Lebanon Winners and Losers and The Future of Warfare.
By Rob Kall
Rob Kall; Israel and the USA are the big losers, at first glance, with Iran, Sh'ia Islam as the big winners. But at a deeper level, we all win, if the lessons learned are integrated into future plans.
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It seems to me that Israel is doing a dry run on what is the future of warfare. Hezbollah is the "new" kind of enemy-- not a nation, not a conventional army or military.
This fact, that Hezbollah is not a nation, does not field a conventional army, causes consternation and even arrogant responses from political and military leaders. They say that Hezbollah is operating as a sort of state within a state" and that this is "not something that will work."
Well excuse me. Slap Nassrullah's wrist and send them to the back of the room. Hezbollah doesn't fit their idea of the way things used to be and that's why THEY, the old guard militarists are part of the problem...
I imagine that when the Navajo or Comanche Indians faced Gatling guns for the first time (if they even did face them--this is a metaphor), they were probably disgusted by this new kind of weapon. I'd guess that they felt it was unmanly, without soul or courage. Nonetheless it was another tool that signified the end of their rule of their territories
The post 9/11 world is a different place. Just like some diseases no longer respond to antibiotics, meaning, are no longer KILLED by antibiotics, some "enemies" no longer respond to air warfare. They no longer respond to destruction of national infrastructure.
It is shocking to me that Hezbollah and its growing world of supporters see a victory where I see a massively devastated land. They see success in simply surviving.
That's not much success to me. But I am not an Arab, not a Muslim, living in a land where monarchs, mullahs or where democracy has been taken over by religious extremists. I don't live in a land where hate for the west is taught to children in religious schools (Madrassas,) where the men have had little to be proud of in the way of nationalist, macho victories. So it does make some sense that, just like a Rocky, who stood in the ring, his face pummeled to a pulp, the Arab world cheers for Hezbollah for just standing up to the tough, bully Israeli army, and not falling down.
And that makes Israel the loser in this battle. Israel may have destroyed thousands of rockets and killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters-- maybe even five or ten times as many Hezbollah fighters as Israeli soldiers were killed. These things don't matter.
Let me be clear. I am not extolling Hezbollah. I am not congratulating or lauding them. I am observing some of the realities in the Israel and Lebanon.
Hezbollah did not fall. They kept the rockets firing. They kept fighting back at a massively more powerful Israeli army. And in the process, they won some other ground that Israel helped them to gain. Before the "sixth war" as it is being called, the Sunni and Shi'a Arabs were further apart. Before the sixth war, the Iranians were at more distant odds with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan... and now, that has changed. Now, in the Arab street, the Arab world, Hezbollah is held a bit dearer in the hearts of Muslims across the planet. This is a huge, devastating loss for Israel and for the USA.
For similar reasons, Iran, the sponsor and "cultivator" of Hezbollah comes out looking better, becoming better accepted as non-Arabs in the Muslim world. Iran, as what might considered one of the primary centers of Shi'a Islam, has succeeded in preventing Lebanon from becoming more democrat, more secular and less Islamic.
In a way, the Shi'a revolution is, like the early communist and socialist revolutions, a rejection of the monarchical ruling powers that run the nations where Shi'a "revolutions" and government takeovers are occurring. In that sense, the Shi'a urge to power is one that aims to liberate its people from tyranny. And like communism and socialism, Shiaism retains authoritarian, top down rule and control, with severe restrictions on freedoms. Iran is at the center of that Shi'a revolution. The US and Israel are helping Iran to build support through the Arab and Islamic worlds. The terrorist movements, which may not ALL be sponsored by Iran or other similar revolutionary, anti-monarchical states, clearly are synergizing with the Shi'a revolutionary movements in fighting monarchies like the one in Saudi Arabia.
When the US attacked Iraq, it helped put the Iraqi Shiites, allied with Iran, in power, something Saddam had been preventing for decades. Now, Iran has more access to an influence in Iraq than ever before, all thanks to the brilliant strategies of Donald Rumsfeld, the man George W. Bush puts so much confidence in.
The US and Israel, through their Lebanese experiment, have helped the public relations for all the terrorist organizations. Now it is easier for them to characterize themselves as freedom fighters, as liberation movements. It is easier for them to blur the difference between them and the Shiites who would take over democratic governments and impose Koranic law, in the name of furthering the Islamic faith.
These are the same right wing extremist Islamists who, by offering to care for the children of the poorest of the poor, are creating millions, through the Madrassas hate schools, of children, growing into adults, who hate the US, hate the west, hate Christians and Jews. And we will be funding their schools, because we in the US are buying billions in oil from the countries they have already taken over and which it looks like they will successfully take over.
So, another group who loses are those Muslims who value democracy, who, practicing a less extreme form of Islam, will be forced to live under Taliban-like conditions. And the Lebanese Christians have probably lost, because clearly, the "new" Lebanon will be dominated more than ever by Hezbollah and the extremist Islamists they represent.
This is a crushing blow for Israel. The whole world knows that Israel is not the invincible military machine the world thought it was. The myth is destroyed, like in the movies, when the indigenous tribesmen discover that the western adventurer is not a god. This changes everything for Israel. It puts Israel at far greater risk.
In one way, the Israeli loss hurts the US, because, Israel, as the USA's proxy, using USA weapons and intelligence, was unable to conquer a band of terrorists. This suggests that the US military, with a lesser reputation for smarts and success, already struggling with a reputation for poor planning and underestimating the enemy and the needs of the troops, will do equally badly and probably even worse, since American troops are not fighting an enemy that is raining bombs on their families.
But in another way, the Israeli loss helps both the US and Iran and Israel. There has been a powerful group within the Bush administration, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle, Wolfowitz and Bush himself, who have wanted to take the "war on terrorism" to Iran. These are the same "chickenhawks," war hawks who never fought in a war themselves, who led the charge into the disastrous Iraq quagmire. And having failed to see what a catastrophe Iraq has become, what a failure and distraction from actually protecting the US from terrorism, these misguided "leaders" were hoping that a quick, successful Israeli "clean-up" of Hezbollah, would have been a great practice run for a go at Syria and Iran, and the anger it would have produced in Iran and Syria might have even erupted into such a war.
That fantasy didn't happen, just as the Iraqis didn't welcome the Americans bearing flowers. The Israelis demonstrated just how difficult a war with Syria and Iran would be. Yes, the US could take out their infrastructure in a few days. But that would lead to an Iranian resistance which would quickly take out their oil production, which would royally piss off their main customers, including Japan and China. Anyway, now that Israel has so helpfully demonstrated what a mess the US would be in if it attacked Syria and Iran, perhaps the people of the USA and the people of Iran will not have to go through such a horror. And on that account, the Israelis may win too, because clearly, if the US ever does attack Iran, one of the first things Iran will do is to fire bigger, much bigger rockets, probably Chinese and Russian built, at Israel's biggest cities. It is highly likely that the death toll and destruction to Israel will be massive, since the Iranians, taking after Hezbollah, well, actually having coached Hezbollah, will probably shoot to produce the most destruction and carnage.
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Then there the American Jews who blindly support Israel no matter what it does. These are the people who talk about killing all of Hezbollah and while they're at it, all the Muslims. These are the people who have been so proud of Israel's tough, mythic facade of smart, military invincibility. Well, it's over. Israel finally lost, and lost big. All the weapons, all the soldiers, 100% US cooperation, intelligence and support and this experiment in dealing with middle east conflict was a failure. It showed the American Jews who have been using Israeli toughness as a form of Viagra, as a vicarious way to feel macho that the Israeli army is not all powerful and it can't just go out and kick ass anywhere, any time it wants to. These Jewish American chickenhawks (not the ones who went off to fight in the Israeli army, they're a different breed, like crusaders, going off to fight in God's name,) particularly the Orthodox religious extremists who fill up with pride over Israel's military glory, will have to reevaluate their external sources of self esteem. It's about time. Israel needs to drop back a few yards and turn down the macho factor, maybe let the women figure out how to find peace where war has been the habit for so long.
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This is where I go way, way out on a limb, in very speculative territory. Maybe we can learn from evolution. The dinosaurs kept getting bigger and bigger, then geological and climatological changes developed that were so severe, the big creatures, with their specialized environmental needs could not adapt. Much tinier mammals were able to survive. Today, we have giant superpowers with massive weapons that can obliterate bridges and cities, yet these superpowers can't deal with the asymmetric warfare waged by guerillas who blend in with the civilians, who are not even nations. The way to deal with terrorists is to send out thousands of people who seek peace and understanding, to field armies of people who respect local cultures and who offer education without evangelism, food and health care without requiring Christian conversion and listening to preaching. Communism has, for the most part, fallen in the face of consumerism and digital communications. Perhaps it is necessary to allow the Shiites to conquer their monarchical rulers, to let them go through the process of strict cultural rigidity, just as the Soviets and the Maoists did, before they came out the other side of the revolution.
I'm certainly not saying we should encourage Sh'ia theofascist governments, but maybe, if we, instead of supporting and protecting dictatorships and monarchies, we helped fromt he perspective of freedom, the terrorists would not see us as their enemies. Their enmity towards us might melt away and disappear.
The US, with its corporately dominated "democracy" at risk, may not be the best example of what this world needs. We certainly need to clean up the mess we have here, with the bill of rights in tatters and corporations, more and more setting the rules for how humans live, eat and even breath and an environment that corporations define.
We have to face the facts that war ain't what it used to be, Democracy and the USA ain't what they used to be, and we haven't reached the ninth inning yet, but the people in congress and the Whitehouse have been striking out for over five years. We need to figure out what we want to win, and then, just maybe, we can figure out how.
Authors Bio:
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.