Excerpted from link at the end:
"Your counter-guerrilla doctrine has to be much smarter. For a start, think of a 20-year time frame — because there are no quick fixes. Be prepared to spend an ocean of money. Identify the political grievance at the heart of the problem and prepare a comprehensive policy embracing political, economic, social, media and military means that will address that grievance over a generation.
No matter what happens, proportionate, and where possible minimum, force is absolutely necessary. In this type of campaign, large body counts are never a sign of success; they are nearly always a sign of failure.
In the short term the Israeli Defence Forces will win its campaign in southern Lebanon. It will chip away at Hezbollah’s infrastructure until something that passes for control is imposed. There will be incessant patrolling by Israeli troops on the ground and drones in the sky, supported by good Israeli intelligence.
After about a month, southern Lebanon is unlikely to be an area where Hezbollah can operate at will and, apart from the occasional ambush, the IDF will have the upper hand.
But the long-term winners will almost certainly be Hezbollah. The Israelis will withdraw from southern Lebanon at some stage, because they cannot afford to keep large numbers of reservists on a war footing indefinitely. Hezbollah will move back, and any UN force that tries to disarm it will become part of the problem. Hezbollah will resist and, after extensive casualties, the UN will likely be forced to withdraw.
Hezbollah will also survive in the long term because the traumatised children fleeing today’s onslaught will become the fighters of tomorrow."
Major Charles Heyman is the former editor of Jane’s World Armies and editor of The Armed Forces of the United Kingdom. Read his full analysis here at Times Online if you like:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2295625,00.html
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This analyst describes the cynical but "realistic" cycle of violence begets violence. But, is there not another way?
Is it possible that the traumatized kids of today (not only in Lebanon, but all over the world) can become the peace makers and educators of tomorrow? Is it possible that educators who must also be fighters today, now, can change the mindset of this brutal and insane humanity?
((We read in some of the links I showed you of ordinary men who are teachers in Lebanon`s schools, but who have to go help out the militia at times to defend their country, so this is a valid question I pose. What kind of things will they teach the kids? Khalil Gibran`s writings, or how to launch rockets, or the need for both?))
When Lebanese author and thinker Khalil Gibran wrote The Prophet, he did not yet confront Israel and its white phosphor bombs throwing IDF to the South, but he had a fair understanding of Ottoman occupation and its brutality.
Now Israel`s Olmert states in a Times Online interview that he would welcome among the "multi-national peace keeper" also Turkish forces into Lebanon to enforce his kind of peace. This has the makings of returned Karma written allover the region.
Well, can the kids learn another way?
Can we think another ways, as in now, today?
I invite you to read once again THE PROPHET
- by Lebanese thinker & author Khalil Gibran
here: http://www.leb.net/~mira/works/prophet/prophet.html
Take your time. Perhaps all diplomats should read it too...
Peace -
St.Clair
