Billmon:
II. Aiken’s Ghost
Back to Main
August 11, 2006
WB: Here Come the Killer Beaner Babies +
Comments
Declaring victory may work fine for the american media and public. I don’t think its going to fool the Israelis or anybody in Lebanon or the arab world.
Israel has a gigantic strategic problem now…its no longer the invincible bully on the block.
Posted by: simplyLurking | Aug 11 2006 2:20 utc | 1
Israel Asks U.S. to Ship Rockets With Wide Blast
Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.
The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.
U.S. Using Cluster Munitions In Iraq
Human Rights Watch has identified footage of the use of the Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) by artillery units of the 3rd Infantry Division. This is a system that currently uses only submunition payloads. The 1st Battalion of the 39th Field Artillery Regiment of the division deploys at least eighteen MLRS launch units.
The standard M26 warhead for the MLRS contains 644 M77 individual submunitions (also called dual-purpose grenades). According to a Department of Defense report submitted to the U.S. Congress in February 2000, these submunitions have a failure rate of 16 percent. Thus, the typical volley of twelve MLRS rockets would likely result in more than 1,200 dud submunitions scattered randomly in a 120,000 to 240,000 square meter impact area.
Lurker,
Israel remains very much the invincible bully on the block. They have completely shut down a country. They are annihilating the South. There are apparently 120’000 civilians still south of the Litani river. These are now Israel’s hostages. I really don’t see the Israelis as defeated. Lebanon will soon have to beg for money from the very same countries who colluded with Israel.
And yet: Nasrallah has said, “If it weren’t for the Israeli Air Force, we would now be liberating Palestine.” On the day some guy comes out with a device, air-borne or other, that can fuck up F-16s, the game is up. Without the air force, the IDF would be unable to grind down Hezbollah. In that sense it is a shocking defeat yes.
Posted by: Guthman Bey | Aug 11 2006 2:59 utc | 3
I read somewhere that Iran has already promised to provide Hizbullah with better surface to air missiles before the next go ’round. Don’t know much of a difference that will make, but I’m sure the Iranians would like to find out now, rather than wait for the main event.
Posted by: Billmon | Aug 11 2006 5:17 utc | 4
b:
All this talk of “terrorism”… the most formidable terrorist force in the world is the US Air Force, and its clients like the Israeli Air Force.
I suppose they do have some small number of airplanes that shoot other airplanes and some airplanes that shoot at tanks, but by far most of their armament is dedicated to murdering civilians, by the city-full.
This is a standing terrorist organization with an annual budget in the hundreds of billions of dollars, a training academy (with a tremendous Xtian component) in Colorado, with a touching theme song… “off we go into the wild blue yonder… don da dah.”
It is certainly more completely integrated into American society than is Hizbollah into Lebanese society or al-Qaeda into any society at all.
We Americans love to go watch the “Thunderbirds” fly overhead at NASCAR races.
Air Force personnel are honored at Fourth of July parades.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Aug 11 2006 6:29 utc | 5