Israel intentionally allowing Hezbollah to keep shelling

[Grimmlok]

The transcript from CNN

...And joining us now here Washington Anne Compton who covers the White House for ABC News, and Thomas Ricks, Pentagon reporter for "The Washington Post" and author of the new book "Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq."

Tom Ricks, you've covered a number of military conflicts, including Iraq, as I just mentioned. Is civilian casualties increasingly going to be a major media issue? In conflicts where you don't have two standing armies shooting at each other?

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me.

[strikeapose]

That is a pretty bold statement that Israel wants its citizens killed. The same could be said of Hezbollah deliberately hiding its arsenal and launching attacks using civilian shields. Hezbollah knows that the killing of civilians will help their cause. Many think that even with Israel bombing the crap out of Lebanon, it Hezbollah that is winning, precisely because so many civilians are dying.

I disagree with the oversimplification of Mr. Ricks that Israel 'purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon' as if Israel can so effectively remove the entire arsenal of Hezbollah so easily.

Since the 2000 Israeli pullout of southern Lebanon, it has been estimated by some that Hezbollah has been in a frenzy to arm itself to the teeth with about 12,000 rockets...all 12,000 pointed at the eradication of Israel. (Syria and Iran being major supporters).

Israel is all too eager to get rid of these rockets, thus this horrendous conflict raging on at the moment. The point is that Israel doesn't want its citizens killed by these 12,000 rockets. I don't think it is intentional to keep pockets of arms anywhere. If anything, Israel is using too much force at the moment to bomb away all traces of Hezbollah and killing too many Lebanese civilians in the process. Sadly, Israel doesn't seem to realize that they cannot bomb this problem away.

[DirtyPool]

from what i heard on the news, hezbollah has used 3000 out of 15000 rockets in their arsenal.

[Sojiita]

Just some reporters words..someone said that someone said..big deal..where is there any evidence of anything like this?

[DirtyPool]

i'm afraid i cannot locate the source. i was flipping back and forth on the news channels yesterday and caught it on one of the weekend shows.

[Sojiita]

Actually I was talking about the original story..the intentionally allowing the shelling part

[Grimmlok]

Oh come on, this is perfectly plausible.