Cease Fire - will it last?

Doubtful, you need to remember what the purpose was behind the Hezbullah attack to start with. They had two primary goals in mind, extract prisoners Israel is currently holding for crimes they committed against the Israeli people and to create a backlash against the Israelis from within the Muslim community. As a secondary goal, if they could goad the Israelis into attacking it would whip up anti-semitism throughout the world and thus continue their quest in destroying Israel.

By crossing the Israeli and kidnapping two members of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), they thought they could extract some prisoners from Israel through an exchange (which Israel has mistakenly done in the past). How did Israel react? They hit back this time and hit back hard; unfortunately not hard enough.

What amazes me is that if Hezbullah had done this with any other country, the reaction would have been far different and certainly more devastating. Could you imagine what the United States would do if Canada or Mexico without provocation, crossed our border and kidnapped two of our soldiers? Now you say "Well, Hezbullah isn't Lebanon". To which I would reply - BULLSHIT! Hezbullah has been allowed to control the entire southern region of Lebanon for better part of the last 20 years, if that does not make them a part of Lebanon, nothing will.

Israel has also been very restrained in their response. Case in point. During WWII the Germans launched well over 4,000 boms and missiles at the civilian areas of England; their goal was to completely destroy England. They did this over an 18 month period. That time frame is important here. The Allied response was to drop bombs and missiles in such a manner that they killed over 100,000 military and civilian personnel. That included men, women and children.

In less than 31 days, Hezbullah has launched over 3900 bombs at Israel; bombs packed not only with explosives, but glass, metal fragments, nails, staples, etc. In effect creating the worlds largest claymore mine. These bombs have been specifically directed at civilian areas with the purpose of exacting as much civilian loss as possible on the Israeli side. Israel's response has been to target known military and command positions. What hezbullah has done (which is a war crime in and of itself), is position these military and command operations right in the middle of civilian areas.

Now, what is Israel supposed to do? Not destroy those operations and allow them to continue bombing their country? You cannot possibly think that any other sane country would allow the same would you? I thought not.

The cease fire that has been in place for a few hours now will calm the region down some, but with Hezbullah's refusal to disarm and their penchant for causing havoc and their blood thirsty desire to completely destroy Israel will unfortunately cause this case fire to fail.

Lebanon made their bed with Hezbullah and now is suffering the consequences of that action. You may feel for them and understand their plight, but they made the bed and it is up to them to fix it themselves. Without fixing it, they will never have peace.