Israeli ground tactics in S. Lebanon

[John Kettler]

Steve,

You make some good points, but I'm not sure whether you're right. In searching for some answers, I found this, which has lots of goodies which may be of interest to you.

http://www.raytheon.com/products/tow_family/

http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/stellent/groups/public/documents/legacy_site/cms01_028591.htm

Notice the radically different optics on the TOW ITAS vs. the standard TOW tracker in the picture akd provided.

http://www.raytheon.com/newsroom/stellent/groups/public/documents/legacy_site/cms01_028594.htm

Note also the complete absence of either the original TOW or the ITOW from this listing of current TOW production.

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=683194&TICK=RTN4&STORY=/www/story/10-21-2002/0001823702&plainNews=%7BHEADER%7D&EDATE=Oct+21,+2002

According to this official chrononology, the last buy of the vanilla M65 TOW was in 1986. I believe you'll find a great deal of useful information here.

http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/systems/TOW.html

This goes into even greater detail.

http://www.redstone.army.mil/history/tow/tow_chronology.html

Wiki has a useful list of operators and a model summary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-71_TOW

This goes into considerable detail and shows all the models side by side, together with performance data and time of flight curves.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/tow.htm

This explicitly confirms what I said: no vanilla TOW production now and none for some time.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/tow/

This provides more info, especially with the links included on the upper right.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/tow.htm

Eureka!

Would you believe Iran has cloned both the original TOW and the ITOW? News to me!

http://richmonddemocrat.blogspot.com/2006/07/is-hezbollah-using-us-missiles-against.html

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

IDF trounces Hezbollah...when they fight as light infantry:

Enemy didn't know what hit him

Reserves paratroopers brigade commander tells Ynet: Terrorists were surprised, had their back to us, at a certain point, we saw a rocket launcher driving towards us, unaware

Hanan Greenberg

It was one of the most impressive battles in the war against Hizbullah. Dozens of terrorists were killed, many weapons – including a 24-head rocket launcher - were destroyed, and not a single IDF soldier was hurt.

The 'Spearhead' paratroopers reserves brigade, whose glorious past includes operations such as the liberation of eastern Jerusalem, crossing the Suez canal, the first Lebanon war and Operation 'Defensive Shield', succeeded, a moment before the ceasefire, to surprise and strike at Hizbullah.

Brigade commander Col. Etai Virov told Ynet about the battle, which began Friday and ended Monday morning when the ceasefire took effect. "Most of the enemy didn't know what hit them, they tried to discover the location of their shooters facing Israel, but we were attacking from the north," he said.

Invading the enemy's tactical homefront

"The brigade executed an action that they'd been training for a long time: the ability to pass over the 'combat strip' and move a large number of forces into the enemy's tactical homefront, who would work their way from the north to the south," he explained. "In practice, we executed a deceptive maneuver in order to lure the terrorists to a natural preserve and, simultaneously, we airlifted a battalion into the enemy homefront."

Hundreds of additional soldiers, including Virov himself, walked for 12 hours, circumventing Beit Lif, in order to join the airlifted forces, resulting in almost a thousand soldiers positioned north of the enemy force.

"We found ourselves in the Hizbullah homefront, in launching areas…We fought for more than three days. We fought through thickets, destroyed launchers and trucks carrying arms, fired at gunmen and killed dozens of terrorists," Virov recounts.

"At a certain point, we say a 24-head rocket launcher 500 meters from us…driving as if they thought no one could see them. We destroyed the launcher, along with the rocket. The two terrorists inside were killed," he continued.

The brigade commander explained the logistical difficulty of the operation: "There was no access route and the soldiers were hauling 35-40 kg of equipment, each. Provisions were air dropped and we would send groups of soldiers, with bags, into enemy territory to get water and a little food. The enemy knew that we were there, but didn't realize the extent of the force or weaponry that we had."

Regarding his soldiers, Virov has nothing but praise. "No soldiers in the IDF could be more steadfast…Their motivation was sky high. They're in excellent physical condition. No one complained or broke down."

Wednesday night, the soldiers began the final march home, which ended at nine a.m. on Thursday. "We have a great sense of fulfillment," summed up Virov. "We successfully executed our mission and returned with no casualties."

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7...292310,00.html

[MikeyD]

Regarding the akd post above - Wow. I would've never believed it. Iranian manufactured TOW missiles fighting Israel, and the article manages to link the whole thing to Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal! In a world that doesn't surprise me much I'm genuinely surprised. :eek:

[ August 17, 2006, 08:59 AM: Message edited by: MikeyD ]

[John Kettler]

MikeyD,

I'm surprised Steve hasn't said anything at all on the TOW situation since I posted it. If the long link made the page too wide, my apologies, but the URL posting feature doesn't seem to work. No idea why.

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

Regarding the akd post above - Wow. I would've never believed it. Iranian manufactured TOW missiles fighting Israel, and the article manages to link the whole thing to Reagan's Iran-Contra scandal! In a world that doesn't surprise me much I'm genuinely surprised. :eek:

The posted article above doesn't say anything about TOWs or Iran-Contra...

Did you mean Mr. Kettler's linked articles? Regardless, as I understand it, Iran had their license to manufacture TOWs before the Revolution and before Iran-Contra, so the link to the scandal is not necessarily so direct.

[John Kettler]

akd,

The Iran-Contra TOW angle is discussed here, on the same page in which the TOW clones are shown.

http://richmonddemocrat.blogspot.com/2006/07/is-hezbollah-using-us-missiles-against.html

Regards,

John Kettler

[Khane]

IDF reservists: Officers stopped us from attending anti-war protest

It's like Yom Kippur War

Khane

[ August 17, 2006, 09:32 PM: Message edited by: Khane ]

[John Kettler]

Here's the Kornet-E which caused the IDF so much grief.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/kornet/

What intrigues me is the apparent absence of any standoff probe, such as on the late models of the AT-6

SPIRAL/Shturm here.

http://www.army-technology.com/projects/shturm/

Regards,

John Kettler

[ August 17, 2006, 10:44 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Khane]

Interviews with IDF soldiers back from Lebanon by Nava Tzuriel and Eitan Glickman from the Israeli most read daily newspaper "Yediot Aharonot". August 16, 2006. Part one (sorry for lenght of the post. That's a translation from Hebrew and there is no link)

"The commanders told us that the infantry had already cleared the area, and then the tanks started getting hit, tank after tank. Why did they send us into this hell? Why did they send us into the missile trap? We already though we were going to go home smiling and with the flags flying - and instead, we go to our fellows' funerals."

Yesterday, a bit after 10.00 am, the tank soldiers of the 401th Brigade left Lebanon in a long and dusty convoy, and at long last they could breath freely. They did not have many such moments since Saturday noon, the bitter time when they tried to cross Wadi Saluki in the Western Sector of South Lebanon, only to find that they had blundered into a well-prepared Hizbullah anti-tank ambush. Yesterday they could at last embrace each other, call their parents, ask for the condition of their wounded comrades - but the hard questions did not stop for a moment. "Why did they send us into that hell?" one of the soldiers asked angrily. "Why did they send us directly into the missile trap? Now everybody sees that the last days of the fighting were not sufficiently prepared".

It was one of the hardest and most tragic battles which the IDF had known in this war. Nine tanks were hit by missiles, there in the Saluki. 12 soldiers were killed, a few hours after the UN security Council unanimously adopted a resolution calling for a cease-fire in Lebanon. Already one day after the battle there were IDF officers charging that entering the wadi (canyon) was hurried and unnecessary, that the tanks should not have been sent into the steep-banked wadi and made into movable targets, and that the area was not cleared of terrorists by the IDF.

The blows which the fighters suffered on the field were painful - but perhaps the most painful blow came later, when the soldiers heard the words of several senior officers. "This was a Battle of Awareness against the Hizbullah" an unnamed senior officer told Yediot Aharonot two days ago [August 14]. "We have proven that this legend, as if a regular army cannot fight guerillas, is not true".

As much as the fighters are now angry at the insufficient preparation and the mistakes in the conduct of the battle, they feel deeply insulted by those who sent them to the field of slaughter and who now tell them that the battle was not really necessary - that it was just a kind of "Battle of Awareness", a kind of show designed to demonstrate to Hizbullah who is the Boss.

This is not the first blow which the IDF gets in Wadi Saluki.Lebanon veterans remember well earlier tough fights in this small stream below the village of Randuriya. The worst mishap in the Saluki, up to the present, was in August 1997. Soldiers of the Golani Brigade had set a routine ambush when news came of six Hizbullah men having infiltrated the area. IDF artillery opened fire a kilometre away, but failed to knock out the infiltrators. Due to the intensity of the shelling, a fierce brush fire broke out, and four of the Israeli soldiers were trapped and burned to death.

The Armoured Corps soldiers were notified of the present Saluki action several days before being sent in, and were told that infantry soldiers of the Nahal brigade would go in well in advance of them to clear out the terrorists and ensure a smooth passage to tanks.

The situation on the ground, however, turned out to be very different. Hizbullah squads had prepared their positions in the villages above the wadi long in advance, and when the tanks arrived they were subjected to a relentless attack. "We thought we were going into a lightly-defended, easily-passed area, and we found ourselves in a fiery hell" says with pain one of the fighters. "The Nahal went away, we got the order to go in with the tanks and we got anti-tank fire from all directions. Nobody believed we could possibly get into such a trap. It is a total fiasco. Why did nobody check to make sure there were no anti-tank squads in the upper ridges, before sending us to be totally exposed to fire from these ridges?".

"And why was it needed to go to this whole operation to start with, when everybody knew that within two or three days there would be a cease-fire?" wonders one of the junior commanders. "Did nobody worry about anti-tank fire? Did the higher command not think about it? Everything was foggy, unclear. When we went in we knew that there will be a battle, that there will be terrorists, we were prepared for being attacked, but going into battle was slow and clumsy. All this time the other side was preparing and organizing, with high-grade missiles. I don't know why the people whose mission was to prepare for this kind of situation just did not do their job, they just did not do what was needed to prevent this damn fiasco".

The forces which went out of Lebanon heard of the mutual recriminations between Armour and Infantry regarding the responsibility for the grave results of the Battle of the Saluki. "The fighting was hard" says one of them "but the lack of coordination between the forces on the ground, between what we were told was going to happen and what actually happened was the biggest mishap in the last days of the Lebanon fighting.

Khane

[Khane]

Interviews with IDF soldiers back from Lebanon Part two

"It is as if nobody had prepared" accuses another fighter. "There was no clearing out of the terrorists by the Nahal Brigade infantry. I don't understand why they did not let the Nahal finish their job before sending us in. We thought that we were entering the Saluki after the area had been cleaned up, but then the terrorists came out of the houses and hiding places and started shooting at us as if we were in a shooting range. Nobody really had any idea how big the terrorist forces were".

"When the first tank was hit, we knew that the nightmare had begun" says a fighter. "You should understand that the first missile which hits is not the really dangerous missile. The ones which come afterwards are the dangerous ones - and there always follow four or five after the first. It is awesome! You just think :where can I hide?' and fear the unknown. It was hellfire, you have no idea when it will get to you. You just pray that it will end at last, that the volley will end and that you will hear on the radio that everybody is OK. But unfortunately, that is not what we heard when the shooting ended, no sir!"

"This was supposed to be the final accord of the war" says one of the soldiers. "But it was much worse than the battles in the beginning of the war. They told us that this will be just the final accord, that the cease-fire is on the way, but the tanks were hit and we lost precious fighters".

More than causing them to wonder, the talking of "a Battle of Awareness" is insulting for the fighters which left Lebanon yesterday. "To say that the fighting there was conducted in order to gain an achievement in awareness is an insult" says a junior officer of the armoured brigade. "Soldiers' parents call me since early this morning, asking me about this expression. What can I say to bereaved parents, when they hear that their son died for 'an achievement in awareness'? I feel that whoever spoke this way had hurt me personally, me and my soldiers. To say 'an achievement in awareness' after a battle from which you emerge unscathed - OK. But this was a very bitter end-of-the-war battle in which 12 soldiers got killed and ten tanks got hit by Hizbullah fire. This is an achievement in awareness? This is a failure. We just did not know what was going on?".

"I can't connect this statement about the achievement in awareness to anything which actually happened" says a senior officer. "They all the time demanded of us to produce photos of dead terrorists, terrorists with hands raised. To form the consciousness of the Israeli public. I think that first you have to kill the enemy, only then can you start taking photos of their dead bodies. And still, there is some importance from the awareness point of view to entering deep into enemy territory. To show them that we are no longer hesitating near the border, as were in the first 24 days, but passing the Saluki and moving forward. You prove to the enemy that you posses the ability to enter his territory".

What is clear now is that, while there could be some debate about the awareness, the pain of the fighters is unmistakable. "It is very sad that exactly at the end of the war, when everything is already ready to a cease-fire, we get such grave blows" says a fighter on the day after leaving Lebanon. "It should not have happened. We feel that this battle just should not have happened. Of course, we are soldiers and we fulfil every mission placed upon us, but when we look at what happened there and what surprises were waiting for us, we just were ****ed. We were caught unprepared".

There are very hard feelings among the soldiers" admits a junior officer who took part in the battle. "Just in the end, when everything, the whole war, was about finished, that's when we got the big blow. Somebody should investigate what happened there in the Saluki. We already thought that we were going home smiling, with flags flying - and here we go to comrades' funerals."

A senior officer of the brigade responds: "It was a super-important mission!"

About the initial decision: "Can anybody point a better point where the Saluki can be crossed? There are several passes, all of them narrow. The one we chose was the correct one. The risk is obvious, when you get to the ground there is a chance that you will be shot at. War is a dangerous game.

Clearing the area: "The Nahal Brigade was sent to take over the area and they did that. But you can't achieve a hundred per cent clearance. You have limitations when you use a combined armour/infantry force. When there is infantry in the area, the tanks can't shoot freely.

The action: We sent in a primary force of 12 tanks, to cross the wadi. We blazed a trail and bypassed the bridge crossing the Saluki. Then we planned to send in 30 tanks because we knew that this is an inferior terrain and therefore we did not want to put big forces at risk. But the two tanks which arrived in the village of Randuriya found their route blocked by the collapse of buildings which were bombed by the air force.

The battle: While the tanks were searching for another way an explosive charge went off behind them. The road collapsed and then the first tank was hit by a missile. The entire first crew, of Company Commander Bernstein, was killed. The tank behind Bernstein tried to move back and take a new position. Effi Dafri, Commander of the 9th Battalion, was already wounded before this stage; now his deputy Shimi Batat was wounded as well. After that, the third tank was also hit, and the advance stopped.

The failure: Sending in the tanks was vital, full stop. When the infantry arrives they need a day or two to take control of the area. They have no possibility to penetrate to a depth of ten kilometres. Only the tanks can break forward. Already on the same night another battalion arrived, blazed another trail and penetrated forward with its tanks. The officers who make all this criticism don't really know what had happened there. Of 12 tanks only 2 were hit. The losses are grave but this should be placed in proportion to the fact that the mission was defined as super-important.

The withdrawal: I was surprised to get the order to withdraw from this area just a short time after we reached Randuria, at the cease-fire. I think that the fighting should have been continued westward so as to deepen the achievement.

Khane

[John Kettler]

Khane,

Appreciate those links!

It appears that homefront opinion in Israel is not just on par with but beyond the "received wisdom" here in the U.S., where the national news was full of statements to the effect that whether or not Hezbollah won the war, it was winning the peace hands down. Footage I saw showed Hezbollah construction crews hard at work clearing debris, Hezbollah clerics out and about, Hezbollah assistance teams parceling out grant money for rebuilding and humanitarian supplies, etc. UN aid was shown but was reportedly not considered really significant.

Hezbollah has cleverly taken to putting up big banners over shattered ruins reading "Made In The U.S.A." making the point that the U.S. helped visit this misery upon the Lebanese. Coverage indicates that the population is divided on Hezbollah, with some denouncing it for bringing such devastation on a country still rebuilding, others simultaneously outraged but seeing things from a broader regional confronting Israel viewpoint, and some who'd lost much, were shown

flat out cheering for Hezbollah.

From a military standpoint, the talking heads' dominant view was that Hezbollah won by merely surviving, let alone all the havoc it caused and the major lumps it inflicted. Likewise, Syria and Iran were deemed to have improved their positions.

Israel was deemed to have failed and failed so badly that government investigations were being demanded. One talking head, George Beck, was even more blunt. In his view, Israel lost because it had become like us (the U.S.), so wrapped up in playing politics and watching the polls that it could no longer, lacking the will to do so, fight effectively.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

John,

OK, so TOW-1s aren't in production. That was a secondary guess anyway My primary point is that these are TOW-1s and not TOW-2s as you suggested they might be. The articles you linked to show that the launcher is certainly a TOW-1. So this means the missiles could be quite old. Either they came from Lebanese stocks or from Iran as remainders from Olie's little adventure. I doubt an Iranian Toophan is in a case with US military markings on it Whatever the case may be, just underscores the danger of arming an unstable government (Lebanon) or one's enemy (Iran).

Steve

[John Kettler]

Steve,

Surely someone here can give us the skinny on how to interpret the markings on those TOW packing cases.

After all, not only do we have current and former U.S. soldiers here, but also the same types from all kinds of other nations all over the world. Someone must know and can tell us. If those dates are NOT expiration dates (a notion wholly the inverse of normal ammo packing practices, where the date is always the production date), then I want to know what missiles are in those boxes and where they came from! I agree with your views on the danger of arming those who shouldn't be and commend to your attention the long, disturbing list in the Wiki article. Gulp!

Regards,

John Kettler

[ August 17, 2006, 10:32 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

Khane,

Having now read the remarkable two-parter, I feel compelled to share with you a parallel experience of my own. My father was a defense engineer, my family Republican, and during the Vietnam War, I was a hawk. Imagine how I felt then, when years later while going to college while doing defense analysis at Hughes I wound up in a history class in which I got to read once Top Secret PENTAGON PAPERS in complete, unexpurgated form, only to learn that the war I'd supported, the war that cost us 57,000

killed, was fought for a country which was "not strategic," about which and whose people we "really don't care," and that the real purpose was to "show the Soviets we're tough," but without resorting to slinging nukes. It was one of the most appalling and profoundly disillusioning experiences of my then young life. Thus, I can really relate to what the Israeli soldiers are feeling--lied to, used, and betrayed.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ August 21, 2006, 02:44 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[Khane]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

It appears that homefront opinion in Israel is not just on par with but beyond the "received wisdom" here in the U.S.

Israel ... failed so badly that government investigations were being demanded.

Things are starting to move; I hope that something positive will come out these investigations but the truth is that I am a bit pessimistic on that issue: as usual those responsible for the fiasco will try to cover their butts and put the blame on others.

I can really relate to what the Israeli soldiers are feeling--lied to, used, and betrayed.

Right, that's the feeling

From Mania to Depression

Khane

[John Kettler]

Khane,

The Gush Shalom article is devastatingly on target, IMO. I ADORE the term "presstitutes"--says it all!

Regards,

John Kettler

[hellfish]

New analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/060817_isr_hez_lessons.pdf

[John Kettler]

fytinghellfish,

Nice! Haven't had a chance to read it yet (skimmed Contents), but it looks like a must read.

Regards,

John Kettler

[hellfish]

Thought this was an interesting read

http://www.exile.ru/2006-August-11/a_hezbollah_upon_all_of_thee.html

A Hezbollah Upon All of Thee!

Gary Brecher

By Gary Brecher ( war_nerd@exile.ru )

Browse Author (98)

« Previous (97)

This column was sent to the eXile on July 23rd

July in Fresno, and yet I'm happy. In a mean way, the only way I know. For once I don't care how hot and miserable it is, because I've got something waiting for me at home: AC and CNN. God, I love watching CNN right now. Watching that needlenose whiner Anderson Cooper, trying not to state the obvious: Hezbollah is not only winning every round of this fight, but it was bound to win from the start. Get Jane Fonda out in the streets again, spray some pain relief on her saggy old throat, stuff a bullhorn in her liver-spotted hand and have her sing out: "Who needs Ho Chi Minh/Hezbollah is gonna win!"

The rest of you idiots actually seem to take Cooper seriously when he talks about how the IDF is going to "expel Hezbollah from Southern Lebanon." Christ, Hezbollah IS Southern Lebanon. You might as well try to expel ants.

I said in a column 16 months ago that Lebanon was due for a slow but unstoppable warming trend, finishing up with a hot war.

http://www.exile.ru/2005-February-25/war_nerd.html

Like I said in that column, we're not dealing with a few bad apples or bad luck. We're dealing with demographics, and demographics has no more mercy than a glacier. For a hundred years Lebanon has been shifting from a Maronite-Christian country with a bunch of non-Christian minorities (the Druze -- my personal favorites, the Sunni, the Shia) to a Muslim country with a Christian minority that's trying to emigrate as fast as it can fake up its resume for Uncle Sam's Migras. That part of the war is over, and Islam won. All that's left to see now is which Islam ends up in power: the Shia, with Syria and Iran backing them, or the Sunni, who have the backing of...well, nobody, actually.

Add in a couple of real important facts nobody ever mentions on CNN -- birthrate and morale. The Shia, who cluster in the slums of S and E Beirut and in the rural south of Lebanon, have the highest birthrate in Lebanon and have always been the poorest, most death-hungry people around. That's the stuff you make great soldiers from.

And Hezbollah has great soldiers. That's one reason I can't help liking them. They're some of the most underrated soldiers on earth facing what I consider the most overrated military force on earth, the IDF. The Israelis have been coasting on their reputation for a long time, but way back in Gulf War I it was clear they made their record like a Don King fighter, padding their Win column against a bunch of bums. When I saw those pitiful Arab "soldiers" crawling toward US camera crews on their hands and knees to surrender, the first thing that went through my head was, "Whoa, so that's the kind of opponent the Israelis have been showboating against? Well Hell, my high school marching band could've beaten those Arab chicken****s!"

I'm not alone in that conclusion either. One of the top US commanders in GW I called the IDF "a bunch of arrogant pricks who wouldn't last ten minutes on a European battlefield." Well, that bit about a "European battlefield" is another sad case of our NATO obsession, but the point is, the IDF doesn't deserve its rep. It did once, back in 1948 and during Suez, when it was manned by double-tough survivors of the European Jews who were determined to show up the book-nerd stereotype by kicking ass from Haifa to Damascus. Those dudes were truly tough.

A Merkava nose dive

But we're talking demographics again, dude. Passage of time, plus difference in birthrate, means that by now the IDF has a thin, real thin, crust of Ashkenazi brains'n'brawn on top and a bunch of flabby mama's boys under them. See, those whitleather-tough survivors wasted their genes on the whole socialist kibbutz commune experiment, had a kid or two, or none. Their kids are old now. Meanwhile, Israel admitted every loser from Russia or Ukraine or Yemen who could claim a grandpa who liked carp or a grandma who carried the overprotective gene or whatever, anything that could make them look Jewish. Half of them were just lying to get out of their native Hellholes, and none of them were willing to die for Israel the way that kick-ass first generation was. Look at the news pictures up close, or just look at the pictures of that schmuck who got kidnapped in Gaza, Shalit, and you'll see what I mean: the weak and the freeloaders outbred the strong. Hell, that loser's name says it plain enough. What kind of soldier would anybody with the same name as that loudmouth ugly prick Gene Shalit be?

As long as the IDF was beating up on Hamas down in Gaza, it could hide its weakness most of the time. Not all of the time -- pretty sloppy, letting Hamas commandos tunnel right into that base, blast a tank and kidnap poor baby Shalit right while he was thinking up his next capsule review. Still, except for the occasional slip, the IDF was safe in its F-16s and Merkavas, facing Pals with nothing but rifles and old RPGs. It's easy to look tough rolling through refugee camps in the world's most heavily armored tank.

But as you may recall, those tanks got a real different reception when they chased Hezbollah's raiding party back into Lebanon after the Hezzies killed three IDF soldiers and kidnapped another two. The IDF mid-ranking commanders had to act fast because the Gaza command was taking heat for not pursuing Shalit's kidnappers fast enough. So they shouted, "Charge!" and the first Merkava steamed over the border.

Guess how far it got. Ten meters. Ten goddamn meters. Then KABOOM! A Hezbollah mine or shaped charge turned it into a very expensive oven, with four crew killed. Another IDF soldier died trying to rescue them. So within a few minutes the IDF had lost eight men. As far as I know, Hezbollah's losses were zero.

It was a good plot twist: one minute the IDF is stomping around Gaza blasting amateurs, when something taps it on the shoulder, and there's Hezbollah, looking like Godzilla in a headscarf. Pretty funny moment, something almost Abbot & Costello about it.

No army enjoys getting invited to a second front just when it was starting to enjoy itself on the first one. Even the Wehrmacht rank and file was bummed when they heard they were getting shipped from the beaches of the Mediterranean to Russia. And the IDF was no happier when they realized they had to quit using Gaza as a speed bag to spar with an enemy that could kill eight IDF guys in a few seconds.

Casualties. That's the key here. Every war, every army has a different population base, different demographics, and a different take on casualties. Israel's biggest weakness has always been that it hates to take casualties. You can see that in their famous prisoner exchanges, giving away hundreds of Islamic prisoners to get back one IDF guy, or in one case just the bodies of a couple of dead IDF guys. You can see it in the design of the Merkava -- a brilliant design, one that gives infantry the full protection of MBT armor, but also an indication that this army is terrified its guys might get hurt.

Compare that to the Hezbollah attitude to death, which is basically extreme eagerness. Death? Hell yes, can I have seconds? The sooner the better! I've talked about the Shia and their whole Gimme Martyrdom deal before.

http://www.exile.ru/2004-September-04/war_nerd.html

Like I said in that column, killing Shi'ites a few at a time is pointless:

They have a huge death wish, so naturally their holiest places are tombs. That's why Shi'ites make that pilgrimage to Karbala, to visit the tomb of Husain. Shi'ites commemorate Husain getting himself sliced and diced for ten days every year, slashing themselves with knives and bashing themselves with chains to celebrate that glorious defeat. Ayatollah Khomeini, the biggest Shi'ite hero of the 20th century, used to preach "Every day is the anniversary of the battle, and every place is Karbala." The inspirational message was: wherever you are, go get yourself massacred. What are you doing sitting around breathing? Why ain't you out there getting slaughtered, you lazy godless bum?

And these are the people we're picking off one by one, then bragging about body counts. Still wonder why the war's going so badly?

The way Israel is conducting the war right now is the worst of both worlds: it's too bloody and not bloody enough at the same time. Give me a second to explain what I mean by that. At the moment that skinny nasal-voiced jerk Anderson Cooper is saying Israel's killed about 320 Lebanese, vs. 36 Israelis dead. Now actually that's a perfectly standard count for asymmetrical warfare; the technologically superior force usually kills about ten of the guerrillas for every one of its own losses. But in PR terms, this war has been a disaster for Israel, a can't win scenario. Just try this experiment: watch CNN with the sound off for a few minutes. Without that non-stop pro-Israel commentary, you'll see what the whole world outside the US sees: non-stop video feed of terrified Lebanese civvies fleeing in terror, crying on camera, hugging their bloodied-up kids. Then there's a shot of the IDF zooming around in their Merkavas and US-supplied SP 155mms, blasting dry hills or doing dirt donuts on some local's wrecked house. Ask yourself this question:

WHAT'S MISSING FROM THIS PICTURE?

It'll come to you after a minute: you never, ever see an armed Hezbollah fighter. They're there, all right. You better believe it. They've killed at least 20 IDF troops, and they're the real reason, the only reason, the IDF isn't invading all-out: because those Hezbollah apprentice martyrs are dug in, waiting and hoping and praying for the IDF to steam into the kill zones they've been polishing since Israel quit Lebanon in 2000.

But you never see them on TV. You think that's an accident? No, fellas, that's brains is what that is. Nasrullah may look like a fat social studies teacher who needs a shave, but you don't claw your way to the top of a bloody world like that one without brains. The men who run Hezbollah attacked because they finally figured out that they literally cannot lose. The IDF can never expel Hezbollah from South Lebanon, because it's a genuine mass movement, as committed and crazy at the roots as at the top. (As opposed to Arafat's PLO, which they could and did expel from Lebanon because it was topheavy, corrupt and cowardly.) If Israel comes down hard on the Lebanese, another generation learns to hate the Jews down south and dream of bloody revenge. If Israel holds off, then Hezbollah becomes the one victorious Arab/Muslim force in the world, darling of every little nine-year-old Jihadi in Jakarta and Khartoum. If Israel retaliates by blasting every target of value in Lebanon, every TV tower and shopping mall and freeway...well, that's the beauty of the plan: the Shia are the poorest of the poor. They don't own any of that **** anyway. They sit back and laugh watching their neighbors' stuff that they've envied all their lives get blown away -- and it's the Israelis who get the blame.

So call'em crazy if it makes you feel better, but don't call'em stupid. Better yet, get used to calling'em "Sir."

[John Kettler]

Since this seems the best place, I wanted to note for the record that a controversial rumor of IDF use of cluster munitions in Lebanon has now been confirmed on CBS News Monday morning. According to the report, UN observers have found some 295 separate locations where they were used. I couldn't identify all the munitions shown, for they were up only briefly and often were badly damaged, but I distinctly saw a bunch of M42 submunitions used in DPICM 155mm projectiles, among other delivery systems. I believe that there is Congressional language (maybe law?) prohibiting such use, and the report said State was investigating to determine whether the munitions used were from normal foreign military assistance or from some secret deal. A tourism museum project called the British Bunker was utterly smashed after ten years of work and millions of dollars in USAID funding. Israel reportedly preemptively targeted it based on its being close to the border, but locals fiercely deny Hezbollah ever occupied it. The U.S. based CARE Corps is active in Lebanon and is being warmly welcomed by the locals, who say that physical presence of Americans helping them is way more important than the money donated for relief.

In somewhat related news, Iran contined flexing its military muscles. Saw an HY-02 SILKWORM on launcher and a C-802? being fired from container on a truck. There was also a missile launch from some sort of FPB.

Regards,

John Kettler

Regards,

John Kettler