Aug. 20, 2006 - 22:07 MDT

WISE MOVE, IT SEEMS

In reading this article in the The Denver Post of Sunday Aug. 20, 2006 I considered the possibility of a terrorist group settling in on one of our borders and lobbing rockets into our country. Following is Steven Erlanger's of The New York Times article quoted in full:

ISRAEL AIMS TO HALT HEZBOLLAH REARMING

Even amid the cease-fire, the nation will push back influence from Syria and Iran, a military leader says

JERUSALEM -- " Despite a cease-fire agreement, Israel intends to do its best to keep Iran and Syria from rearming Hezbollah and to kill the militia's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said a senior Israeli commander."

"International commitments to exclude the Hezbollah militia from southern Lebanon and to disarm it already seem hollow, said the commander, who has a well-placed view of the war and its planning and has extensive experience in Lebanon."

"The officer would speak only on the condition of anonymity, given the sensitivity of his positon, in an interview Friday."

"But, speaking one day before Israel commandos carried out a raid to disrupt arms shipments for Hezbollah from Syria and Iran, he was explicit that Israel would continue to seek out and block any such attempts."

"He also emphasized that despite criticism of the performance of the Israeli army and government, he considered the threat and the fighting ability of Hezbollah to have been severely diminished."

"Furthermore, he maede it clear that Nasrallah remains a target as the head of a group that Israel and the United States have labeled terroritst."

"There's only one solution for him," he said. At another point, he said simply: "This man must die."

"Nasrallah is regarded as a hero in much of the Muslim world. The pro-Syrian president of Lebanon, Emile Lahod, praised him and Hezbollah last week for what he called their victory over Israel."

"Israel and the United States however, view Hezbollah as a tool of non-Arab Iran, which created it, and of Syria, which supports and helps to supply it, rather than being loyal to Lebanon and its multi-religious government."

"Israel the officer said, views Hezbollah as "Iran's western front" and, regardless of how poorly the new U.N. forces may perform, he argued, Israel will benefit from new international support for the extension of Lebanese sovereignty to the Israeli border, made most visible in the deployment of the Lebanese army."

"I don't care about the capability of the Lebanese army," he said. "What is more important, and here I'm not speaking for the Israeli government, is the understanding that the Lebanese government took control of southern Lebanon. Now we can deal with them as a country and a government, and speak and compromise. This is the huge change this operation created."

"Hezbollah, he said, is no longer just Israel's problem,and "the world understands that we are helping to stop the infulence of Iran," at least in the longer term."

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Trying to put two and two together and come up with something besides six or sixty, it seems to me that the Lebanese army has taken control over the southern part of Lebanon, (which is their right to do) and even though they are bound by their own government to not root out items of warfare and depots of Hezbollah, at least the Israeli army can do so and between the two perhaps can keep the unholy duo of Iran and Syria from causing the pot to keep boiling over.

I keep thinking in terms of our United States - - - WWWD ? ? ? ? (What Would We Do ????) if the rockets were crashing into San Diego, El Paso, Seattle, Buffalo and places like that.

So, to my mind,Israel has made a WISE MOVE IT SEEMS . . . . . . . . . . .

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