chuckster
08-04-2006, 08:42 PM
I was browsing in Yahoo and came upon several pages of links to stories about the current Isreal-Hezbollah war. Look at some sample headlines:
--Hezbollah missiles neutralizing Israeli tanks
--Hizbollah kills 10 in deadliest day for Israel
--Hizbollah kills 11 Israelis
--Hezbollah launches record hail of rockets after Israeli raid
Finally, on about the fourth page of headlines I saw this:
--Israeli commandos snatch Hizbollah members
"Israel's justice minister said about 300 of an estimated 2,000 Hizbollah fighters had been killed so far, and the tourism minister later said 400 had been killed.
Hizbollah, which says it does not hide its dead and that it has many thousands more fighters, has announced 43 deaths during the conflict. It has denied Israeli assertions about its losses."
The truth is, by 'neutralizing Isreali tanks', the article refers to some 2-4 tanks total. I'm sure the Isreali army can spare this and much more. And with some 30,000 + soldiers in the fight, I don't think the loss of eight or ten or eleven soldiers a day is going to slow their advance up very much. However, even by conservative estimates some 20% of Hezbollah's fighting strength has been killed with many more days of heavy fighting to go. When you add the loss of supply lines and command and control, any objective person would surely have to conclude Hez is losing on the battlefield.
The moral of the story: you can't really know what's going on just by reading headlines and stories in the mainstream press.
--Hezbollah missiles neutralizing Israeli tanks
--Hizbollah kills 10 in deadliest day for Israel
--Hizbollah kills 11 Israelis
--Hezbollah launches record hail of rockets after Israeli raid
Finally, on about the fourth page of headlines I saw this:
--Israeli commandos snatch Hizbollah members
"Israel's justice minister said about 300 of an estimated 2,000 Hizbollah fighters had been killed so far, and the tourism minister later said 400 had been killed.
Hizbollah, which says it does not hide its dead and that it has many thousands more fighters, has announced 43 deaths during the conflict. It has denied Israeli assertions about its losses."
The truth is, by 'neutralizing Isreali tanks', the article refers to some 2-4 tanks total. I'm sure the Isreali army can spare this and much more. And with some 30,000 + soldiers in the fight, I don't think the loss of eight or ten or eleven soldiers a day is going to slow their advance up very much. However, even by conservative estimates some 20% of Hezbollah's fighting strength has been killed with many more days of heavy fighting to go. When you add the loss of supply lines and command and control, any objective person would surely have to conclude Hez is losing on the battlefield.
The moral of the story: you can't really know what's going on just by reading headlines and stories in the mainstream press.