Three weeks into its war with Israel, Hezbollah has retained its presence in southern Lebanon, often the sole authority in devastated towns along the Israeli border. The militia is elusive, with few logistics, little hierarchy and less visibility. Even residents often say they don’t know how the militiamen operate or are organized. Communication is by walkie-talkie, always in code, and sometimes messages are delivered by motorcycle. Weapons seem to be already in place across a terrain that fighters say they know intimately.
“On the ground, face to face, we’re better fighters than the Israelis,” said Hajj Abu Mohammed, a bearded, 44-year-old militiaman in the small village of Srifa, whose walkie-talkie crackled and cellphone rang with a Hezbollah anthem.
Israel has claimed to have destroyed Hezbollah’s infrastructure in a 22-day campaign that has driven hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes and wrecked village after village along valleys sometimes charred by fires.
Hezbollah admits to having suffered losses, but in the fighting so far, it has demonstrated its detailed planning since the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000, ending an 18-year occupation. Fighters appear to exercise a great deal of autonomy, a flexibility evident along the region’s back roads: ammunition loaded in cars, trucks in camouflage, rocket launchers tucked in banana plantations.
Analysts say the militia could probably hold out a month without serious resupply. Fighters and supporters suggest that time is their advantage in a war that most suspect won’t have a conclusive end. In conversations in southern Lebanon, the militia’s supporters seem most adamant in trying to deprive either Israel or the United States of political gains from the military campaign.
“We’ll never submit to oppression, whatever the force applied, whatever the time it takes,” one of the group gathered in Jwayya said Tuesday. “You won’t find any difference between 21 days and 121 days. The difference is solely a matter of time.”
Just the read the whole thing. Meanwhile in Israel (whose overwhelming power may have made it delusional as well as utterly amoral):
Despite the number of attacks yesterday, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert, said Hizbullah had been disarmed “to a large degree”. “The infrastructure of Hizbullah has been entirely destroyed,” he said.
I think I know who to believe. Besides, Hizbullah fighters would probably continue fighting Israeli occupiers with their bare hands if they have to.
Thanks for offering insights into Hizbullah’s strategy. The article still does not answer the underlying question regarding Hezbollah’s strategy: what is Hezbollah trying to achieve? what is their end-goal?
Besides that, I would like to know if you can share some insights into the Hizbullah’s tactics ie where lies the truth with regards to the allegations that Hezbollah launches its rockets from heavily populated areas, apartment buildings etc?
A careful reading of the Hezbo-adulation written by Anthony Shadid reveals three sub-texts. First, the Hezbo-militia, described in the fawning headline as having http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/02/AR2006080201584.html“ rel=”nofollow”>”patient loyalists, confident in victory are described as brave and fearless, as well as elusive and clever. Okay, that’s the necessary foundation of the classic guerrila warfare manual.
Before I was in Vietnam, we students at the Vietnam Training Center in Arlington studied Vietnamese by day and were asked to read descriptions of low-intensity warfare in the Filipino Huk insurgency after indepencence in 1946 and the Malaya uprising of the fifties. Careless layabouts don’t volunteer for guerrila warfare. Shadid mentions the many separate arms caches the Hezbo-wraiths have access to, without noting that the armaments they have are gratis from Iran, with expedited transit via Syria a necessity.
Subtext two: Shadid and his WaPo minders allow Anthony’s slavish encomiums to the doughty Hezbo “resistance” to go unchecked for several paragraphs, then reveal their obvious bias with a slight oversight in the sum-up:
The Hezbo-megaphone holders at the post allow Shadid to get away with the last tidbit of Hezbo-agitprop with the following disinformation:
As Nancy Soderberg, a Clinton-NSC member noted in the Financial Times on Monday, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shebaa_Farms“ rel=”nofollow”>Shebaa Farms is recognized by the US and the UN as Syrian territory, not just by Israel. As even the anti-Israeli Kofi Annan noted in Jan 20, 2005:
Which translates into US-speak as, Shebaa Farms are Syrian, and the Lebanese/Syrian cabal to portray it as Lebanese is fraudulent.
Just like the WaPo’s journalistic standards and Anthony Shadid’s reportage.
Finally, to make a trifecta of Hezbo-tilting subtexts: the trumped-up little local warlord [“Abu Ali”]interviewed by Shadid noted:
Shadid quotes a Hezbo-terrorist parroting Nasrullah as threatening America because, just as Hamas early this year justified a suicide-bomber who killed nine people [plus itself] in a Jerusalem marketplace, aggressive terrorism across borders is an act of “self-defense.”
Will Detroit will be the next frontline after Shebaa Farms falls to the Hezbo-mullahs?
Issamder, keep up the good work friend. Have you seen this dark analysis of probable fallout from the Lebanon war by Lawrence Pintak?
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views06/0803-02.htm
Hezbollah is willing to fight to the the last Lebanese civilian. Very brave and bold and Im sure they will make great martyrs but they are dragging others with them. Is it really such a brilliant strategy to allow your country to be destroyed while you shoot off some rockets and kill a few civilians every day? Inviting an attack that will demolish you is reckless not resistance.
Lebanon will come out of this superficially united but in ruins. Was it worth it for your “Dignity”? Is this the inpiration you think the next generation needs? Take control of your destiny people!!! Take control of your religion!!! Only YOU can save yourselves from yourselves.
I was in Egypt once in October and they were celebrating the victory over Israel in the 1973 Kippur War. The problem is that Egypt army was crushed during this war even more than during the 6 days war, Israel finished the war 60 miles from Cairo and achieved maybe its greatest military victory ever.
But Egyptians think they won.
So we have the same strange mechanism here: Hizbullah lost hundreds of men and a part of its infrastructure, Lebanon is in ruin with hundreds of dead and hundred of thousands refugees, while Israel lost 40 soldier and 30 civilians (I think they had more dead in the same period by car accidents) and maybe that economic growth will be 4,5% instead of 5,5%.
A great victory for Hizbullah.