Animal in man

Lets talk about war for a few minutes, specifically about the situation in Lebanon. I vow that I won't start to rant, atleast not about whose right and wrong in this case, even a 4 year old could point that out. Or at least it seems so to me. What I want to speak about really, is war.

Conventional warfare has changed. Its easy enough to see that. Conventional warfare nowadays has become an aerial enterprise. Ground troops sent anywhere follow heavy aerial bombardment. Even naval warfare is based mostly on aerial expertise now, its no coincidence that most planes take off from somewhere on the sea from massive tankers and bomb everything on their way to land and then proceed to bomb everything on land. All this is true about wars in general nowadays, but not true about the conflict in Lebanon now. Its easy to see why that is. First, these two countries are neighbours, and the fight has and always will be about land, so other than blockading some of the sea routes and ports into Lebanon, Israel has for the most part, exclusively attacked from inland routes.

For the last two weeks, while people have overcome the shock of the attacks in Lebanon, they have become evermore pronounced in their analysis of the war up till now, in which regard, I am sad to say, they are completely wrong. People seem to view this as a victory for the Hezbollah, they are proud that they are responding back and that they have inflicted injuries and panic. What a childish, one sided and ludicrous analysis.

Leabanon has no army. They had an army, which was expelled due to international pressure last year, it belonged to Syria. Of its own, Lebanon has 4000 soldiers who as you can imagine are poorly equipped and not able to defend on a wide scale, the whole length of the Lebanese border. They have been used in this scenario primarily as rescue workers and within city limits-security. I don't blame them or the decision makers in this case, they would have gotten mowed down otherwise.

The only resistance from within Lebanon has been that of the Hezbollah, which is an organisation whose numbers total, on a good day, at 1000. They have Irainian rockets and guns from Russia. They have good intelligence, which has helped them elude Israeli covert troops, but thats almost all they have going for them.

Now we come to the clincher, the conventional warfare part, the aerial supremacy of Israel. Beirut has been destroyed. Bridges in and out of the city have been destroyed. But thats not all, the cities and towns in the south have been heavily bombarded. In the course of the war, over four weeks now, Hezbollah has managed to bring down one helicopter- that is the extent of their anti- warcraft weapons. Meanwhile, Israel enjoys complete control over Lebanese airspace. Their planes go in, drop their bombs where they please and return home safe and sound. Everytime.

Hezbollah has shown that it can survive, atleast when it is not being chased on the ground- but thats about it. To give you an idea of casualties, here is an except from the BBC:

Deaths: 998 Lebanese, 102 Israeli
Injuries: 3,493 Lebanese, 690 Israeli
Displaced: 915,762 Lebanese, 500,000 Israeli
(Source)

The displacement of Israelis is mostly by the Israeli government into the vast network of underground shelters that Israel has constructed in the past ten years. These people are safe, have adequate food and medical care. The displacement of Lebanese people is much more sporadic. They have fled everywhere they could have, now homeless, and far away from their lands. Take for example my place of work: atleast four Lebanese nationals that work in our branch have brought back their families from Lebanon. One of them had to row a boat with his brothers all the way to Tunisia to avoid getting caught and to have a safe landing. Over the course of four days they dodged the poignantly calm waters of the Mediterrenean and got their families to Tunisia. He's lucky that he has high up friends, so they let his whole family into Qatar to stay here in the interim, but not many are so lucky to even make it out of the hostility zones.

War has changed, and this exchange with Israel now proves more than ever before, that the Middle East is not ready. Should we be ready? The sensible side of me says no, human nature is not so corrupt as to prepare for eventalities that might never occur, to stockpile weapons and pump money into armies when we don't even know if someone will ever attack us. But the realist in me, says yes. Yes, we have to be ready. Because they have made themselves ready, they have secured their borders, but they have also built an offensive capacity that rivals the most feared in the world.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah celebrates the firing of twenty rockets a day. There is no comaprison-we have been left behind.

The loss of 102 civilians is a massive blow, or atleast it should be. But, people look at the wrong statistic. The true statistic is what cannot be quantified, not even in monetary terms. The loss of a city, the destruction of a jewel. Over the past ten years, Beirut had become a gem gleaming in the Middle East. Its culture a cocophany of music, art and food. It had absorbed the nuances of European style, the hospitality of Arabia, the tastes of Africa and through its own unique form of osmosis, it had morphed itself into a tiny, isolated version of the world. Now, it is no more. the loss cannot be quantified. It cannot be explained, all that can be said is that what once was, is no more. And this is just Beirut, think of the countless villages and towns who were unlucky enough to have someone say, there! there lives a terrorist! - The damage is indescribeable.

I feel sad for the person who dares to show satellite images of the country, explaining that look, the destruction is localised, its not that massive. No, its not that, you have just never heard the rumbling of war planes over your home. You have never seen your child's eye well up at the sight of a dead body across the street- someone you knew, someone that had once been kind to you, one of your own.

To those that say that Hezbollah is winning, I say shame on you. For it is no more than life that you look at. And that too, just the loss of Israeli life. For god sakes, wake up you indescribeable monster! What have we become? What have we been pushed into? Grown men jubilating at news of children that have died in Israeli cities, and then minutes later, sad that another Lebanese child has passed away. Surely this is a sign of Judgement Day. Surely these are sinners of thought. Surely they must be blamed, however strong the case might be that it is the constant betrayal and loss of their own, that has nurtured the thoughts they now hold.

The loss of life is mourned, it is mourned greatly. However, does the loss of Israeli life suddenly makes Hezbollah right? - makes it seem as if we have evened up the score. 1 of theirs for 20 of ours. For shame. I do not mean to be dramatic, but to see words as these spoken from the tongues of grown men makes me ashamed to be alive. For they do not understand that after the gunshots and the rockets and the tanks comes a price heavier than life itself- a feeling that dissaudes life from taking root again in the same fashion.

The most valuable of life's bounties, is life itself; but to ignore and not understand that where life has thrived has now been destroyed is to not understand warfare, to not understand the love that people posess for their homeland.

That is the true casualty of this war, homeland. That and the sinking feeling that whatever we do, peace is intent on runing away from us.