Posted by FatKat on 08/06/06 18:42

normanstrong@comcast.net wrote:
> "Tnguyen" <shrink4g@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:4kIAg.957$o27.127@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
> > What do Hizbolla and the VC have in common? They both hide in the people's
> > undies to fight their adversary.
>
> Groups fight with the weapons they have. I'm sure Hizbollah would love to
> have a large modern air force, SAMs and a few armored divisions. They
> don't; neither did the VC.

I wouldn't say that. The VC had the support of North Vietnam, which
did have a modern military machine. Hizbollah has the materiel and
political support of Iran and Syria - both of which have modern
military forces. The problem is, it's hard to cycle Migs out of a
hospital or marshall an armored division out of a suburb.
>
> The US fights using the large inventory of super-sophisticated weaponry at
> our disposal--an attempt to avoid casualties. Our adversaries, lacking
> such weapons, have to accept a high casualty rate.

Or they can accept that genuine goals need not be fought over at all,
but can be negotiated.

> It seems to be about
> 10:1, no matter which war we're fighting. It was 10:1 in Vietnam, it's 10:1
> in Iraq, and it seems to be 10:1 in Israel's wars with the Palestinians,
> Hamas and Hizbollah.

Should the Israelis apologize for having a well organized, trained and
equipped military - one whose personnel can fight without having to
hide behind women and children? The problem is that the Israelis make
no bones about not being superior - it's a reputation they rely on
tacitly in order to dissuage attacks from unfriendly states.
Unfortunately, that engenders an opposite reaction from stateless
organizations like Hezbollah that figure they've got nothing to lose.

[Back to original message]