Speaking of dick-waving, notice that the war started a couple of days after the end of the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the cease fire has gone into effect right before the start of the American football season (NFL exhibition and NCAA collegiate schedule).

I assume the Hezbollah fighters got bored after watching the World Cup so they decided to kipnap a couple of Israeli solders. Israel counter attacked because they were bored too.

The war was good T.V. For television networks there wasn't much sports to watch on TV, with Summer programming fillers like the X-Games, beach vollyball, and the WNBA. So the war boosted TV viewership of the highly coveted demographic group (male, 18-42 years old, middle to high income) and kept the adrenaline flowing from old world football to the new world football.

Since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a big football fan and aspires to one day become Commissioner of the NFL, she obviously wanted the war to end before the football season started but wasn't in too much of a hurry for an immediate cease fire. France, after Zidane's disgraceful head butt during the World Cup finals, had to save face so it joined the U.S. in developing the U.N. Security Council's cease fire resolution. Iran is still happy that it's national team went to the World Cup and hasn't yet noticed that the war occurred.

Now if the Lebanese Army and the U.N. peace keeping forces can push Hezbollah back from the "Red Zone" and out of field goal range, maybe we can watch the 2006 football season without any annoying "Middle East in Crisis" news interruptions.

For Israel to be deemed to have won this war, they would have had to destroy Hizballah or at the very least effectively halted them from launching missiles. They appear to have done neither. This is deemed by many Israelis to not have been a victory, and by most on the other side to have been a victory (regardless of Hizballah's losses, they hung in there and did SOME damage to Israeli troops).

Olmert may not retain his PM very long. If Likud regains the spot, that'd I suppose be the only silver lining here for certain folks around here. Unless it was a REAL WAR they were hoping for. Because the war seems to have changed the map in the Middle East. Israel is no longer seen as being invulnerable. However, it's hard to say whether they'd see it as Israel being beatable in a conventional war or just learning that they could put together their own guerilla force against Israel.

As Iran and neighboring Syria are already behind Hizballah (and Shiite like Hizballah), that'd require them to put it in Lebanon (tricky with the international force), Jordan or Egypt (both U.S.-backed Sunni countries, which is convenient for them). And then there's always new training and backing for Hamas.

Actually Syria's preodominantly Sunni not Shi'ite. Sorry to nit-pick there.

Oddly enough, it seems to have distracted a lot of people from the ongoing stupidity in Iraq, as well.

Whats going on in Iraq?

Syria
74% Sunni
http://www.worldinfozone.com/country.php?country=Syria#religion

Iran
Roughly 90% Shia
http://www.worldinfozone.com/country.php?country=Iran#religion

Yea I thought those two sects didnt like each other.................

I just realized that it doesnt matter what muslim sect they are.....they all hate jews. Like Mel Gibson.

It may sound like a stupid question, but has it been proven that they were kidnapped, versus captured outside of there borders. And I don't mean just a statement from Israel, which are as reliable as our governments press releases.
I know at the start many news outlets, including the AP, reported they were captured inside Lebanons borders, but the minute Israel put out a statement saying they were kidnapped, many news outlets changed their tune without any basis other than the word of the Israeli's. Being that both the involved parties are pone to propaganda, what does the outside world have as proof?

I remember questioning this at the time but it fell to the wayside as the conflict worsened and concerns of mine fell on other subjects.
Anyone?

I would love to be able to say that they hate Israel and not Jews but that would be inaccurate. Unfortunately Israel has become synonomous with Jewish for some folks. Not to the degree that some feel, with any criticism of Israel being equal to listing Mein Kampf as a fave read. Still a lot of the animosity towards Israel has become rather rabid anti-Semitism.

It doesn't matter where they were grabbed Israel will call it a kidnapping and Hezbollah will call it capturing. Why? Because "kidnapping" is what criminals and terrorists do and "capturing" is what legitimate combatants at war do. Both sides like to indulge in semantic bullshit while innocent civilians die. Fuck Hezbollah and fuck the Israeli government. Both are warmongers and deserve a toasty brimstone-y afterlife.

Ah hell fuck Mel Gibson too, it's been decades since he made a good flick.

Indeed.

Ah well, substitute Iraq's next gov't for Syria then. Hizballah is a Shia dominated organization, Hassan Nasrallah is their effective leader, and he's a Shiite cleric.

So perhaps Hizballah serves Syria three purposes. It gives them a release valve for their Shia minority, a way to work against Israel in hopes of regaining the Golan Heights, and a way to have a bit more in common with Iran (as opposed to their mostly U.S.-backed Sunni neighbors. Syria is mostly just the conduit for Iranian arms and money to Hizballah in Lebanon.

Some of you may recall the U.S. being allied with the U.S.S.R. and our President asking us to think of Josef Stalin as our "Uncle Joe" while we warred a common enemy. Even though we had militarily occupied a portion of that country after it's formation.

Given Hizballah's relative success (or more accurately, their lack of complete failure) in this endeavor, it's entirely possible that they might gain some props from Sunnis around the area.

Yeah the allegiance between Hezbollah and Syria is very much one of conveinience mostly to accomplish the second objective you laid out. Additionally they serve as a de-stabilizing force in Lebanese politics which provides Syria with justification to directly involve itself through directly occupying Lebanese territory.

Plus the Syrians do try to do the pan-Arab non-sectarian thing so the Shia/Sunni divide is something they try to claim has no bearing. Also you are absolutely bang-on in pointing out that Syria is largely out of step with the rest of the Arab governments who have cozied up to the US (presumably to avoid the fate of Saddam).