Israeli ground tactics in S. Lebanon

[J Ruddy]

Originally posted by dan/california:

Everybody missed the real point, it was in a regular civilian house as near as I could tell from the interior views.

I must still be missing the real point. Soldiers have been using 'civilian houses' as observation points for hundreds of years... :confused:

And what the hell is a non-civilian house? :confused:

I think the Israelis would be perfectly justified in cluster bombing it all.

Wow, while you're at it, why not glass the whole middle east? Think of all the time and trouble you'd save by killing all the terrorists in one big nuclear attack? You could call it the final solution or something equally impressive. So maybe some civilians would die too, it's their own fault for living among terrorists.

Even better, the next time a cell is identified in Florida, instead of risking the lives of police officers by going in and arresting them, carpet bomb the whole subdivision. Or is there a double standard at work here?

[John Kettler]

I think the Hezbollah OP in the pics akd supplied is pretty impressive. Not only do I see a tripod mounted vidicon with zoom, a bunch of flat panel displays and monitors, several VCRs, a big overhead photo for orientation and target reporting, but what may well be a laser rangefinder next to the

vidicon unit.

This is way beyond a guy with binoculars and a cell phone/walkie talkie, as in Iraq or Somalia. What the Israelis found is a site with technical surveillance and analytical capabilities many militaries on the planet would be green with envy over. Can't comment on the commo setup or the computers specifically, since I don't know the particulars. Clearly, though, this OP has multiple commo modes available to it, and it may well also support radio intercept, too.

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

The foresight saga

By Ze'ev Schiff

Sometimes a country has to take a slap in the face in order to wake up to the changed reality around it. That's what happened to Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which 2,600 were killed, and in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which claimed more than 1,000 victims. Now Israel has gotten a s lap during the war with Hezbollah. It is unfortunate that each time, the searing of Israel's consciousness involves losses, destruction and suffering.

In the Arab states, too, there are many who think that the war has created a new reality. In their perception, the Israel Defense Forces is having a hard time subduing Hezbollah. In Syria they are wondering whether the time hasn't come to liberate the Golan Heights by force. Advocates of peace with Israel in the Arab world are on the defensive. If this is the trend, the way is being paved for another round of war.

For many in the Arab world, the campaign between Israel and Hezbollah is part of a larger picture, which also includes the inability of the United States to quash the insurgency in Iraq. The Arabs are seeing that military might is not a guarantee of success. There are also those who understand that in today's situation, it is the intention of Iran, Hezbollah's major supporter, to intervene more than ever in inter-Arab affairs.

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Fortunately for Israel, this war erupted before Iran has acquired the ability to threaten the use of nuclear weapons. From this point of view, the war appears to have come too early for Iran's liking - and a good thing, too. Tehran understands that part of the infrastructure it created for Hezbollah will be destroyed in the war, so it is important for it that the border crossings into Lebanon remain open, to enable Hezbollah to be rearmed. The international force that is to be deployed in southern Lebanon will be meaningless if it does not ensure that Iran and Syria are prevented from getting weapons and rockets to Hezbollah.

Internationalization

Israel has always been opposed on principle to having foreign soldiers do its work for it. In the past, Israel's agreements to the deployment of United Nations forces were obtained almost by coercion. Now an international force has to remove Hezbollah's rockets and act as a buffer, shielding Israel.

The IDF's legal department and its Plans and Policy Directorate are finding it difficult to formulate a position concerning the proposal that the multinational force in Lebanon base its activity on the mandate of Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter. This chapter allows for the use of force and the imposition of sanctions against anyone who violates a cease-fire. A force of international soldiers, to be led, in this case, by France, might decide that Israel is violating the cease-fire and therefore that it should be subjected to sanctions. A well-known American legal expert, Prof. Anne Bayefsky, warns against such a development.

Tactics

Nothing about the deployment of Hezbollah in southern Lebanon resembles what existed there in the war that began in June 1982. Hezbollah built a system of underground tunnels which recalls what the Vietcong did in Vietnam. Its fighters, who hide in the tunnels and occasionally surface to attack Israeli troops and to fire rockets, had to be removed by means of fuel bombs and similar means. What exists in southern Lebanon was planned by Iranian advisors led by the chief of the Al-Quds (Jerusalem) force in the Revolutionary Guards, Qassam Sulaymani.

In this war, the technology possessed by the IDF, and by the Israel Air Force in particular, makes possible more accurate strikes, both by day and by night. However, the international media also have satellites that can photograph and transmit immediate reports about almost every movement. With their help, Hezbollah is able to forgo much of its intelligence staff, because it receives real-time information about the accuracy of its own hits and about the IDF's movements. Hezbollah can thus easily evaluate Israel's likely moves, even before the government has even discussed them.

Prevention

Shortly after the withdrawal from Lebanon, in May 2000, Israel discovered that Iran had begun sending huge quantities of rockets and other weapons to Hezbollah, and was also training the organization's men. Afterward it emerged that Syria was also supplying heavy rockets to Hezbollah.

This information was made known to prime ministers Ehud Barak and Ariel Sharon, but they decided not to launch a preventive war. Barak, who had led the pullout from Lebanon not long before these developments, did not want to send the IDF back into Lebanon. In addition, Israel was in the midst of a serious intifada. Sharon understood well the emerging reality in Lebanon and the dangers inherent in it, but preferred to focus on the Palestinian arena and did not want to open a second front.

The result was that Israel did not take even one defensive measure against the burgeoning convoys of weapons, ammunition stores and rockets. Above all, this policy was adopted because of the apprehension that the international community would view an operation against the rockets in Lebanon as an unjust war of prevention. The conclusion is that a small democracy cannot allow itself to wage a preventive war against a terrorist organization, however dangerous it may be. That prerogative is reserved solely for great powers, and usually only after they have been attacked. There was a time when Israel was more daring in this regard.

Deployment

Israel was not taken by surprise by Hezbollah's military capabilities: Military Intelligence (MI) and the Mossad intelligence organization knew about the developments in the organization. However, when intelligence estimated that there were some 12,000 Katyusha rockets in southern Lebanon, the responses in Israel were: "Stop threatening the nation of Israel," and "Your real goal is to increase the already bloated defense budget." Research institutes and similar bodies devoted little space in their publications to the Hezbollah threat.

On July 22, 2005, I wrote in Haaretz: "It is doubtful whether Israel has a sufficient answer at present to the threat of Hezbollah rockets. Even if you destroy 80 percent of them, over a million residents in the north of the country will continue to sit in shelters." On March 3, 2006, I wrote that Hezbollah, and in effect Iran, already has the ability to strike targets south of Haifa, which involves a sophisticated Iranian move that was carried out in cooperation with Syria and Hezbollah. In the view of some, this does not constitute a strategic threat, because the same targets can be hit by means of terrorist attacks, I wrote, and then asked: Is the fact that some two million people will be confined to shelters and schools, and workplaces will be closed, not a strategic blow!?

A report that was drawn up a few months ago by former minister Dan Meridor and a group of experts stated: "Hezbollah is a significant security threat, mainly because of its rocket capabilities, which cover a substantial portion of the country's area. The Hezbollah threat demands an early and appropriate security deployment, both in the spheres of terrorism and in the spheres of rockets. It calls for the urgent positing of a response to the Hezbollah challenge, and especially to the steep-trajectory threat, in order to make it possible to cope with scenarios of escalation and deterioration."

That is exactly what happened on July 12.

There were also other opinions. For example, the GOC Northern Command, Major General Udi Adam, stated in an address in February that while Hezbollah was indeed becoming stronger, it was moving in a political direction. "Hezbollah is digging in, but it's not terrible that it is building outposts, because these make good targets for Israel," Adam said at the time.

Deterrence

Vanquishing large terrorist organizations militarily is not like vanquishing regular armies. Former chief of staff Moshe Ya'alon believes that a guerrilla organization can be defeated in a prolonged war of attrition. It will not be a knockout, but a victory on points. True, intolerable damage can be inflicted on Hezbollah, from which it will take the organization years to recover. It is not true that guerrillas have always won. In some cases the "price" that was exacted from them was too great to enable them to persist with their threat. The problem is that exacting a "price" intensifies the hatred of the population on which the guerrilla organization relies.

It is impossible to persuade Hezbollah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah to forsake his messianic ideas, at the center of which is his ambition to destroy Israel. Many in Lebanon and in the Arab states understand how dangerous he is - not only to Israel, but also to many Arabs. Still, there are ways to influence his organization. For example, the Syrians, during their period in Lebanon, were able to restrain Hezbollah in certain cases. That situation has changed.

The present war will undoubtedly serve to deter Nasrallah in the future. But in regard to other Arab elements, it is very possible that Israeli deterrence will be somewhat undercut. On the one hand, these elements understand that Israel is capable of reacting with cruel "craziness" if a certain red line is crossed. But on the other hand, they may reach the conclusion that the way to hurt Israel and bring about its withdrawal is not by means of tanks and planes, but by firing thousands of rockets and missiles at the country.

This should not be construed to mean that Israel's deterrent capability failed in all the limited confrontations. In the past, Israel succeeded in its war against the PLO, even though that organization fired Katyushas into the country from Lebanon. Israel succeeded in those confrontations when the other side had something to lose. Those confrontations generally ended in a broad war in which Israel achieved a temporary victory - until the next round. According to the conclusions of a study by Yuval Knaan, from the University of Haifa, Israel's achievements when it bombed infrastructures in Lebanon were generally limited.

Victory

An interesting argument was conducted in Israel in recent years between the intelligence chiefs and the commanders of the air force about whether air power is capable of vanquishing a terrorist organization and eliminating the rocket threat. In a discussion convened by former prime minister Sharon, the MI director at the time, Major General Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, said that the political echelon should not be misled into believing that a complete solution exists for the problem of the rockets. In another discussion, held at Northern Command headquarters, the GOC Northern Command at the time, Benny Gantz, said, "If such is the case, we have to prepare for a protracted ground move." Apparently, his proposal-demand was not internalized.

Precisely because intelligence understood this point well, the IDF's failure, overall, in preparing a comprehensive combat doctrine to wage war against short-range rockets is so pronounced. The air force knew it would have difficulties in this sphere, and therefore a broader operational response was needed, along with significant investments in research and development.

Former IAF commander David Ivry wrote in a publication of the Institute for Air and Space Strategic Studies that air power cannot be victorious by itself in the war against terrorism. Tactical intelligence in the war on terror, Ivry noted, is the dominant element and the most difficult to achieve; it cannot be attained solely from the air, because technological solutions are insufficient for this purpose. Ivry undoubtedly recalled the failure of the Americans to damage the Iraqi network of missiles that attacked Israel in 1991; clearly he was aware of the lack of a substantive victory by Israel at the end of Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, in 1996, which made use primarily of air power.

Of exceptional interest is the approach of the chief of staff (and former commander of the IAF), Dan Halutz, who is conducting the present war. He made the following remarks in a discussion at the National Defense College in January 2001, but they illustrate his strategic conception today: "Many air operations were generally implemented without a land force, based on a worldview of Western society's sensitivity to losses. A land force is not sent into action as long as there is an effective alternative. Small forces, in commando format, have been utilized. The IAF is a partner in or decides wars.

"This obliges us to part with a number of anachronistic assumptions. First of all, that victory equals territory. Victory means achieving the strategic goal and not necessarily territory. I maintain that we also have to part with the concept of a land battle. We have to talk about the integrated battle and about the appropriate force activating it. Victory is a matter of consciousness. Air power affects the adversary's consciousness significantly."

The future

Many of the IDF's training booklets will likely undergo reexamination after the present war. The IDF has to examine itself in regard to "counter-fire" and to maneuvering whose goal is not the seizure and holding of territory. An additional effort will have to be made in the sphere of intelligence. Successes in hitting targets require that different ways be found to renew the "bank of targets," even when they exist in a civilian milieu. In this kind of war, technology that makes it possible to locate and strike at terrorist leaders is of the utmost importance.

After the American failure against the Scud missiles in 1991, a few Arab states and Iran stepped up the development of surface-to-surface missiles. This process will be even further accelerated in the wake of Hezbollah's rocket attack on Israel. The Palestinians, too, will undoubtedly intensify the development of Qassam rockets and the smuggling of Katyusha rockets into the territories. Israel must prevent by force the continuation of this "festival of rockets" against its populations. Against the Palestinians two levels are required: genuine political negotiations and instilling in them the knowledge that Israel will not be merciful if rockets hit its citizens.

It is more complicated to promote a satisfactory solution against a rocket and missile threat in general. After the 1973 war, Israel studied its failure to cope with the antiaircraft missiles that hit its planes and was able to change the situation. The same thing must now be done with regard to the surface-to-surface missiles and the rockets. This will be a difficult and expensive effort. In addition, Israel must make it clear that if it is attacked, it will exact a steep strategic price from its enemies. At the same time, we must not ignore what we have long known: Power has limits, especially when wielded by a small country.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749268.html

[akd]

RPG-29 used against IDF:

[FAI]

Err, anyone got any definite sources to the Hez' claim of sinking a Super Dvora FPB?

[Khane]

Originally posted by FAI:

Err, anyone got any definite sources to the Hez' claim of sinking a Super Dvora FPB?

Lebanese source

Khane

[hellfish]

That doesn't look like a ship sank to me - it looks more like a flare on the surface or a smoke pot.

But it is possible, to an extent - Shiite officers in the Lebanese military had provided use of their coastal radars to Hezballah for the one missile that struck a warship. The next day, AFAIR, all the radars, which hadn't been targeted up to that point, were destroyed.

[Battlefront.com]

Man, you guys are something. Has NOBODY mentioend the big bag of pot that was siezed along with the missiles? Check back on the prvious page and see what I mean. Now THERE is a find by the IDF. $10 says that the missiles get inventoried and stored correctly, but the bag of happy weed goes missing

Steve

[oren_m]

Wow, i really did'nt noticed it!

So i guess that they are not only terrorists but also stoneheads!

Making war with this stuff would funny...

Oren_m

[akd]

There is, of course, a long history with hashish and militant Islam.

[oren_m]

Especially in Lebanon, i suppose that you are familiar with the main export of the Baqqa valley in the east of Lebanon.

Up until recently Hashish was Lebanon's main exporting.

Druing Israel's occupation of S. Lebenon which ended in 2000, most of the Hashish found it's way into Israel, you could say that Israel had much to do with the wellfare of the Baqqa valley farmers.

Oren_m

[hoolaman]

Now if everyone just got together and got wasted, we could forget about this silly war.

[Battlefront.com]

To paraphrase Jaws:

"We're going to need a bigger bag"

Steve

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Man, you guys are something. Has NOBODY mentioend the big bag of pot that was siezed along with the missiles?

I noticed it but didn't mention it because I figured everybody would just take that as proof of being a doper. Now Steve...

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by oren_m:

Up until recently Hashish was Lebanon's main exporting.

Ah yes, Lebanese Blonde, as we used to call it. I remember it well. I...oops!

Michael

[Khane]

Originally posted by oren_m:

So i guess that they are not only terrorists but also stoneheads!

I don't know how much stoned they are but what is sure is that they are excellent propagandists.

Khane

[akd]

30 Tanks Wiped Out in Lebanon

12:01 Aug 11, '06 / 17 Av 5766

(IsraelNN.com) IDF officials admit that the biggest surprise of the ongoing war against Hizbullah is the ease by which terrorists have destroyed IDF tanks.

At least 30 tanks [armored vehicles?] have been totally destroyed or seriously damaged in bomb and anti-tank rocket attacks involving state-of-the-art Russian anti-tank rockets.

About one-half of the military personnel killed in southern Lebanon were inside tanks.

http://israelnn.com/news.php3?id=109793

To this number must be added further losses on August 12th and 13th.

A destroyed Israeli tank is seen a field in the flashpoint southern Lebanese village of Aita AShaab, near the border with Israel, 14 August 2006. The southern Lebanese border village that was the centre of some of the fiercest fighting of the Israeli offensive and where several Israeli soldiers were reported killed last week in confrontations, has been left almost in ruins, with Hezbollah fighters roaming the deserted streets proclaiming victory. Aita al-Shaab, once the home to 5,000 people, now looks as though it has been hit by a terrible earthquake with massive craters in its roads and several buildings leaning dangerously after their support struts were destroyed. AFP PHOTO/SAMUEL ARANDA (Photo credit should read SAMUEL ARANDA/AFP/Getty Images)

'Best guerilla force in Mideast'

A senior IDF official admitted Monday that the extent and quality of anti-tank missiles used by Hizbullah surprised the army.

"Hizbullah is the best guerilla force in the Middle East and even beyond," the officer said.

Meanwhile, most forces who entered southern Lebanon over the weekend are still there, with the exception of members of the Herev regiment, who operated in the western sector for 30 straight days. The troops returned to Israel for a break but may still be called upon to return to Lebanon.

"They said their beards are longer than Nasrallah's," a senior officer said.

Commander Zur also discussed the difficult battle that claimed the lives of 12 IDF troops south of the Litani River over the weekend.

"It was a difficult, complex battle, we had to move through a mountainous path while facing constant fire," he said. "At the end we managed to reach a target Hizbullah didn't believe we'd be able to reach, an area where numerous arms were found…dozens of anti-tank missiles, as well as sniping and explosive means."

Zur also rejected criticism regarding the necessity of the battle in light of the ceasefire decision and said the battle's results had important operational implications that also led to the accomplishment of diplomatic achievements.

The senior officer said the forces will need four to five more days to take over the area south of the Litani if ordered to do so and another several weeks to clear the area of rocket launchers. However, such operation is unlikely to get underway as a result of the truce.

Still, IDF officials are ready for any possibility. "We mustn't be surprised and we're ready for any scenario," Zur concluded.

(08.14.06, 19:14)

www.ynetnews.com

[ August 14, 2006, 12:43 PM: Message edited by: akd ]

[undead reindeer cavalry]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Am not sure what to make, though, of the missile crates dated 2001.

expiration date

[akd]

Hezbollah anti-tank fire causing most IDF casualties in Lebanon

By Ze'ev Schiff

The majority of Israel Defense Forces ground troops casualties, both infantry and armored, were the result of special anti-tank units of Hezbollah, according to intelligence sources.

The same sources note that these units have not retreated from southern Lebanon following the deployment of large IDF ground forces in the area.

The Hezbollah anti-tank teams use a new and particularly potent version of the Russian-made RPG, the RPG-29, that has been sold by Moscow to the Syrians and then transferred to the Shi'ite organization.

Some of the IDF casualties resulted when the rockets struck homes in which IDF troops had taken positions. This was the case when four soldiers of the elite Egoz unit were killed in the village of Bint Jbail. In that case a Sagger anti-tank missile had been used.

The RPG-29's penetrating power comes from its tandem warhead, and on a number of occasions has managed to get through the massive armor of the Merkava tanks.

The IDF had intelligence information on Hezbollah plans to deploy specialized anti-tank teams in order to delay the advance of IDF ground forces. The special focus Hezbollah gave to anti-tank weapons as part of their doctrine was revealed during the raid on the border village of Ghajar in November 2005.

During that attack, Hezbollah fighters attempted to kidnap IDF soldiers, and some of the guerrillas were killed and their bodies left behind.

This was the same unit that fought in Bint Jbail and whose men were killed there.

During the battle at Ghajar, which is inside Israeli territory and has an Alawite population, Hezbollah fighters fired more than 300 anti-tank rockets of different types, including the new RPG-29, which targetted various armored vehicles and two Merkava Mark-2 tanks. One of the two tanks had the necessary armor to deflect the missiles, but the other took a hit to the body.

Following the battle at Ghajar, Israeli inquiries that Russia was transferring modern anti-tank weapons to Syria and on to Hezbollah were received with anger. The Russians demanded proof that this had been done.

Contrary to common practice, Israel transferred to Russia the tail-end of a rocket for analysis. The Russian response was that in the absence of a serial number they were hard pressed to identify it as part of a load delivered to Syria.

The IDF believes Hezbollah also has an advanced anti-aircraft missile, the SA-18, from Iran. It is particularly lethal against helicopters, and even though none of the missiles have been fired against Israel Air Force aircraft, the flights over Lebanon are taking the necessary precautions.

[Battlefront.com]

Yup, and this is further evidence that CM:SF will be a cakewalk for the US forces. Right? Riiiiiight!

I really hope EVERYBODY sits up and takes notice of these results. Not just because it proves that the early whiners about how easy CM:SF would be for the US player, but because it reinforces the lesson that conventional military forces, on their own, have significant weaknesses. Therefore, before people go running off and blindly supporting the extension of national policy via conventional military action, people instead need to question the likely outcome and to be prepared for the likely consequences if the action goes forward. People are apparently coming around to this slowly. Hopefully this process will speed up.

Steve

[John Kettler]

undead reindeer cavalry,

Cute! Would imagine those are production dates, but I could be wrong. On a more serious note, though, I'd dearly love to know where those TOW missiles came from. If those are production dates, then they can't possibly be, for example, from what North et al. supplied to Khomeini during Iran-Contra. The launcher itself is no big deal, for it's been widely proliferated, but I'd imagine that relatively recent TOW rounds, previously noted as almost certainly being TOW-2 of some stripe, since the original TOW ceased production way back while I was still in military aerospace, probably mid 80s, and was rapidly replaced by ITOW, then TOW-2, would be considerably harder to come by.

Regards,

John Kettler

[hellfish]

The offer I made back when CMSF was first announced still stands - if anyone thinks playing as the US will be a cake walk, i'll happily play them in a game as the Syrians and spank 'em.

[akd]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Yup, and this is further evidence that CM:SF will be a cakewalk for the US forces. Right? Riiiiiight!

I really hope EVERYBODY sits up and takes notice of these results. Not just because it proves that the early whiners about how easy CM:SF would be for the US player, but because it reinforces the lesson that conventional military forces, on their own, have significant weaknesses. Therefore, before people go running off and blindly supporting the extension of national policy via conventional military action, people instead need to question the likely outcome and to be prepared for the likely consequences if the action goes forward. People are apparently coming around to this slowly. Hopefully this process will speed up.

Steve

Well, that does beg the question: Will we face Hezbollah in CMSF? They seem to have training and motivation that exceeds regular Syrian forces and a "bottom-up" implementation of tactics totally antithetical to the Soviet-style, top-down Syrian system.

That is, fighting Hezbollah should be a very different experience from fighting the Syrian military, and there is little doubt that Hezbollah would involve itself in a Syrian conflict.

As has been noted by the Israelis, Hezbollah is not a rag-tag militia (i.e. Hamas, etc.) and I would hope they would not be abstracted as generic "Syrian irregulars."

[C'Rogers]

Yup, and this is further evidence that CM:SF will be a cakewalk for the US forces. Right? Riiiiiight!

Therefore, before people go running off and blindly supporting the extension of national policy via conventional military action, people instead need to question the likely outcome and to be prepared for the likely consequences if the action goes forward.

BFC probably remembers the intial complaints about the setting more than I do but weren't most of the people who thought the game would be a cakewalk also generally oppossed to interventionist actions? Am I remembering wrong or are you talking about two different things here.

[Battlefront.com]

John,

These were export TOW missiles, so I'd be surprised if they were TOW-2s. The US military has only had them for a few years now, and they are pricey. The dates on the cases could be the contract date, not production date. Also, who says the TOW-1s went out of production for the export market? My family's packaging business still sends HAWK missile parts off to Saudi Arabia Also, old US military stock could have been recertified, repackaged, and shipped off. Like my friend's "1982" Unimog that was sold by CASE here in the US about 7 years after that particular model went out of production. Apparently Mercedies had a few leftovers lying around and made CASE a deal in 198s

AKD, we are not likely to put Hezbollah in CM:SF as such. However, you find some guys taking pots shots at you that look and act like Hezbollah

C'Rogers, there were primarily two groups of whiners when we first announced CM:SF. The first group that was simply pissed that they didn't get whatever setting it was that they personally wanted (mostly WW2 guys, but there were others). The second group were those who have political/moral issues with the setting. The latter sparked some interesting discussions about the hypocrisy of such wargamers since chances are their logic rules out playing their own pet setting, or wargames all together.

In both cases these two groups tried to bolster their weak arguments (and that is being kind ) in an attempt to sound rational instead of irrational. The main reason why we shouldn't do contemporary/near future warfare is becasue there is no tactical challenge to it. US rolls in, US wins. End of story, in their opinion. The only credit I give this argument is that it is likely that most of the people putting it forth actually believe it. Much like saying "someday there will be world peace and equality of all Mankind". One can honestly believe it, but it's kinda hard to back up in a debate about how things really work in the real world.

Steve