When I was in college, my group of friends were mostly libs and libertarians (I know) and the mother of one of these people once went on a rant in front of us about how Hamas and Hezbollah were going to team up and destroy Israel and kill all the Jews. After we left the house, I remember all of us just laughing at her and saying "what a fucking stupid take that was" despite not necessarily having the same opinions about Israel or having good opinions on anything else. But, we all knew this was stupid.
Having not read the article or knowing much about Lebanon, I'm going to assume this is still an extremely stupid and desperate thing to posit?
Israel just announced they've finalized invasion plans for Lebanon, so, more like Israel typically starting some shit and then being treated like unwitting victims in the blowback for their own actions yet again
The US can't even keep Ukraine adequately supplied and IOF troops keep getting humiliated in Gaza but yeah sure why not invade Lebanon what could possibly go wrong?
If Israel keeps on its bullshit, it's not out of the question. They seem intent on driving their country off a cliff.
A nation acting rationally would be able to take stock of the current situation and negotiate a ceasefire, ending its problems immediately, but Israel is so deep in its own fundamenalist ideology that there's no room for that sort of rational assesment. They're going to have to hit rock bottom before they start considering peace. I'm not sure how far down rock bottom is for them.
Genocide of Israeli people seems unlikely in any event, but that's what it took for Haiti to shake France. Hopefully it doesnt come to that.
overheard some ex-military types (one a co-worker, others customers) at my job talking about getting jobs as contractors and being flabbergasted how quickly and urgently they need them to deploy
i mean it's just a couple of people but the first place my brain goes to is "oh fuck the U.S. knows whats about to go down and is getting ready to join in"
I was surprised the the NYT put the link at the top of the homepage and the title was free of sugarcoating and euphemisms. We are headed for who-knows-what.
I'd love for a liberal to explain to me how people need to support Biden while he aids, funds, and arms Israel's continuing genocide that might result in a war with Hezbollah and then the war could lead to a war with Iran that the US would fight too. There's no way the US stands back if Israel and Iran go to war. The libs favorite go-to is some variation on "Trump would be worse" but that's a hard sell when you actually consider that the US must support a genocide so it could lead to a second war vastly bigger and dangerous war and that war could spiral out of control to involve yet another American forever war. This time with Iran. That would be three contiguous countries. Do we get a free sub sandwich?
Why I am supposed to support a genocide again? The logic really doesn't make any sense even to an American ghoul who doesn't care if 10,000s more Palestinians suffer, starve, and die.
Even Israel thinks it's still 1982. Like I don't even know what Iran would do at this point. They're one of Hezbollah's major allies. The telegraphed missile barrage was really out of character for Iran who typically tries to play it cool.
Israel is having a hard enough time fighting ragtag Al-Qassam militants with homemade RPGs. Hezbollah actually has funding and infrastructure. They have technical trucks and artillery. Why would Israel try to do this? Do they really need this much of a reality check? Maybe they're stuck in 2006 where Israel kept indiscriminately shooting civilian targets in Lebanon to the point Hezbollah got justifiably terrified of just how evil Israel could be, so they called for a ceasefire after a month.
How would it go over if Israel tries to do the 2006 Lebanon war again? Like with cluster munitions and white phosphorous launched at civilians. Am I gonna be reading "Hezbollah also hiding behind human shields"?
As much as I would love to see the destruction of the IDF, I really fear for the Lebanese people.
An all out war means massive bombing in all major cities including Beirut and Tel Aviv. The range of artillery and drones mean nowhere would be safe in either country. IDF ground forces, battle-hardened against unarmed civilians, would likely lose to Hezbollah. But Israel would likely control the skies, leading to a protracted, bloody stalemate. Like the battlefields of Ukraine, but worse.
The people of Lebanon are already suffering so much, but this would bring about a new level of devastation.
But I believe the logic of mutually assured destruction applies here. Even the most bloodthirsty Likudniks, despite their saber rattling, will not force an all out war.
hezbollah has been upping its air defense game, just recently its shot down multiple israeli drones, and scared an idf fighter out of its airspace with SAMs. Additionally israel does not have the best control of its own airspace, demonstrated very recently by this 10 minute video of hezbollah drones flying over haifa https://x.com/MenchOsint/status/1803048374809084179
I think that in a war between Israel and Hezbollah two things are certain.
Hezbollah would eventually win.
The people of Lebanon would suffer greatly.
The ideal solution to all this is for Israel to stop its genocide. If it comes to war between Hezbollah and Israel I have no doubt about who the final victor would be, but just like the last war, while the IDF will lose, they will extract a horrific price.
There is a great part of the movie The Battle of Algiers where the French commander basically says this too. "What would you have us do, leave Algeria?!?" And it's like, uh, yeah? Don't let the door hit you on the way out.
If this comes to protracted fighting I very much see Israel exercising a nuclear option as they stop being able to continue fighting/cant drag the US further into it
If Israel uses nuclear weapons on Lebanon it will become a perpetual pariah state and I think even the EU will flip to at least neutrality. Might even make further US support for Israel so unpopular that people will riot and troops will desert before boots on the ground in support of Israel.