Hezbollah Is A Terrorist Group

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

think that what Israel underestimated Hezbollah's capabilities, but that this is not as catastrophic as it seems since the point of the offensive is to destroy Hezbollah but to restore Israel's credibility in the region. Hezbollah and the other weirdos now know they cannot strike Israeli territory without suffering severe consequences. I have said last week that people pay too much attention to the military objectives when they should focus on the political objectives.

As Michael Young said, Israel is punishing the Shias because this will make it hard from for Hezbollah to attack Israel anytime soon. I am sad to say that from an Israeli point of view, it's a good strategy.

From my Lebanese perspective, I have little to gain from this conflict. While I would certainly be happy to get rid of Hezbollah, the cost of this war far outweighs the benefits - especially that, at the end of the day, Hezbollah might still be there. In this case, there won't be any benefits for me, only costs.

For the Hezbollah, the real cost of the war will be known in a few months, when the Shia refugees come back to their destroyed neighbourhood. The Shia community may forgive the Hezbollah this time, but it will certainly not forgive the part of God for making the same mistake twice.

I say to the Israelis that they should follow Friedman's advice and make Hezbollah lose - by stopping this war. Israel cannot attain its military objectives, but it has already won the political war. This offensive is not harming Hezbollah anymore, but Lebanon's attempt to establish a democratic - even if feeble - state. There's more to Lebanon than weirdos: don't forget that there's plenty of decent Lebanese who also want to destroy Hezbollah, through peaceful, but more efficient means. To do that, we need peace, we need prosperity, and we need time.

[donsaeid]

i dont thing Hezbollah Lost anything

Israel lost this war.. why? because they didnt achived their battle plan which was to destroy hizbollah and kill Sheikh Hassan NasrAllah

[Rasputin]

ajaleh nakon... in gurileh pashmalou ro keh mikoshanesh keh hich, raeis hash keh akhounda ham bashan beh zoudi beh darak miran !!! Khoda ba mast !

[donsaeid]

ajaleh nakon... in gurileh pashmalou ro keh mikoshanesh keh hich, raeis hash keh akhounda ham bashan beh zoudi beh darak miran !!! Khoda ba mast !

mast to khiar ya maste moo sir?


omidvaram khasteye khoda etefagh biofte... hala harchi ke mikhad bashe

[Sepideh_UK]

HAr chi kheire pish biad.

[mike435]

enshla nasralah bezoodi be behesht mireh

[Rasputin]

enshla nasralah bezoodi be behesht mireh

Hahahaha.. nah baba.. in Nasrollah ro bayad daresh zad ..hang him.. and their bosses too (Akhound ha ) .

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah terrorist listing remains

AUSTRALIA has again ruled out delisting Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation, as Israel continues its battle to wipe it out as an effective fighting force in Lebanon.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said today that in the 1990s Hezbollah was complicit in bombing Buenos Aires and planning attacks in places like Bangkok.
"And the advice that we had is the external security organisation of Hezbollah is still capable of, and planning, terrorist attacks in support of its broader objectives in the Middle East," he told ABC TV.

Mr Ruddock said the government did monitor the situation, "but I've received no advice that Hezbollah as an external security situation has changed its objectives".

Earlier, Prime Minister John Howard said there was "no chance, full stop" of changing Hezbollah's classification as a terrorist organisation.

The Muslim Community Reference Group, set up by the government following last year's London terrorist bombings, met Mr Howard last week but had no luck in changing the government's view that the militant wing of Hezbollah was anything other than a terrorist organisation.

Later, the government warned that Australians who donated to any wing of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement risked breaking the law.

Questions were raised in Australia's Lebanese community this week whether it was illegal to donate to the party as a whole, or just its militant wing.

Many Australian Lebanese want to send funds to charities in Lebanon to help kin displaced by the ongoing conflict.

But a statement from Mr Ruddock cautioned today that all wings of Hezbollah were outlawed by the international community, and Australians could be breaking the law if they donated to any part of it.

"It's quite clear, if they send (money) to Hezbollah, the provision of 1373 of the United Nations' Security Council resolution apply, and they would be committing an offence," Mr Ruddock said today.

"People who want to assist in relation to Lebanon should do so through established organisation. There are many working there in the area."

But he said people should make inquiries before donating funds so they didn't inadvertently send money to an organisation run by Hezbollah.

"You are likely to be committing an offence if you are reckless in the way you deal with these issues," he said.

He said the burden of responsibility in this case was no stronger than in many types of criminal law, which outlaw reckless behaviour.

In Australia, only Hezbollah's External Security Organisation (ESO) is listed as a terrorist organisation. Its political wing is not.

Other countries, such as Canada and the US, have listed Hezbollah in its entirety.

Mr Ruddock said he would not discuss whether the government was monitoring Australians returning from southern Lebanon.

An Australian's mere presence in that region was not enough to arouse suspicion they were involved with Hezbollah, he said.

[Rasputin]

اگر خودمان را نخواهیم گول بزنیم و واقع بین باشیم باید بگوییم حزب الله شکست خورد
نکته :

از جمعت چهار میلیونی لبنان بیش از یک میلیون و پانصدهزار نفرآن آواره شده اند .

در لبنان نزدیک به هزار نفرکشته و هزاران تن مجروح شدند .

کلیه تاسیسات مربوط به برق و انرژی در جنوب لبنان از بین رفته است .

راه های ترانزیتی به کل نابود شده است .

بیش از هشتاد درصد پلهای این کشورتخریب شده .

گمرکات ، فرودگاه ها و اسکله های این کشور غیر قابل استفاده است .

تاسیسات زیر بنایی در بیروت وجنوب لبنان به کل از بین رفته و مردم برای یافتن آب آشامیدنی هم با مشکل روبرو هستند .

تفریح گاه ها و مناطق دیدنی که روزگاری منبع جذب توریست این کشور بود اگر منهدم نشده باشند اکنون نیمه مخروبه اند .

مزارع کشاورزی و باغات با محصولاتشان در آتش سوخته و از بین رفته اند .

خسارات زیست محیطی که بر اثر نشت نفت و ضایعات نفتی به دریا ایجاد شده است سالها ماندگار خواهد بود .

تاسیسات اجتماعی و شهری بخصوص در بیروت ، بعلبک ، صور و صیدا خسارات کلی دیده یا نابود شده اند .

علاوه بر به هم خوردن فستیوالها و جشنهای تابستانی ؛ طبق پیشبینی ها لبنان فقط در امسال درآمد حاصل از سفر بیش از پنج میلیون جهانگرد را ازدست داد .

[Rasputin]

Lebanon - Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message to Hezbollah head Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, described the militant group's clashes with Israel as a "victory" for Islam.

"Your unprecedented holy war and steadfastness are beyond the limits of my description. It's a divine victory. It is a victory of Islam," Khamenei said in the message read by an announcer on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.

Hezbollah is heavily financed and backed by Iran's Shiite Muslim theocracy.

"With God's help you were able to prove that military superiority is not (measured) in the number (of soldiers), planes, warships and tanks. Rather, it depends on the power of faith and holy war," Khamenei said.

"You have ridiculed the myth that the Zionist army is invincible," he said.

Khamenei said the U.S.-Israeli plan for "a new Middle East" had been shattered by Hezbollah's resistance against Israel's 34-day military offensive in Lebanon.

"Lebanon has emerged (from the war) shining and beaming as a result of its people's determination and heroism," he said.

"The (Israeli) enemy has made a mistake in imagining that by attacking Lebanon, it is targeting the weakest chain of the region's states to inaugurate its illusory Middle East plan as it desires," Khamenei said.

"But the American-Israeli enemy was oblivious to the Lebanese people's patience, intelligence and heroism. It was also oblivious to the strength of Lebanon's big arms," he said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that the U.S. administration was working with its allies for "a new Middle East" where anti-Israeli militant groups, like Hezbollah and the Palestinian groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have no place. All three groups are on a U.S. list of terror organizations.

Khamenei said Israeli attacks that killed Lebanese civilians and destroyed much of the country's infrastructure have exposed "the real face of America and some European countries, side-by-side with the hated and repugnant Zionist face."

"They (Israeli attacks) have also uncovered the level of falsehood surrounding the hollow slogans ... about human rights and democracy," Khamenei said.

He lashed out at President Bush for declaring that the Israeli assault in Lebanon was self-defense and had defeated the Shiite guerrillas.

Khamenei is the supreme religious authority to Hezbollah followers.

(Stupid Ali Shirei !!!)

[Rasputin]

شيمون پرز، معاون نخست وزیر اسرائیل، که برای جلب کمک مالی به منظور بازسازی مناطق آسیب دیده از حملات حزب الله به شمال اسرائیل، در آمریکا به سر می برد می گويد امروز نبرد بر سر دو لبنان است: "لبنان ایرانیان و لبنان لبنانی ها."
وی که روز سه شنبه با کاندولیزا رایس، وزیر خارجه آمریکا، دیدار کرده بود گفت آمریکاییها نیز بر همين اعتقادند.

شیمون پرز همچنین ایران را متهم به حمایت مالی از حزب الله کرد.

وی گفت: "ما برآورد کرده ایم که حزب الله سالانه 100 میلیون دلار از ایران دریافت می کند. آنها پیشرفته ترین سلاح هایی که ایران دارد و یا از روسیه و چین و کشورهای دیگر خریداری کرده را در اختیار دارند. آنها توسط ایرانیان آموزش می بینند. ما برآورد کرده ایم که بیش از یکصد آموزش دهنده ایرانی در لبنان مشغول کمک به حزب الله هستند."

ايران همواره حامی اصلی حزب الله بوده و آن گونه که علی اکبر محتشمی، بنيانگذار ايرانی اين گروه اخيراً در مصاحبه ای با روزنامه شرق تأکيد کرد شمار زيادی از اعضای حزب الله در ايران آموزش نظامی ديده و حتی در جنگ ايران و عراق در صفوف نظاميان ايرانی جنگيده و تجربه اندوخته اند.

از سوی ديگر تسیپی لیونی، وزیر خارجه اسرائیل، که برای ملاقات با مقام های سازمان ملل متحد در نیویورک به سر می برد گفته است اسرائیل مدارکی دارد که نشان می دهد ایران و سوریه مشغول ارسال سلاح برای حزب الله هستند.

وی همچنین هشدار داد اسرائیل هر نوع کامیون حامل مهمات که از مرز سوریه وارد لبنان شود را بمباران خواهد کرد حتی اگر این اقدام ناقض قرارداد آتش بس باشد.

'احساس دوگانه اعراب نسبت به حزب الله'

شيمون پرز همچنين گفته است حزب الله قبل از جنگ 2500 نیروی نظامی در اختیار داشته اما در طول درگیریهای چند هفته گذشته نیمی از آنها توسط ارتش اسرائیل کشته و یا مجروح شده اند.

آقای پرز ادعا کرد در طی جنگ با لبنان به هواپیماهای برخی کشورهای عربی اجازه داده شد برای انتقال مواد غذایی و دارویی از حریم هوایی اسرائیل استفاده کنند.

اما او از ذکر نام این کشورها و نیز تعداد پروازهای انجام شده خودداری کرد.

آقای پرز افزود در جریان این جنگ بیشتر کشورهای عربی احساس دوگانه ای داشتند و نمی خواستند حزب الله برنده شود.

[Rasputin]

President Bush acknowledged Friday that it could take time for the people of Lebanon and the world to view the war between Israel and Hezbollah as a loss for the militant group.
"The first reaction of course of Hezbollah and its supporters is to declare victory. I guess I would have done the same thing if I were them," Bush said after a meeting with his economic advisers.

"Sometimes it takes people awhile to come to the sober realization of what forces create stability and what don't," he said. "Hezbollah is a force of instability."

Bush also expressed some disappointment with France's decision to offer just 400 soldiers to a U.N. peacekeeping force being developed to calm the situation in southern Lebanon. France was expected to lead the mission, and its announcement of such a small number led to doubts that the force would deploy quickly.

"France has said they will send some troops," the president said tersely. "We hope they'll send more."

The president took strong objection to a federal judge's ruling that the National Security Agency warrantless surveillance program that he approved was unconstitutional.

"I would say that those who herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live," he said. "I strongly disagree with this decision."

The Justice Department immediately launched an appeal of the ruling.

[Rasputin]

The Israeli military action in Lebanon has not shown any tactical or strategic surprises or innovations. It has been led as a classical military operation against regular armed forces, with the destruction of bridges, roads, telecommunication infrastructures, depots, and command centres. The premise is that Hezbollah is a ‘classical’, ‘normal’ enemy, that can be defeated by ‘classical’ and normal’ means: total command of the skies, massive armoured movements, saturation artillery, ground movements by well-trained infantry.

Thus, by destroying the bridges and roads, no supplies or reinforcements can be sent from central depots or barracks to the various fronts. By destroying the telecoms, no orders can be sent to the local commanders. By destroying the deep bunkers of the military HQ, and thus by killing the officers, the chain of command is decapitated. Also, by destroying Lebanon’s economic capacity (factories, agricultural produce, the service sector) and by displacing hundreds of thousands of civilians, the State would surrender on Israel’s terms, i.e. order Lebanon to forcefully engage Hezbollah and disarm it, demilitarize the Lebanese side of the frontier, and prepare the ground for a peace agreement.

However, Hezbollah is not a classical army. It is not even organized in the usual pyramid-shaped command structure. It has no central HQ. It has no chief of staff as such. It has no permanent barracks. It has no tanks, no navy, no airforce, no self-contained logistics, no nuclear capability, no weapons of massive destruction; its few drones are unsophisticated; its communications are not entirely based on military equipment. Its intelligence does not rely on the myth of constant and omniscient electronic and aerial surveillance. Its ‘soldiers’ are neither conscripts nor full-time recruits.

As such, any ‘classical’ tactics are bound to be inadequate: large-scale tank manoeuvres, beach landings, helicopter attacks or paratroop descents would be of little tactical use. The failure of the Golani Brigade to take Bint Jbail using classical tactics is an indication of the problems encountered. It was only at the end of the first week of aerial bombing and artillery barrages that the Israelis discovered to their surprise that Hezbollah was unscathed. Its stock of ground-to-ground missiles was intact, as was the capability of the local commanders to lob them deeper and deeper into Northern Israel.

There could thus be no quick, classical ‘military’ solution, as was the case in 1982, on exactly the same terrain, against the PLO and the Syrian Army. This realization lead to tensions in the Israeli High Command, with accusations and counter accusations leading to the replacement of the General responsible for operations in Lebanon.

For the first time, the Israeli Army was confronted by a well-trained armed group, perfectly familiar with the local terrain, with a very clear ideology to which all of its members totally adhered. Its military intelligence is superior to that of most Arab armies, its theoretical and strategic thinking sophisticated. Its organization and planning is superior and not at all comparable to, say, the PLO’s, or even to Hamas’ or the Al-Aqsa Brigades’. In the field, it does not need sophisticated communications equipment (and thus is less vulnerable to electronic countermeasures).

Hezbollah has digested the experience of many wars: the Vietnamese, the South American insurrections as well as the Iran-Iraq conflicts, for example. But also the Yougoslav conflict, and the current Iraqi insurrection. It learnt from the successes and mistakes of the PLO in Lebanon, but also of the Intifadas and the on-going actions in Palestine. Its fighters have no fear of death, quite the contrary, and their commitment to defending their allotted military positions is total.

For these reasons, Israel’s military war against Hezbollah (Israel’s political war against the Shias and against the Lebanese power structure are different points all together) will certainly be bloody and difficult. Their failure to take Bint Jbail can be put forward as an example of the difficulties on the field; their reliance on massive air strikes to prepare a (failed) raid on Baalbek is also an example. Their very slow progress to occupy villages just one or two kilometers from the frontier, even after massive air strikes and artillery barrages, are other examples.

The Israeli forces seemed to be rely more on tank action against the ruins of villages flattened by air bombardement. But even this tactic took a heavy toll, as isolating all of South Lebanon from the rest of the country by an armoured thrust to the Litani River was no guarantee against future action taken in the rear.

All Hezbollah leaders, interviewed by the Lebanese and international media have given the same message: ‘we are ready and we will resist for a very long time if the Israelis think they can dislodge us quickly’. The war went on for nearly two months, to the shock of many Israeli reservists mobilized.

This, of course, is a psychological problem for the morale of the Israeli civilian population, which has massively abandoned the North of Israel for (up-to-now) safer places in Central or Southern Israel. ***yat Shmona was evacuated; tens of other settlements in the Galilee became empty. This psychological surprise would partially explain some of the completely militarily-useless actions taken by the Israeli forces in Lebanon: the destruction of wood and paper factories, daries, wheat silos, medicine depots, buses and tractors, well-drilling equipment, residential areas, plantations, water treatment units, etc.

The destruction of fuel tanks at the electricity station at Jiyeh was completed by the targeting of its anti-pollution walls, creating the worst ecological disaster in the Eastern Mediterranean (and also militarily counterproductive for any planned amphibious landing). One can only explain these actions, and that of the Cana, Houile and Qana massacres, as a loss of nerve by the higher-echelon officers, who saw, to their horror, that their well-oiled plan wasn’t working. They believed that the only way to turn the tide to their total advantage would be to physically crush all the country and beat the population into submission: the physical razing of Haret el Hraik, the flattening of tens of villages in the South, the bombing of Chiyah, can be put forward as examples of this strategic thinking.

It failed. Seen from Beirut, the Israeli plan to ‘finish’ Hezbollah in 10 days still brings amused smiles to many observers one month after the start of the war. The Israeli claims that the stockpile of missiles has been reduced to critical levels seems contradicted by even heavier and deeper daily volleys into Northern and Central Israel (Afula, Beisan).

Claims of extensive deaths in Hezbollah’s ranks are either unverified by neutral observers or by the foreign press, or turn out to be civilians killed in their houses or shelters, as confirmed by Red Cross reports. While, undoubtedly, some Hezbollah fighters have been killed or wounded (probably on the same ratio as the Israeli military casualties) their numbers are still largely intact, especially where ground combat has been sporadic (between Bint Jbail and the Litani, the coastal plan to the South of Saida, Southern, Central and Northern Bekaa, the suburbs of Beirut).

Hezbollah has also come out on top of the psychological war in Lebanon itself. The blanket sending of SMS propaganda messages and telephone calls to the Lebanese, or the hacking of al-Manar television for a few minutes, has not changed the Lebanese’s largely positive attitude towards Hezbollah’s military actions (even though there have been criticisms of the underlying political strategy of this party).

This, of course, brings us to the point of the missiles sent into Israel. If the Israeli Army can advance further than the few kilometers around Taibe, Houle, Maroun al-Ras, Marouahine, etc. it still has to confront forces deployed further back, either South of the Litani (the general area around Tibnine, the coastal plain, Tyre or the Marjayoun-Ain Ebel-Khiam triangle) or North (Nabatiye, the hills blocking the access to the Bekaa). These are the main advance routes used ever since Pharaonic times, so there can be no strategic surprises; these are also the exact same routes used by the Israelis since 1978. But the problem of the missiles will not be solved by occupying these areas.

The option of pushing up to Rayak, Baalbek or Hermel (ie occupying all of the Bekaa, and thus half of Lebanon as has been proposed in the press and on blogs by “experts”) seems improbable. Advancing up the Bekaa (in pure ‘classical’ military style, as was the case in 1918, 1943, 1978,1982 etc.) implies a ‘classical’ war between armies, which is not the case today. It also brings strategic centres such as Damascus and Homs (Syria’s petrochemical and industrial centre) unacceptably close to Israel’s army with the risk of an all-out regional conflict.

While the Hezbollah missiles might then be out of range of Israel, the Israeli Army would be in very close range of Syria’s own missiles, whose deployment there are not contravened by the 1974 disengagement agreements over the Joulan/Golan. Israel itself and the Israeli forces in Lebanon would also be in close range of the Syrian SCUDS. But of course, one could also suggest that the Israelis should lunge even deeper into Syria (Hama, Aleppo, Soueida) to get rid of the Syrian missile threat but that would put these forces into an even closer position vis a vis the Iranian missiles. Et caettera ad infinitum.

[Rasputin]

Lebanon’s infrastructure and production are largely destroyed, its delicate political balance dangerously shaken, and a major humanitarian and ecological disaster clearly visible. It is improbable that the country will achieve any degree of normality in the near future; the solution of a civil war, with possible partitioning of the country is evoked by the population. In Israel, the balance-sheet of the last 50 years reads like a list of missed opportunities, lack of political vision, provoked crises and violence. The existential question is finally being posed inside Israel itself: What is the future of this State? Is Zionism and continual military mobilization a real long-term solution?

One then of course can ask whether this war was really worth it: surely the points of contention between Israel and the Hezbollah (or between Lebanon and Israel) could have been settled by negociation. It’s all about Lebanese prisoners still in Israel in spite of decisions by the Israeli High Court to free them; of continual and daily overflights of Lebanon by reconnaissance aircraft or of intrusions in its territorial waters; of killing of Lebanese and Palestinian activists or civilians in Lebanon; of the question of the Chebaa farms; of details along the Blue Line.

The fact that this solution was not chosen by the Israeli power structure (who rejected even the notion of a cease-fire even after international condemnation for the Cana massacre) points to a lack of understanding that the type of war has changed. It is not a classical war (as was the case in 1967 and 1973), nor an insurrection (the Intifadas), nor a guerrilla war of liberation (the PLO in Jordan or Lebanon before 1982). It also points to a lack of understanding that the population of the Arab world has a very different world-view than its leaders, and the Israeli system (as well as that of the “New Middle East”) is not a model that raises any enthusiasm.

In this context, the military option and brute force will bring no solution, only continual long-term violence. The game must thus be played through diplomacy, freely-consented reciprocal negotiations and discussion of all points, without any vetoes, threats, forced decisions or taboos. The alternative is too dangerous to contemplate.