossible to hide the fact that Soviet pilots were actively engaged in combat (9).

Stalin did not want to invite U.S. B-29 attacks on Soviet or Chinese cities, and so halted his order to send Soviet pilots into North Korea. Meanwhile, Stalin was pressuring Mao to send the Chinese infantry to defend North Korea, but the Chinese leader demanded Soviet air support in exchange for his cooperation. Between 2 and 14 October ciphered telegram traffic between Beijing and Moscow included many promises and threats. During this period, Stalin also began making preparations to take in elements of the retreating North Korean army and Kim Il Sung’s government. As the U.N. forces pushed past Pyongyang and on toward the Manchurian border, Mao finally agreed to send his troops into North Korea (10).

Russian and Chinese sources still disagree on what exactly Stalin promised Mao in order to secure Chinese intervention. The documents thus far available from the Russian archives indicate that Stalin never planned to use his MiG-15s and anti-aircraft forces for anything other than defending Chinese industry and supply lines. However, the Chinese claim that Stalin promised complete air support for their ground forces.

In any event, the Chinese army went into combat against U.S. and South Korean troops in late October 1950 without air cover or bomber support. This alleged betrayal by Stalin was a critical point in the eventual breakdown in Sino-Soviet relations. While it is certainly possible that Stalin made promises to the Chinese in Moscow that he later reneged on, there is currently no evidence to suggest that he took any steps to change the military deployments already underway in northeast China (11).

The Chinese People’s Volunteer Army (CPVA) in North Korea began initial actions against U.N. forces in late October but did not launch its general offensive until the end of November. Soviet pilots began flying missions against the U.N. air forces on the afternoon of 1 November 1950. Apparently, this was in reaction to a reported U.S. air raid on North Korean planes on an airfield in Manchuria (12).

The appearance of the MiG-15 and the ground control radar that vectored it to its target was nearly as great a surprise as the Soviet atomic bomb had been a year earlier. The cannon-equipped Soviet jet could fly higher and faster than even the F-86 and proved very effective at destroying the lumbering U.S. B-29s. In April and October 1951 the Soviets demonstrated their superiority over what was still the U.S. Air Force’s major atomic bomb delivery system in two major air battles. Following the “Black Tuesday” defeat on 23 October 1951, B-29s no longer operated during daylight hours and eventually were pulled out of combat in “MiG Alley” altogether. The ramifications for Washington’s atomic strategy were obvious and accelerated the development of tactical atomic weapons that could be dropped from jet fighter-bombers, which led eventually to missile-launched weapons (14).

One of the enduring myths of this conflict has been the general insistence by the U.S. Air Force that it fought in “MiG Alley” handicapped by the Manchurian sanctuary across the Yalu. The U.S. Air Force continues to maintain that its aircraft did not cross the Yalu to pursue MiG-15s and thus were sitting ducks for Communist aircraft diving at high speeds from across the border. This was indeed the case until April 1952 when U.S. F-86 pilots—apparently on their own initiative, but with the knowledge of their commanders—began attacking MiG-15s in Manchuria. On 21 April 1952, three Soviet pilots were shot down and killed while attempting to land at the Andong airbase. This change in tactics put Soviet, Chinese, and North Korean pilots on the defensive at their home bases and increased losses accordingly (16).

The U.S. Air Force and Navy continued their more aggressive posture during the late spring of 1952 when they launched a series of fighter-bomber strikes against the Suiho hydroelectric facilities up the Yalu from Andong. These raids succeeded in cutting off power to much of southern Manchuria and North Korea and marked a major failure for the Soviet fighters charged with their defense (17). Despite the increased air pressure, designed in part to accelerate the peace negotiations at Panmunjom, U.S. air power could not stop the flow of supplies to Communist ground forces. It did, however, reduce the flow to such levels that the Chinese and North Korean forces were unable to launch a successful ground offensive for the remainder of the war. The F-86, in the hands of highly trained U.S. pilots, was a better air-to-air fighter than the MiG-15, but Soviet and Chinese pilots fought tenaciously in the skies over northwest Korea until the 27 July 1953 armistice.

http://www.oah.org/pubs/magazine/korea/oneill.html


OK, I gave you an example of actual combat between Soviet and US forces furing the Korean War. It goes without saying that intense combat with the Chinese, who gave us hell, took place there as well. As for the "point," you seem to be attempting about Israel, what would you have had us do? We could have gone in and destroyed the armed forces of any combination of Arab nations during Israel's history. Is that what you want? We didn't do it because it wasn't American policy, and wasn't in our national interests. It took George W. Bush, idiot supreme, to make an aggressive war against an Arab nation which wasn't a clear and present danger to the United States.

By the way, do you know that when Britain and France combined to take the Suez Canal from Egypt, after Nasser nationalized it against their wishes, the United States of America told them to get the hell out? Study a little history. Just because George Bush is a fool doesn't mean that you should tar the whole damned country.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

my point was to accuse iran and syria of being chickens and thus supporting hezbollah was dumb. and i used historical examples of US arming groups and countries for proxywars to show that a lot of nations do this. thats all.

well firstly the US was absolutely right in that. and 57 was the last time US foreign policy in terms of israel was right in any significant manner. ike was the last great president interms of foreign policy. economist had a really good article on the implications of that a couple issues ago.

as far as dubya being the only fool...thats just not correct. democrat and republican foreign policies towards mid east have been incredibly one sided. the deal that barak offered arafat under clinton was a joke. clinton's policies to the mid east were a joke. the whole peace process took place in oslo and clinton got recognition for it. reagan was a disgrace. etc.

so no i think there is a further history of US policy being one sided than just dubya.

 

I looked up a list of people that have violently occupied Lebanon and kicked it in the proverbial testicles for the last 2000 years more or less nonstop:

• Phoenicians
• Assyrians
• Babalonians
• Persians
• Alexander the Great
• Seleucids
• Umayyads
• Abbasids
• European Crusaders of all types
• Maans (Ottoman governors)
• Shihabs (Ottoman governors)
• The Ottomans directly
• The French

Many of these were not wholesale violent changes but several of these changes in ownership were particularly violent and brutal. Given the historically nomadic nature of the area and the fact that many of the people who showed up killed of or kicked out whole populations of the people who were there before them I would find it difficult to believe that it would be possible to establish too much of an ethnic DNA trail that went back further than the start of Ottoman rule in the 15th or 16th century.

Your picture of pastoral Lebanese living in harmony with nature before religion and technology came along to ruin it just isn't correct and I think applies a dishonest veneer of emotion to any logic in your arguments.

 

I looked it up @ globalsecurity.org . here are the numbers from the year 2000:

[rquoter]
FIGHTERS
~3 Hunter F-70
~3 FGA-70A

HELICOPTERS
4 SA-342
32 UH-1H
5 AB-212
16 AB-205
3 SA-330
2 SA-318
4 SA-319

TRAINING AIRCRAFT
CM-170 3
Bulldog 3

TRANSPORTS
1 DOVE
1 Turbo-Commander 690A
[/rquoter]

So these are the actual numbers, but when it comes to small low-tech countries like Lebanon you have to assume that a reasonable percentage of the equipment needs repair to fly.

Their two most common helecopters at 16 & 32 each are the ones you see people jumping out of in old film of the Vietnam War. The rest of the helecopters are also transports but more modern.

All of the fighters are variations of a Korean War era British design. Sending pilots in these jets against Israeli fighters would be suicidal. The Lebanese would be dead by a missle fired by radar before they even saw the Israeli planes.

 

Ottomaton, we could send a couple of our pilots over there to burp, and it would put them out of commission.



Keep D&D Civil.

 

It's amazing that Israel has the gall to violate the cease fire and risk re-instilling fighting. I think they are damaging their credibility as a nation rapidly.

 

I don't think they care.

DD

 

I think you are correct. It will be hard for them ever to be seen as a credible partner in any peace process that comes. Like the U.S., Israel will have to do a lot to repair the damage they have done to their name.

I am just really disappointed.

Despite my disapproval of Israel's actions in Lebanon recently, there were some signs taken by Israel which were promising. In fairness those positive steps by Israel did not get enough publicity, or press.

Israel was talking about renewed talks with Syria, Lebanon, and the Palestinians. All of that was a positive step. Most importantly they had changed their previous stance refusing to allow International troops to come in and man the disputed areas. They had been asked to do this in other situations, but always refused. This was the first time that they had agreed to it, and I really thought it was a positive step.

But stupidity has won out, over a given pledge, and the damage is done.

 

Yes I am....that good! I Don't agree with your "awry" assessment. BTW:
If the Syrians and Iran continue to arm Hezbollah in violation of the resolution, Israel is entitled to act to defend the principle of the arms embargo...

knaaa...

 

What proof do we have that they have been arming them in violation of the cease fire?

I think Deckard already did a nice job of addressing this, and how if it were true it could have been handeled.

 

You and I have no "proof" before us, BUT Israel has first hand account proof...It is very difficult to prove a lebanese civilian is a civilian and not a terrorist Hezbollah member...But you may decide to adhere to the information or not based on preference...The information is premlinary and based on the past actions of Hezbollah being unscrupulous as usual, it is apparent that was a reliable information as assessed by Israel...We already know Hezbollah gets arms in this manner, so it is very logical to summize the event was realized first hand by Israel...I only wish they took a picture and mailed it to all of us to show the "proof", but Hezbollah is quite apparent in their abhorrance of a peaceful coexistance...No friend of the lebanese civilians no matter how much $12,000 U.S. notes they hand out...

 

The head of the UN, that little organization responsible for the enactment of the resolution calling for the cease-fire, states that Israel has violated the terms of the cease-fire. Israel isn't entitled to squat that isn't expressly stated in the resolution. Do you just make things up as you go along?

 

Nope, although you might...

The cease-fire is based on U.N. resolution 1701 which calls for an international arms embargo against Hezbollah," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said on August 19. "In the absence of that presence, arms transfers to Hezbollah are a clear violation of 1701 and Israel is entitled to respond.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1701

 

Actually it isn't that hard to prove. Israel takes a photo either from the ground, satellite, or the air of the resupplying happening. They show it to the UN, and that might even lead to more teeth and authority given to the troops on the ground, International support for Israel, and the like.

They didn't do that. They broke the cease-fire. Israel has twice violated its cease-fire agreements in this short war. And Olmert broke his word to Anan as well about the safety of the UN personnel that Israel killed.

Say what you want about peaceful co-existence and the desires for such. I haven't seen it from either side. Trying to pretend like one side is somehow better than the other is not in cohesion with reality.

The fact is that Israel guessing because Hezbollah was previously supplied by Syria and Iran, doesn't excuse them breaking the cease-fire. Israel tried to break it, they were caught. No excuses.

 

It takes more than the already dubious word of Israel to provide proof of arms transfers.