By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
Published: July 31, 2006
For Americans who care deeply about Israel, one of the truly nightmarish things about the war in Lebanon has been watching Israel repeat the same mistakes the United States made in Iraq. It's as if Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been possessed by the deranged spirit of Donald Rumsfeld.
Yes, I know that there are big differences in the origins of the two wars. There's no question of this war having been sold on false pretenses; unlike America in Iraq, Israel is clearly acting in self-defense.
But both Clausewitz and Sherman were right: war is both a continuation of policy by other means, and all hell. It's a terrible mistake to start a major military operation, regardless of the moral justification, unless you have very good reason to believe that the action will improve matters.
The most compelling argument against an invasion of Iraq wasn't the suspicion many of us had, which turned out to be correct, that the administration's case for war was fraudulent. It was the fact that the real reason government officials and many pundits wanted a war — their belief that if the United States used its military might to "hit someone" in the Arab world, never mind exactly who, it would shock and awe Islamic radicals into giving up terrorism — was, all too obviously, a childish fantasy.
And the results of going to war on the basis of that fantasy were predictably disastrous: the fiasco in Iraq has ended up demonstrating the limits of U.S. power, strengthening radical Islam — especially radical Shiites allied with Iran, a group that includes Hezbollah — and losing America the moral high ground.
What I never expected was that Israel — a nation that has unfortunately had plenty of experience with both war and insurgency — would be susceptible to similar fantasies. Yet that's what seems to have happened.
There is a case for a full-scale Israeli ground offensive against Hezbollah. It may yet come to that, if Israel can't find any other way to protect itself. There is also a case for restraint — limited counterstrikes combined with diplomacy, an effort to get other players to rein Hezbollah in, with the option of that full-scale offensive always in the background.
But the actual course Israel has chosen — a bombing campaign that clearly isn't crippling Hezbollah, but is destroying Lebanon's infrastructure and killing lots of civilians — achieves the worst of both worlds. Presumably there were people in the Israeli government who assured the political leadership that a rain of smart bombs would smash and/or intimidate Hezbollah into submission. Those people should be fired.
Israel's decision to rely on shock and awe rather than either diplomacy or boots on the ground, like the U.S. decision to order the U.N. inspectors out and invade Iraq without sufficient troops or a plan to stabilize the country, is having the opposite of its intended effect. Hezbollah has acquired heroic status, while Israel has both damaged its reputation as a regional superpower and made itself a villain in the eyes of the world...
Somebody must have talked to Olmert last night.
Up to 7,000 Israeli Troops Push Into Lebanon
By CRAIG S. SMITH and STEVEN ERLANGER
Published: August 1, 2006
MISGAV AM, Israel, Aug. 1 — Israel sent up to 7,000 troops into Lebanon on Tuesday, marking a significant increase in a ground offensive aimed at pushing the Hezbollah militia back from the border before a cease-fire is declared and a multinational force deployed.
The troops, backed by air support, tanks and armored bulldozers, entered at four different places along the border, moving up to four and a half miles inside to engage Hezbollah fighters and destroy their outposts and infrastructure...
Israeli troops may push northward to the Litani River, 15 miles from the border, cabinet ministers said following their meeting, which ended in the early hours on Tuesday. But the Israeli intention now seems to be to clear out a wide strip of land along the border into which an international force could deploy without itself having to fight Hezbollah, a cabinet minister said.
Israeli military officers said they suspected they would have a limited time to pursue their objectives — perhaps a week or so more — and were trying to map out their final goal.
If an international force is long delayed or does not materialize, officials said, Israel is likely to proceed to the Litani River, which marked the southern Lebanon “security zone” that Israel left in 2000...
This should take some of the international heat off of the Israeli government, even though it's a change in tactics that's bound to disappoint Darth Rumsfeld. And Tim LaHaye, too. There's just something he finds biblical about smiting whole cities indiscriminantly.
But who needs airstrikes for atrocity?
The conflict in the Lebanon has once again brought up a discussion about the use of fuel-air explosives and thermobaric weapons - this time it’s Israel’s use of them that’s been questioned. But armies around the world are building up thermobaric arsenals -- a trend that's not likely not stop any time soon.
Unlike normal ("condensed") explosives, much of the blast in these fuel air weapons is produced by the fireball. A cloud of exploding material does most of the damage, producing an overpressure wave of longer duration than a point source.
Different kinds of injuries are the result. Instead of shrapnel/fragment injuries, you get blast effects. As one study (a .pdf) puts it:
"Each tissue type, when interacting with a blast wave, is compressed, stretched, sheared or disintegrated by overload according to its material properties. Internal organs that contain air (sinuses, ears, lungs and intestines) are particularly vulnerable to blast."
And those wounds have made thermobarics controversial. (Colorful media reports of other effects like 'displaced eyeballs' are dubious, but persistent.). The U.S. Marine Corps, for instance, took exception to my Defense Tech piece about their new thermobaric SMAW-NE, a handy, hand-held device capable of leveling buildings. An article posted shortly afterwards in Marine Corps News insists that the SMAW-NE is not 'brutal' - a term that came from a Human Right Watch report - and that it is not an incendiary weapon. (You may remember the rumpus over reports of white phosphorus being used as a weapon in Fallujah "Lethality... is caused primarily by its concussion with secondary effects from flying debris from the target area," the article claims.
This does not quite agree with the analysis (.pdf) by Dr. Anna E Wildegger-Gaissmaier, who concludes that "the primary injury mechanisms are blast and heat," but this is typical of the debate that surrounds these weapons.
The controversy does not seem to have slowed down procurement, and the Marines are first in line. One of their latest purchases is the South African M-32 Multiple shot Grenade Launcher – the USMC are buying 9,000 of them...
You got that right.
In addition to hiring
But Darth Rumsfeld shouldn't be too disappointed, he can keep that Hollywood feel about his Fourth Generation War:
...And here's video of an earlier version in action - if it looks familiar, you probably because you saw it in the movie Predator. One of the big selling points appears to be the Direct Range Air-Consuming Ordnance (DRACO) Grenade (.pdf), a thermobaric round of supposedly radical destructive power – "when you absolutely, positively need to eliminate the enemy," Milcor says. (A full run-down on the M-32 by Military.com is here)
The M-32 comes on top of the 40mm thermobaric grenade America already owns -- the XM1040, which was "developed and fielded in record time" for use in Afghanistan, where its powerful blast proved very effective...
As with the SMAW-NE, the new thermobaric grenade has received very little publicity in spite of its effectiveness. (The Russians also sell a multi-shot grenade launcher with thermobaric rounds for urban combat...)
What does it mean, this term "combat?". There will be very little city left wherever these weapons are extensively used. Like air assaults, they wipe out whoever is in the way, friend, foe, or innocent.
Tim LaHaye's God, Jesus the Barbarian, would approve.
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