who won?

so the "war" is over. i'm not even sure we can call it a war since wars are between countries, but hey, what the world wants the world gets.

so both sides are claiming victory (has israel or the us ever admitted to defeat?), which isn't surprising, but really, how can one measure victory? one can argue victory as a successful invasion or deterrence, or maybe control over a resource. personally i think the most basic definition of success (which in wars becomes a victory) is to achieve the set goals. part of why the us is suffering in iraq is that they didn't set long-term goals. the problem with the israeli war against lebanon from the very beginning is that it didn't have a goal. was it to get the prisoners back? was it to destroy lebanon's infrastructure? was it to disarm hezbolla? was it to destroy the "state within state" that hezbolla has in the south?

i think the official statement was eventually that israel decided to attack because of the capture of its soldiers. if so, i believe the goal would be to free the soldiers. if that was the case then israel was not victorious in this war (since it didn't achieve its goal). however, my personal opinion is that israel had only used the kidnap as an excuse to attack southern lebanon. but even then, let us assume that the original intention was to attack southern lebanon to somehow weaken hezbolla. weakening hezbolla can be achieved through several means: cutting off its supplies, attacking it directly, killing its members, and other methods of war. so what was israel's goal? to weaken hezbolla. how? i think from the events we can see three ways of weakening hezbolla.

first, weaken hezbolla by cutting off its supplies. i think israel achieved that rather foolishly by destroying lebanon's infrastructure. no bridge or road was left intact. the airport and seaports were destroyed. power was cut off from all of lebanon. there was no gas, water, medication or anything else for all of lebanon. a million lebanese were displaced or fled as refugees. israel, as it does usually, decided to wipe out the country to try to suffocate hezbolla. kinda like cutting a person's nose off because he has a zit on it. in that respect, i think israel did achieve its goal, if only by cutting off the whole country's supples. the question is, did that weaken or disarm hezbolla? the number of rockets fired and the resistance showed in the south tell us that it did not.

second, weaken hezbolla by cutting off its popular support. hezbolla are shiite, a sect of Islam that is always at odds with sunni. as such, it did not generally have the support of sunni's. no surprise there. i think israel attempted to weaken its support further by blaming them for the death of civilians, and that moron bush says the same, that it's hezbolla's fault. not a single muslim or arab agrees with that idiot. if anything, the israeli aggression which is illegal by international standards was hailed as an attack against muslims and arabs everywhere. all muslims and arabs stood behind hezbolla in its resistance, and lebanon was united against the aggression. some saudi fatwas were against that, but those were utterances similar to bush's: the words of idiots. so i guess in that sense israel has failed as well, creating the opposite effect.

third, weaken hezbolla by killing off its members and depleting its weapons. that is a natural outcome of any war: the resources of each side are depleted and they both emerge railing. the total number of rockets fired into israel is said to be 4000. i am not sure what kind of armament stores they have, but it seems that they had enough to sustain a 30 day war with israel (who claims to be superior). there is really no way to tell how much they have left in terms of weapons, but in terms of manpower they claim to have lost around 70 soldiers. israel says 400. i say it doesn't matter, i bet 10 thousand joined hezbolla through the course of this war. so in that area, it's kind of shady when it comes to weapons, but in terms of members, israel not only didn't achieve its goals but it backfired.

israel might be after more subtle goals, like the occupation of southern lebanon, the disarming of hezbolla in the south, the tainting of syria and iran as supporters of terrorism, a show of force against other countries, and many more, but according to the government speakers, they considered what they achieved as a victory because they were rid of a state within a state in the south of lebanon. how so? by the security council resolution. if that were a victory then the arabs defeated israel many times over.

so what did israel achieve? they destroyed lebanon's infrastructure, re-colored their international image in blood, weakened its internal moral, caused the death of hundreds of civilians and came out a fool.

what was hezbolla's goal? when they captured the soldiers they wanted to have a prisoner swap. israel instead reacted with war. what was hezbolla's goal then? to defend southern lebanon from an israeli invasion. i believe it succeeded in doing that.

seems to me like hezbolla won.