[BGB] OK who do you think won the Israeli/Hezbollah skirmish?

[michael.cartine at thomson.com]

Yes I think that pretty squarely sums it up.
Although I don't think Hezbollah will be rearming.  I don't think they
ever stopped...
My take on the u.n./French is they want the right to shoot back.  But
I'd expect them to be too scared to ever actually do anything.  That's
not to hose the French, just a realization that anybody who screws with
Hezbollah will buy a ticket to go somewhere.
Would be interesting to see if the u.n. force will actually try to keep
Hezbollah from re-arming.  If they're brave enough, they can say look at
resolution 1701 or whatever it is.
Then if Hezbollah blasts the u.n., it's the rest of the world against
Hezbollah/iran.  But those are big 'ifs'.

One more thing - the arab world has no idea at all that Hezbollah
started the war.  Living in London now, I can actually tell you most
people here, meaning non-arabs, actually think Israel started the war.
Or maybe Hezbollah did, but they don't know exactly what Hezbollah did,
or how bad they were screwing off.  That's waspy London, and I can tell
you the few arabs I know have much less of an idea.

-----Original Message-----
From: bgb-bounces at battlegroupboston.org
[mailto:bgb-bounces at battlegroupboston.org] On Behalf Of
tballou at comcast.net
Sent: 17 August 2006 16:30
To: Peter Mancini; BattleGroup Boston
Subject: [BGB] OK who do you think won the Israeli/Hezbollah skirmish?

This has been a big issue in the news, curious what you guys think.


Sadly, I think Hezbollah can claim victory, the Cease-fire and Peace
keeping forces will not weaken their position, if anything they will
strenghten it.

It seems the Lebanese Army have made a public statement that they will
not actively disarm the Hezbollah.  The French seem to be pushing the UN
to allow them to do such, but I doubt that they really want to try it.

Now Hezbollah is taking the PR initiatiave to rebuild and provide relief
to the people in southern Lebanon (at the expense of Iran).  The
Lebanese government, can do little, so they fill the vacuum, and gain
more status as a "State within a State".  Seemingly people of Lebanon
and the Arab world are "forgetting" Hezbollah started this whole mess.

What will get interesting, is if they start to try to rebuild the
bunkers and hardened  positions the Israelis took out.  What will the
Peace keepers do?  If they don't try to stop them, then soon I suspect
Hezbollah will begin re-arming.

I doubt the any of the Peace keeping force will be willing to start an
open confrontation with Hezbollah.

Losers are clearly the people of Lebanon.

A draw at best for Israeli.

Of course I could be wrong.

--Tom

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