The Fight Has Just Begun

Fire of Liberty

As I surveyed the various cable networks and the big three networks these past two days, I've noticed a tad bit of celebration amongst the reporters and news-casters about the UN pushing through a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. Now it's understandable for people to be happy for peace in southern Lebanon but in the case of this most recent ceasefire I have to say the popping of champagne corks and the huzzahs will be short lived because the terrorist of Hezbollah will eventually return to the firing of rockets on Israel and the rest of their terrorist activities in the near future. As I've noted in previous posts the only true way to really ease or erase the threat of Hezbollah is for the IDF to send in 30,000 plus soldiers with a compliment of tanks, helicopters, special forces, and a host of other tools at their disposal into southern Lebanon and roll up the terrorists town by town up to the Litany river. Unfortunately the Israeli PM and his cabinet(None of which had experience in fighting wars, which is very rare in Israel.)played a pick-a-target and bomb it campaign for most of the conflict and then to a limited ground war as the fighting went which went against the good advice of IDF General Staff and their commanders in the field thus leaving the terrorists sitting pretty in southern Lebanon after the UN stepped in.

While I can understand the trepidation of Olmert and his cabinet from going full force into southern Lebanon due to their bloody experience there from 1982 to 2000, I'm not sure what the 15,000 UN troops coupled with 15,000 Lebanese troops will be able to do with Hezbollah. I'm more inclined to see the forces that are going to fill the 14km territory between Israel and the Litani River will be paralyzed by inaction and infighting within the Lebanese army and the gov't of Lebanon in the refusal to take up arms against their fellow brethren in Hezbollah not to mention the member countries(France, Italy, Malaysia, Turkey and Spain) of the UN forces will have arguments(Assembling a force and equipment will be a greater challenge) about what they're willing to do to take down Hezbollah. One only has to look at past UN missions in places like Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda or the experience of UNIFIL to see where the UN forces failed to step in and stop an aggressor because they didn't want to show partiality to one party over the other. So while the MSM and the diplomatic corps laud this ceasefire as a step in the right direction to settle the fighting, I see this event as just a pause in the fight and a breather for Hezbollah thus allowing them to amass more missiles from Syria and Iran and the building up of their forces for a even greater fight. I'm betting the adage "once a terrorist always a terrorist" bests describes Hezbollah and it won't be too far in the future that they demonstrate this fact. I just hope that the UN forces and the Lebanese army will get out of Israel's way when they have to return the fight in southern Lebanon after Hezbollah resumes its attacks on Israel. I just wish Israel had conducted a full scale ground war with 30,000 plus IDF troops during this month long campaign against Hezbollah rather than waiting on a ceasefire and hoping the UN and the Lebanese army fill the gap. Well there's always another tomorrow.