When bat'ushka Stalin asked "How many divisions does the pope have?" he implied that the so called "moral authority" - including public opinion - does not matter vis a vis tanks. I think he exaggerated a bit - a more accurate way of expressing it would be "a pen might be mightier than a sword, but only if the writer sits in a tank." Which is exactly where the supporters/mouthpieces of the current US/Israeli policies are, and the opponents of those policies are not.
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I was a skeptic at first.
But now, I understand that those who discussed 4th generation warfare (Anthony Cordesman, to name one prominent example) knew whereof they spoke.
What you're missing Wojtek - and, I'm moved to remind you that you missed it earlier when, a year or so ago you insisted Iraq was well within US control - is the ability of modern guerrilla forces to relentlessly confound a state's control of territory and existential claim to absolute power and competence.
The Baathist military professionals and jihadi irregulars of Iraqi have denied the US two things: a.) the hoped for "demonstration effect" - the explicitly stated rationale for "shock and awe" and b.) a secure Middle East foothold from which to confidently stage future assaults.
Similarly, Hezbollah has confounded the Israeli objective of fashioning a subservient Lebanon.
The lion's share of military hardware and destructive capability is still held by Washington globally and Tel Aviv in its regional sphere of influence.
Even so, the limits of this power are beginning to show. If Tel Aviv fails to neutralize resistance in Gaza and south Lebanon, it will suffer a significant blow to both its strategic and propaganda efforts - just as Washington's efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are being ground into the dirt.
Empires aren't built on guns alone but a belief in their invincibility - there's an intangible foundation of belief that supports the imperial project. This is what's being eroded right before our very eyes.
If you fixate on comparisons such as how many tanks each side has (or note one side's complete lack of tanks) as you seem to do you'll miss the situation's fluidity.
.d.
--------- She loves penicillin...and compromise. She's going to go for it
...................... http://monroelab.net/blog/