Some video from Battlefield!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUh259Xpa9M

Who Won: Israel or Lebanon?

As the two nations are getting ready to rap up the fighting and the history is writting the final chapter of this war, each side is trying to declare victory. However, the question is who really benefited from this war and who actually won?

Simple answer is that NO ONE WON! PEOPLE JUST DIED! SIMPLE! Israel for fact did not come out as the winner of this battle.

Israel might have achieved some partial military goals; however she was not able to destroy Hezbollah as it had promised in the first days of the fighting. What did she achieve? She was able to slam Hezbollah infrastructure and kill more than 500 of them in the fighting. The cost for Israel was not cheap either. It cost her about 150 people (both civilians and soldiers), three helicopters, and about 10 Merkava tanks. Was it really worth all those trouble? Not really; Ehud Olmert did not come out of this war as a decisive leader. He is scared of fighting and the generals are very disappointed in him. Israel had to attack southern Lebanon in the first days of the fighting with full force. They kept worrying about humanitarian issues and kept distributing leaflets before they bomb. However, the positive side is that Hezbollah and Lebanon both know if they cross that border one more time, there will be severe consequences. At the same time, hopefully with this UN Ceasefire deal, the two soldiers should be returned to Israel. At the same time, there will be a buffer zone that will separate Hezbollah and Israel; this will also stop the sporadic attacks on both sides. Israel realized that from now on, they cannot ignore a threat that is developing. At the same time, Israel got an idea what it would be like if she attacks and destroys Iranian Nuclear Facility and what the response would be like form Hezbollah. The answer is that it is not as bad as they thought it would be. To some extend, Israel was testing Hezbollah capability.

Hezbollah on the other hand has rushed to declare victory. However, as we all know it they are not victorious; they were not able to destroy or stop Israel from advancing in their soil. They were able to inflict heavy damages and make it costly for Israel, but it still did not stop Israel from advancing in their soil. Hezbollah won a lot of popularity in the Arab world and especially among Sunnis who have ideological conflict with the Shiite group. A lot of wishful thinkers on the other sides are declaring an alliance between the two sides due to this increase in popularity, but these are all just slogans. Israel has always been the reason for weak and fake alliance between Sunnis and Shiites. Therefore, this time it won’t be any different. This popularity is not going to last long. After this war and when the dust settles, the Lebanon’s public is going to start asking questions about Hezbollah tactics and most likely it is going to result in disarming Hezbollah. The world also is going to pressure Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah. Therefore, this whole popularity gain is more like a mirage. The Sunnis and the Arab world will never trust the Shiite group that is the extended hand of Iran and pursues Iran’s best interests.

What would be the best case scenario in this situation? A peace agreement that will truly end hostility in both sides with secured and peaceful borders! This is a clear case of wishful thinking in my part. However, when you look into history, after Yum Kippur war of 1972 that Egypt and Arab nations were able to inflict heavy losses and damages to Israeli Army, Egypt came to the table and started negotiating that resulted in signing a peace treaty. The reason was because Egypt had got its respect back and proved that they are still powerful and that gave a voice to negotiate during the peace process. The same scenario could be possible in this situation because now Hezbollah and Lebanon could both come out to be powerful and it might assist them to start negotiating with Israel. However for that to happen, Hezbollah must be disarmed or at least force into government and cut the hands of Iran and Syria from Lebanon. Let’s hope that this is the last war between Lebanon and Israel and let’s hope for a long lasting peace for both sides!

The Lessons of Lebanon

As we continue the fight in Lebanon, we lose more soldiers, we have more of our cities being bombarded with Katiyusha Rockets, and we come to ask ourselves: Why? Some Leftist morons answer with, "it's Israel's fault, if they had treated Palestinian differently, it would not have happened" Iran says, "the answer is simple, Israel should be wiped off". Well, personal advice to you from me: shut the hell up! YOU ARE NEXT! I WOULD NOT BE TALKING IF I WERE YOU! On a serious note, it is very simple; Israel ignored the problem for too long. She ignored and ignored and ignored and thought that if you do not deal with it, it will simply go away. Plus, with baby like attitude of the Left in Israel, who would support such action to prevent Hezbollah to gather this much weapons? Why is the "left" such a big problem? In another word, why does the "left" have so much power in Israel? The answer is very simple, because Israel's population has become incredibly consumerist, materialistic, and party animals. Their mentality has become "who gives a fuck?!" Another way of putting it is that they have become "Americanized". This useless culture is like a virus that has infected Israeli youth and public. They have become too greedy and too individualist, yet they have no idea how they are destroying Israel. Hezbollah sees this and they have planned for it. They know Israel needs fast wars, Days or weeks, anything longer than will ensure Israel's defeat. The "left" would immediately appeal to this weakness in Israel and convince Israeli public with a false promise of peace by giving into the demands of Hezbollah. They promise a short term normal life while they have no idea that they are just making Hezbollahs’ knives sharper to cut their throat. However, this war is different. Amazingly, the "left" has stayed quiet for the most part. 95% of Israelis are standing behind the government. There has been only 1 refuse nicks among 35,000 reserves who were called up. This shows that Israel is still very strong. However, Israel should be acting this way everyday and not wait until eight of its children are slaughtered to act this way. If there is a threat or a threat is growing more powerful, remove it!

High Price for Arrogance

I know this is the third post on current conflict in Lebanon, but I cannot resist it. There is so much to say and I probably would need to write a book on it. Today, I am going to talk about arrogance. Arrogance is an attitude that can be obtained from too much ego or too much confidence. Even though confidence is an outmost necessary tool in Military, too much of it could turn into arrogance. How bad is arrogance in military? Well, lets look at what happened in Israel today.

Israeli Generals and commander are only using 15% of Israeli Ground Forces. They thought they could handle Hezbollah that has been supported, funded, and armed with stock piles of ammunition, and trained for years to deal with Israel with only 15% of its ground operation? What ARE THEY THINKING? Today we lost 9 soldiers. 9 SOLDIERS! 9 MOTHERS ARE NOT GOING TO SEE THEIR SONS! Even though Israeli soldiers killed more than 40 Hezbollah guerrillas, but it is not comparable. Why? The answer is very simple! Arrogance of Israeli Commanders and Generals in using their ground troops. They simply need more men to secure that village which is Hezbollah's capital.

These are very dark days and no one knows how the future is going to play out. Hezbollah is very strong and Israeli commanders needs to know that. There is no room for mistakes, arrogance, or conservation. My advice to commanders, use a lot more than 15% and treat this war as if this was the war for independence! Other than that, expect a lot more mothers to grieve their sons never returning home.

Hizbollah's New Reality

Once upon a time, on the Lebanon's side of the border, there bunch of Hezbollah guys sitting probably drinking tea. For some interesting reason (that I will get into in future posts) they decided to cross the border and kill some Zionist soldiers and capture two more. Then Israel would respond with the usual fly over and bunch of artillery and maybe if they are too stupid, they would send in commando unit to capture a Hezbollah commander! GUESS WHAT!? THEY WERE WRONG! NOT JUST WRONG, DEAD WRONG!!

Hezbollah who emerged as a hero in 2000 due to Israeli mistakes and miscalculations, speculated that they can get away with almost anything because Israel is busy with Gaza strip, plus the Arab world would instantly come to their Aid including the worthless UN who is acting as human shield for such group in southern Lebanon.

What happened? Why were they so wrong?
I believe Hezbollah tried to seize opportunity to gain more popularity and show its solidarity with Palestinian cause, but they were dead wrong about Israeli response.

In early days of the campaign, the dreamers in UDF and Israeli politics thoughts they could take of the matter with IAF air strikes without getting their hands dirty by sending ground troops. Boy they were wrong! Results: bunch of poor civilian casualties and almost no results. At the same time, Hezbollah was just gaining more power. The news that were coming out of that region was just more disappointing for Israel. Then Israeli Generals quickly went to cabinet and asked for ground troops operations. Then things started to look more positive for Israel. Results: More than 130 Hezbollah Fighters dead including some high ranking and regional commanders, capture of two or three of their fights (which is suprising because I was under perception that they were in this fight to become martyr, what happened?! Heaven was too full or something?!).

This question pops up to my mind! WHY? Why does Israel has to wait until more than 25 of its people are dead to react to a threat or an enemy? When the right was screaming its long out and pulling its hair out when dumb fuck Barak was pulling out of Lebanon, why didn't anyone listen to them! When the left was celebrating and the right was crying its eyes out telling him, "stop! Go slower! don't just pull out at once" why was left so happy about being out of Lebanon!? Why didn't Israel react with ground forces from beginning instead of just relying on Elite Unites. Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of faith in Israeli Commando Units however, I don't' believe they could win a whole war by themselves. You need battalions and armies and Tanks to win a war, not just Elite Units and Airforce. They are good for pin-point operations and short term goals.

Hopefully, Israel will continue these attacks and get rid of Hezbollah. At the same time, lets hope we could find an army who would take control of southern Lebanon after Israel pulls back.

As for Hezbollah, they are desperately attempting to use any excuse or minor event to declare victory; they claim they have destroyed ten armor personel carriers, killed more than 100 Israeli soldier. As I was watching this report from Iranian State Controle Channel, I thought to myself, "This is Hizbollah reality! All based on a miscalculation".

Start of a New beginning

Congratulation! Finally I was able to join the Weblog society!

I cannot wait to express my outmost happiness to be able to finally do this. Just to start with, I am going to write a very simple biography of my life for those who don't know me that well.

I was born in Tehran, Iran in 1982! Yes I am a child of the War (we'll get into more details of that later) I was 11 years old when my parents decided to leave Iran and immigrate to the USA and reside in Los Angeles CA (what a surprise! a Persian family moving to LA). I got my high school diploma at Beverly Hills High School and I started Santa Monica College. I transferred to University of California, Berkeley. I graduated in 2005 and my majors were political science, peace and conflict studies, and minor in Persian Studies.

This is a very simple biography of my life and in future posts I will get into more details about my life. However, next I am going to write about what to expect from my weblog. This weblog is going to represent my inner most thoughts and feelings! It will include mostly political issues specifically about Iran and Israel. The reason is because politics is my passion and I love to talk about it at all time, I guess this is another way of expressing myself. At the same time, I must point out that this is my thoughts and feelings, it doesn't mean I am right all the time or claim to know solution to every problem. However, I feel very strongly about what I know and support. At the same time, once in a while I will write about different subjects depending on my trend of thoughts that day.

Like I said, this is a start of a new beginning and stay tuned for more!

Sincerely

B. A. Kahen