Why did Hezbollah start a war with Israel?
Better yet, what do they hope to gain? What do their proxies, Iran and
Syria hope to gain?
If anything, Iran/Syria are loosing the American public opinion war.
Before, they were seen, if not liked much, as a country that wasn't a
base for external terrorism, but now, as they try to resupply
Hezbollah, they've been flushed out.
The US is now beginning to equate Hezbollah with al-Qaeda, and
Amndidajad in Iran with Bin Laden.
America doesn't see Israel as occupying Lebanon or Syria. It's border
with them has been internationally recognized. What America does see, is
that Hezbollah terrorists have crossed that border, killed and abducted
Israeli citizens.
We went to war with Afganistan because they were harboring a terrorist
group that attacked us.
We went to war on the rumor that Iraq was a terrorist haven who were
about to attack us. Condi will go down in history for stating "You don't
want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
And, we'll attack again.
Iranian statements that they have 2,000 suicide volunteer bombers ready
to attack the US doesn't help.
We're thinking, another Afgainistan or Iraq, only this time, it's Iran.
Most don't want another war, but would support it if necessary.
The red-line, I suppose, is that if these 2,000 volunteers actually
start out on their plan against the US, then we'll start in on Iran.
Thinking that we're bogged down in Iraq is dangerous for the Iranians.
If for example, we declared that Iraq would now have to stand on it's
own, we could just sweep our armies northward into Iran.
It's falacious to think Iran could attack us in Iraq with their proxies.
We wouldn't be there, but moving the battle proper into Iran.
As well, our air-force can attack anywhere on the globe, and is, as we
speak, certainly programming in attack sites into the cruze missles.
---
Evacuations Underway in Beirut
Israel Continues Deadly Airstrikes; Hezbollah Fires Scores of Rockets
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 19, 2006; A01
BEIRUT, July 18 -- By helicopter and ship, hundreds of Americans and
Europeans fled on Tuesday from Beirut, ending its first week of siege,
as casualties mounted in deadly Israeli raids that struck a Lebanese
military base, a truck carrying food from Syria and a village near the
border. The militant group Hezbollah fired at least 100 rockets into
Israel, killing one civilian.
On a sweltering day, Norwegian, Swedish, Greek and British ships pulled
into Beirut's harbor, most of them trying to load their passengers
before nightfall. From a helipad at the U.S. Embassy overlooking Beirut,
the dull thud of rotors announced the arrival of helicopters, which
ferried passengers to the island of Cyprus, taking 30 people on each
trip. Other U.S. citizens waited, growing more frustrated over having to
endure another day of a conflict that has begun to impose a wartime
logic in the city.
"I had to come and cry at the door of the U.S. Embassy, kissing hand and
foot, telling them they must let me leave," said Raba Letteri, a
child-care provider from Reston, Va., who was on vacation in Lebanon
with her husband and two children.
They were living near Beirut's international airport, a swath of the
capital barraged in Israeli airstrikes. Her 2-year-old son, Aaron, had a
stomach infection. As they waited to board, he burst into tears. "This
is the worst thing in my life," she said.
Through the day, Beirut itself was relatively quiet. Life returned to
some streets so far unscathed by the attacks. Even traffic in the
battered Shiite Muslim suburbs, Hezbollah's stronghold, trickled past
the rubble of destroyed bridges and the shattered glass from apartment
buildings that littered the streets. To some, the day was a brief
respite as evacuations got underway. What might follow the foreigners'
departure was a question many asked.
"I feel in my heart that after the foreigners leave, big problems are on
the way," said Jamil Abu Hassan, a burly 56-year-old, loitering near the
port. "Today, the embassies are taking their people. Tomorrow, the next
day? God knows what will happen."
Hezbollah fired at least 100 rockets at Israel on Tuesday, including a
large barrage an hour before sunset, striking about 10 towns and cities
across northern Israel, from Haifa on the Mediterranean coast to tourist
communities in the southern Galilee region. [Two big explosions
reverberated over Beirut early Wednesday, and missiles hit towns to the
east and south of the capital, the Associated Press reported.]
One Israeli was killed Tuesday in a rocket strike in Nahariya about four
miles south of Lebanon on the coast, the Israeli military reported.
Twenty-one people were injured. So far in the fighting, 25 Israelis have
been killed, including 12 soldiers.
[Israeli armored forces entered the central Gaza Strip overnight and
clashed with Palestinian militants, killing two members of Hamas and
wounding five, the Associated Press reported, citing residents.
Witnesses reported heavy gunfire around the Maghazi Refugee Camp, not
far from the Gaza Strip's border with Israel. Fourteen other people,
including children, were reported wounded. Five Israeli soldiers were
wounded, two of them seriously, the military said, describing the raid
as part of its effort to halt rocket fire and recover a soldier captured
by gunmen June 25.]
Several rockets struck Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, about 22
miles south of Lebanon, where eight civilians were killed in a rocket
barrage Sunday, the Israeli military said. The city's port remained
closed for a second day because of the danger.
More than 720 Hezbollah rockets -- a small portion of the militant
Islamic group's arsenal -- have struck Israel since hostilities began a
week ago, when Hezbollah crossed the border and seized two Israeli
soldiers. In the wake of the attack, Israel has unleashed a destructive
military offensive that has killed more than 230 Lebanese, most of them
civilians. The country's airport is closed, and the south is largely cut
off from the rest of the country by wrecked roads and collapsed bridges.
The Israeli military said its jets flew about 110 raids over Lebanon on
Tuesday, part of a campaign that has created competing narratives of the
war. An Israeli military spokeswoman said the raids were targeting
trucks carrying Hezbollah weapons, Katyusha rocket launchers in southern
Lebanon, Hezbollah weapons storage facilities, bridges and roads used to
transport weapons and fighters -- "all of this to damage the Hezbollah
infrastructure," she said.
[Israeli troops entered southern Lebanon overnight for what a military
spokesman called a "pinpoint" operation near the border. Such raids have
been conducted previously.]
In Lebanon, anger grew at the number of civilians killed and the
dismantling of infrastructure that many Lebanese saw as their greatest
achievement in the post-civil war era.
"This is a city of ghosts," said Adib Hourani, a 26-year-old gas station
attendant, pointing down a deserted street.
In Aitaroun, a village near the Israeli border, a family of five was
killed, although some witness accounts put the toll at nine. On the
twisting mountain road to Damascus, an Israeli raid struck a truck
carrying sacks of sugar and rice bound for Beirut, as well as two other
large trucks, a pair of sedans and a four-wheel-drive taxi. In Kfar
Chima, a Lebanese army base took a direct hit as troops rushed to bomb
shelters, killing at least 11 Lebanese soldiers and wounding 35, the
military said. Black fires stained nearby cinder-block tenements, and
charred, twisted fenders, engine blocks and debris were scattered along
the highway overlooking the base.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said that Israel wants the
Lebanese army to deploy to the border, now under the effective control
of Hezbollah, but on several occasions, Israeli aircraft have targeted
Lebanese military installations.
An Israeli military spokeswoman, Capt. Noa Meir, said the military was
checking reports of the strike on the base, reiterating that Israeli
forces were "doing everything we can to keep civilians and the Lebanese
military out of harm's way."
Even the most optimistic Lebanese officials have acknowledged that
diplomacy to end the conflict remains at its initial stages. British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan have
suggested that a multinational force deploy to the Lebanese border.
Annan said the force would have to be more effective than the current
U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon, which was largely ineffective in stopping
either Hezbollah or Israel.
Although some European countries have expressed support, both the United
States and Israel have responded coolly, and Israeli officials, after
meeting U.N. negotiators Tuesday, said that the campaign will not let up
before the soldiers are released and Hezbollah withdraws from the
Israeli border. For their part, Hezbollah officials seem to have become
convinced that the stakes of the war have become much higher: a
U.S.-backed Israeli plan to strategically realign the region.
To a striking degree, both the Israeli public and Hezbollah's supporters
seem prepared for a longer struggle.
A poll in Tuesday's Yedioth Aharonoth, an Israeli daily, found that 86
percent of those surveyed said that the Israeli offensive against
Hezbollah was "the right thing to do," and 81 percent wanted it to
continue; 58 percent said it should continue until Hezbollah is
destroyed, and 17 percent said they favored a cease-fire and the start
of negotiations.
In Beirut's southern suburbs, where trash has piled up on corners and
shops were almost uniformly shuttered, Abbas Fattuni sat with a friend
smoking a water pipe in front of his auto parts store. They watched the
traffic, enjoying the respite of bombing in the capital.
"We're nothing without the resistance," he said, as his friend nodded
his agreement between puffs. "When a Lebanese dies, anywhere in the
country, no one in the Arab world lifts a finger. Only the resistance
takes care of them."
Across Lebanon, the siege began reverberating in people's lives. The
price for items such as kerosene and flour have all increased. Residents
are withdrawing money from banks and trying to convert their Lebanese
pounds into U.S. dollars, fearing a devaluation. The price of gasoline
in the southern city of Tyre has increased more than sixfold.
"Six days, no sleep. We couldn't even buy bread," said Mirna Ballout, a
30-year-old Lebanese American who left Tyre on Monday and was standing
outside the U.S. Embassy on Tuesday. "It's not fair -- whether it's for
Hezbollah or whether it's for Israel. It's just not fair for the people
living here."
Her two sons, Bassam, 7, and Yassine, 4, leaned against a suitcase. A
few hours earlier, she comforted them after they thought a car door
slamming was a bomb. Her daughter, 9-year-old Dana, held the handle of
her pink Hello Kitty suitcase and recounted the days, her eyes wide with
fear and surprise. "It's my first time," she said. "That was why I was
really scared." She smiled. "I hope this is my last time."
The helicopters ferried what the embassy called special cases on Tuesday
-- the sick, elderly and families with young children. Officials said
136 American students studying at the American University of Beirut and
the Lebanese American University were evacuated aboard a Norwegian
vessel from Beirut's port.
U.S. officials said they believe they will have the capability to
transport as many as 2,400 U.S. citizens out of Lebanon on Wednesday,
using two civilian cruise ships and Marine Corps helicopters to ferry
people to nearby Cyprus. The boosted evacuation effort could include the
removal of more than 5,000 citizens by the end of the week.
State and Defense department officials said they have been limited to
air and sea evacuations because they have deemed the roads leading out
of the country into Syria to be too hazardous. The Orient Queen cruise
ship, with the ability to carry 800 to 1,000 people, docked in Beirut on
Tuesday night and was preparing to leave for Cyprus at dawn Wednesday. A
second ship, slated to carry about 1,400 people, was also scheduled to
be available Wednesday.
Vice Adm. Patrick Walsh, commander of the U.S. 5th Fleet, said sailors
and Marines from the Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group and the 24th
Marine Expeditionary Unit had been ordered to the Mediterranean Sea to
assist in the large-scale evacuation. Nine U.S. warships were headed to
the region to provide security and, if needed, to help transport
civilians to safety.
One of those departing was Adam al-Sarraf, a 20-year-old American from
Los Angeles, who was studying Arabic at the American University of
Beirut. His Iraqi-born father, working in Baghdad, had called to give
him advice: Get off the fifth floor and stay in the basement. Watch out
for the windows.
"The students really sympathize with the people here," Sarraf said,
standing on the campus before his departure to the port, where he was to
board a Norwegian ship. "We understand they're going through much more
than we are."
Correspondent John Ward Anderson in Jerusalem, staff writer Josh White
in Washington, and staff photographer Michael Robinson-Chavez and
special correspondent Alia Ibrahim in Beirut contributed to this report.
.
|
