vimothy
yurp
Winning a war was never about winning the bodycount. Remember Pyrrhic victory?
4GW + WoT = narrative, culture-centric warfare
Winning a war was never about winning the bodycount. Remember Pyrrhic victory?
Think you might be confusing Hezbollah with the people of Lebanon. What does Nasrallah have to say about the war? Does he think Hezbollah was victorious? (Remember Hezbollah were fighting a defensive campaign. To successfully defend something you want to fight off the enemy until thety leave you alone, right? That's what happened in Lebanon).
Wasnt Hezbollah the government of Lebanon at the time?/QUOTE]
No. They dominate in the South and were part of the governing coalition, but they were never THE government.
Wasnt Hezbollah the government of Lebanon at the time? If the people of Lebanon were massivley killed, then its is their loss of lives.
Can't an attacking force withdraw from attacks, causing more harm to the enemy than themselves, and still be considered victorious (not necessarily in this case, as i think Hezbollah is the clear winner, but in abstract), especially when theyre intention surely was never to invade, conquer, and occupy?
Definitely.
Hezbollah is not Lebanon, Lebanon is not Hezbollah.
And, one is tempted to add, Lebanon is not Lebanon.
‘Winning’ a war is not a clear-cut thing. One reason for many Vietnam vets’ bitterness towards the peace-movement was that they thought they were winning on the ground, but were robbed of victory by a non-understanding public. The infamous Tet-offensive, for example, was a major military defeat for the North Vietnamese, even though it doubtless was a victory in most other ways.
Hezbollah is certainly not the Lebanese government! They are a shiite militia, founded, armed, trained and funded by Iran, and an important actor in southern Lebanon. Some members sit in the Parliament of Lebanon, howver they represent anti-Lebanese foreign powers (Syria and Iran: responsible for assassination of Lebanese politicians). Hezbollah is not Lebanon, Lebanon is not Hezbollah.
If the attackers goal is a raid and destroy mission, then an attacker would be successful if they acheived this. Israel, however, didn't acheive their goals, and Hezbollah even now continue to develop fire power for the next phase (coming soon, I expect) in their sturggle with Israel.
sorry, i was a bit too imprecise, and possibly a bit off. i was unde the impression, from the media, that hezbollah had, through elections, gained control of the goverment and this is why the US and Israel do not recognize the government there and have stoppped aid, or something.
sorry, but i dont have time now for any real thorough fact checking, so let me know if my uninformed ramblings are of no use.
Clausewitz noted that defensive war is easier than attack, and surely neither Hamas nor Hezbollah will be rolling the tanks through the streets of Jerusalem. However, success in open battle is not necessary (or feasible) at this stage. What we are witnessing is engineered shifts in the balance of power. Israeli Defence Force doctrine states that one of the goals of the IDF is to project the image of overwhelming force in order to discourage further attacks by Israel’s many enemies. But Hezbollah have made the IDF look weak: defeatable. That is an important victory in itself, for jihadism in general and not just for Hezbollah in particular.
As it stands, no terrorist group, no state or non-state actor, could fight and win a conventional war with the West. However, according to standard insurgency principles (by now: see Mao for the origins of this theory), and looking at jihad as the “long war”, we are at Phase I of its attack on the West: the Strategic Defensive. Jihadism will continue to build strength politically and militarily, wage asymmetrical 4GW, attack the political will to confront it, and try to shift the balance of power until it is strong enough to engage the West in conventional open battle.
Three pages in and nobody's even mentioned the hugely questionable politics inherent in the very first post? Well, with a hearty shudder I wish you all the best in your little tete a tete.
Winning a war was never about winning the bodycount. Remember Pyrrhic victory?
To me, the biggest change in warfare seems to be the definition of "win".
Seriously though, do you really think invading Iraq and Afghanistan has done any good?
Do you think that if we hadn't there would have been hundreds of 9/11 or 7/7 style attacks?
Was Saddam's Iraq a "terrorist regime"? He certainly terrorised his own people but I would say a regime would have to sponsor terror in other countries to fit that description. Was this the case? Bin Laden's anitpathy towards Saddam is well known and I can't imagine Saddam having much to do with Iran-backed Hezbullah either...
Surely you don't think that 9/11 occurred in a vacuum completely out of the blue? Even if you do think that you must realise that it is controversial and that you have to justify that statement. To me it seems to be completely beyond the pale to suggest that September the 11th was some kind of year zero in terms of west-east (or civilized-terror as you would have it) interaction - wouldn't it be truer to say something along the lines of "after all the years of non-leaving-alone we've done we can't just leave them alone 'cause they might be a bit annoyed"?Of course, if terrorists would just leave us a lone if we left them alone, everything would be gravy and we could happily let them oppress and torment the Muslim world (the dream of many anti-warriors?) as they have done in the past. However, we know, we know that that isn't what will happen. Remember 9/11?
I agree with what Octopus said, there are so many things to disagree with in the original post.
But even ignoring that, further on Vimothy says
Surely you don't think that 9/11 occurred in a vacuum completely out of the blue? Even if you do think that you must realise that it is controversial and that you have to justify that statement. To me it seems to be completely beyond the pale to suggest that September the 11th was some kind of year zero in terms of west-east (or civilized-terror as you would have it) interaction - wouldn't it be truer to say something along the lines of "after all the years of non-leaving-alone we've done we can't just leave them alone 'cause they might be a bit annoyed"?
I agree with what Octopus said, there are so many things to disagree with in the original post.
But even ignoring that...