Wolf Blitzer was an exec at AIPAC. I mean what ELSE do we need to know?

Has there ever been a successful guerilla campaign in which the guerillas did *not* conceal themselves amongst the civilian population?

It's an honest question; I am not up on the history of such things.

But what if my "self-declared boundary" is a work in progress, soon to include your backyard? The Litani River? Where do we find these boundaries delineated? Perhaps in the "promised" limits of the 1982 Israeli invasion--that witnessed the IDF proceeding all the way up to Beirut. Thereby inducing Reagan to send in those 241 murdered Marines— the proximate cause that Krauthammer carefully declined to provide (along with the two massacres at the PLO camps, likewise ommited).
The fact that Israel matters more to Krauthammer than the US or any other earthly cause should not cause him, or the zealots on this site, to assume that that the rest of us are incapable of connecting the dots when they start to matter. And people, it is starting to matter.
Von Clausewitz said nations have no friends, just interests. Israel is proving him right.

In Depth: Charles Krauthammer, like a number of pundits I cited earlier, argues that Israel is losing in Israel's Lost Moment. (also here.) The United States has gone far out on a limb to allow Israel to win and for all this to happen. It has counted ...

WASHINGTON -- Israel's war with Hezbollah is a war to secure its northern border, to defeat a terrorist militia bent on Israel's destruction, to restore Israeli deterrence in the age of the missile. But even more is at stake. Israel's...

I simply contend that the statement 'creating the next generation of terrorists' is a flawed perspective on foreign policy. Did we fear future generations of Japanese or Germans because of our actions? On the contrary, we skipped out of Korea, Viet Nam, and more recently Somalia, Iraq after Desert Storm, and Lebanon. Have we dealt at all with Iran? How are these countries doing now? It would appear that history refutes this argument. Actually military action tends to breed allies, and cutting and running breeds our worst enemies.

So, Loser, what would you have us do? Start learning arabic?

The death of 241 American Marines in Beirut 23 years ago, while tragic, is not terrorism in the usual sense. First, it was a military target. Second, we were intervening in an ongoing civil war, essentially taking sides.

We'll certainly see what the longer term impact is. In the short term, Israel has gotten hundreds of rockets fired into their territory.

Israel may simply be creating the next generation of terrorists and benefactors.

Come on. You had me right up to the last sentence. This is garbage, as if not attacking would prevent the 'next generation of terrorists'? We have a long history of the effects of 'diplomacy'.

The Hezbollah cowards may well blend into the civilian population, but at the cost of having lost much of their means to wage war. With luck, Israel will have removed or at least definitively exposed their supply lines for international scrutiny.

My belief is that Israel will be successful in making a significant impact. They must be, as they will be responsible for their own security in the near future. No country in their right mind would step in between Israel and the terrorists. For that, we still have an unpaid debt of 241 American lives. So unfortunately, we will see the fighting continue for a while.

I think the next horizon is what Nasrallah has in his pocket to retaliate for Beirut, and what the consequences will be.

As is oft the case, regardless of reality, Arabs are inclined to declare " victory " under the worst of circumstances ( Egypt '73, Arafat '82, Saddam Desert Storm). So, the required outcome is not an IDF scorched-earth policy, but, the next-phase of the international community endorsing/enforcing UN 1559, defanging Hizbullah, and putting a " robust" peace enforcement force in place.

The real bottom-line is the dual-path policy of Israel withdrawing to self-declared boundries and kicking Arab butt ( BIG TIME1)should any of them cross this line with terror attacks. " Occupation" will be defused as any just-cause for the Arab so-called false-issues.

...