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Old 11-25-2006, 16:21 PM   #27 (permalink)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan187 View Post
Obviously, UN troops are not going to disarm anyone, and I never expected that. But then again if it was me, I would have never sent them in there to begin with.
UNIFIL was just an excuse to allow the IDF to retreat with honour.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan187 View Post
As far as UN fighting a war that the IDF couldn't win, I think that is a bit simplistic Sir, and I know that your position is more nuanced than that.
How long was Israel in Lebanon before finally couldn't stomache the losses anymore? Let's not forget the disaster that was called the South Lebanon Army. This last invasion was obviously because of the UN's failure to prevent a Hezbollah build up and action. To expect the UN to succeed when it is its failure that prompted this Israeli failure is in itself simplistic.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stan187 View Post
The IDF I think could win against Hizballah. However, the IDF does exist in a vacuum. It is linked with the political situation, namely a weak government. I think the IDF could defeat Hizballah (at least to a large extent), but would suffer numerous casualties of course. The same thing I said about casualties, and the lack of willingness of the public to stomach them, applies to Israel just as well as any other developed nation.
Let's not do a revisionism. We can examine and debate the details but the fact is that Israel lost this one. There is some shame and your pride is hurt. Swallow it and learn where you went wrong. There is no better teacher of humility and battle tactics than failure.

The fact was that Israel was the one who started this war under conditions that did not allowed victory. Whether misjudgement, ill-informed, poor soldiering, bad luck, or just the coffee was bad, these things have to be examined with one goal in mind - to understand the defeat. To ignore the defeat or gloss over it with other accomplishments (such as the OPOBJs were achieved) would ignore the lessons altogether.
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