Thursday, July 27, 2006

Hey, guys? Take out the cell phone towers

So, you know there's some military violence going on in Israel, its occupied territories and Lebanon. And the Israeli Defense Force is fighting an NGO called 'Hezbollah.' This article in the Washington Post points out that Hezbollah is really much better at fighting than the Israelis expected -- the main factor here is probably that the US gave up interest and credibility in maintaining peace in a region where Israel steadily crept outward, but one factor is certainly that the IDF has not adapted its bullying tactics to changing times.

But, the last line in the article (and thanks to Slate for the tip) is
Timur Goksel ... watched Hezbollah grow into a potent force during 25 years as a senior adviser to the U.N. observer force along the Israeli-Lebanese border.... "The command and control system is this," Goksel said, holding up a cellphone.
So, Israel has spent the last few weeks bombing Beirut and bridges all through Lebanon. They've created civilian and UN casualties, as well as making it very difficult for Lebanon -- a country which just threw off the yoke of Syrian rule -- to govern its country. It seems to me that they could have taken out the cell phone system in southern Lebanon, and really gone about this much less haphazardly.

This is of course the joy of being an armchair general, but cell phones seem to be a pretty easy thing to render useless. If that's what's making Hezbollah so tough, one has to wonder why the towers are still standing.

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