Common Folk Using Common Sense

The power and sophistication of the missile and rocket arsenal that Hezbollah has used in recent days has caught the United States and Israel off guard, and officials in both countries are just now learning the extent to which the militant group has succeeded in getting weapons from Iran and Syria.

Yes, Hezbollah is getting its funding and weaponry from Iran and Syria, making this a war by proxy between Israel and Iran and Syria. This is the same Iran that’s busy developing nukes. And you wonder why Israel is taking such a strong stand against Hezbollah?

American and Israeli officials said the successful attack last Friday on an Israeli naval vessel was the strongest evidence to date of direct support by Iran to Hezbollah. The attack was carried out with a sophisticated antiship cruise missile, the C-802, an Iranian-made variant of the Chinese Silkworm, an American intelligence official said.

But neither Jerusalem nor Washington had any idea that Hezbollah had such a missile in its arsenal, the officials said, adding that the Israeli ship had not even activated its missile defense system because intelligence assessments had not identified a threat from such a radar-guided cruise missile. The situation is starting to get serious.

UPDATE: A Hezbollah rocket attack on the northern town of Nazareth killed two Israeli Arab brothers ages 3 and 9 on Wednesday afternoon. Do you remember Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown? The two siblings were killed by a direct hit from a rocket while playing on the street, the Israel Defense Forces said. Simply children playing in the street, not bothering anyone. And yet some Hezbollah genius decided this would be a great place to drop a rocket. Neither a tactical nor strategic target. Not a military target. Not a government target. Just kids playing in the street. The same street that Jesus probably played on as a child. Are any of you starting to grasp the seriousness of all of this? Do you get it now? The Western World is at war against radical Islam. Time to appease or time to fight?

Let’s follow the Silkworm trail:

China develops the Silkworm anti-ship cruise missile. It is based on the Russian SS-N-2 Styx missile, and has a maximum range of 95 km. It is 20 feet long, a top speed of mach 0.8, and a weapon load of 852 pounds of high explosive. While it is not a particularly sophisticated missile when compared to others such as the Exocet, the Silkworm’s unusually large warhead ensures that a single hit will inflict very serious damage. China later develops the Yingji series of missiles. It no longer needs its Silkworms so they sell them throughout the Middle East. Iran, rich with oil money and hungry for weapons, buys Silkworm technology from China. They share this with their puppet state Syria. In March 1988, China agreed to stop supplying Iran with Silkworm missiles, though it is reported that supply continued into 1989. Iran has since developed the capability to manufacture these missiles itself. Thanks China. Syria employed Russian-made Styx missiles, forerunner of the Silkworm, against Israeli warships in the 1973 Battle of Latakia. Until recently, Lebanon was occupied by the terrorist state Syria. Iran and Syria know they cannot attack Israel directly without making the UN frown at them. So they “give” some of their re-built Silkworms to groups like Hezbollah under the condition that they use them against Israel. Hezbollah, stupid but powerful, starts firing their new toys at Israeli ships. They score a hit. But the people smiling and cheering the most are sitting in Iran, the masters of this show of force. Israeli sources have said that the missile used instead was the newer and more sophisticated Chinese Yingji, meaning that Hezbollah, through Iran, is using front-line Chinese weaponry.

While Iranian missile supplies to Hezbollah, either by sea or overland via Syria, were well known, officials said the current conflict also indicated that some of the rockets in Hezbollah’s arsenal — including a 220-millimeter rocket used in a deadly attack on a railway site in Haifa on Sunday — were built in Syria.

Officials said it was likely that Iran trained Hezbollah fighters on how to successfully fire and guide the missiles. Some experts said Iran was not likely to deploy such a sophisticated weapon without also sending Revolutionary Guard crews with the expertise to fire the missile. Iranian military could be inside Lebanon actually pushing the button to fire these missiles into Israel. War by proxy. Israel is responding to the wrong foe.

Says Lawrence Kudlow in the Washington Times:

All of us in the Free World owe Israel an enormous “thank you” for defending freedom, democracy and security against the Iranian cat’s-paw wholly-owned terrorist subsidiaries Hezbollah and Hamas.

Israel is doing the Lord’s work. It is defending its homeland and very existence but are also America’s homeland as our frontline democratic ally in the Middle East.

Israel’s military operation in Lebanon is designed to cripple Hezbollah by destroying its headquarters, weapons stockpiles and supply network, and eventually eliminating the militant group. It’s secondary target is Hezbollah’s leadership.

Every important party in the region and in the world, except the radical Islamists in Tehran and their clients in Damascus, wants Hezbollah disarmed and removed from south Lebanon so that it is no longer able to destabilize the peace of both Lebanon and the broader Middle East. The majority of Lebanese – Christian, Druze, Sunni Muslim and secular – bitterly resent their country being hijacked by Hezbollah and turned into a war zone. Nobody likes Hezbollah except for their masters in Iran.

The 22-member Arab League criticized Hezbollah for provoking the current crisis. It is unprecedented for the Arab League to criticize any Arab party while it is actively engaged in hostilities with Israel. But the Arab states know that Hezbollah, a Shiite militia in the service of Persian Iran, is a threat not just to Lebanon but to them as well. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan have openly criticized Hezbollah for starting a war on what is essentially Iran’s timetable. They are far more worried about Iran and its proxies than about Israel. They are therefore eager to see Hezbollah disarmed and defanged.

Hezbollah is thought to have up to 13,000 missiles. In 2004, Hezbollah subsidized nearly 70% of Palestinian terrorist attacks and offered old-guard Fatah and Hamas militants as much as $100,000 to deliver suicide bombers into Israel. And remember that Hezbollah is being funded by Iran through Syria. So Iran is the primary funding source of just about everything and everyone wanting to kill Israelis. But that is in line with Iranian President Ahmedinejad’s statement to “wipe Israel off the map”.

As expected, France, Spain and Italy have responded to recent events with pacifist posturing. In the smoking rooms of Western Europe and around the coffee tables of the United Nations, we hear more lofty calls for restraint. But the terrorist groups that started this fight have shown no restraint. Rather than pull back, Israel should move forward, cleaning out all the terrorist sanctuaries, training camps, weapons caches and missile systems it can find.

Israel’s next front may indeed be Syria. Many experts still believe Syria is safe-harboring Saddam’s unfound weapons of mass destruction. Can you see that this is far bigger than a few Hezbollah thugs firing a few small rockets at a few Israeli targets? Yet the Moonbats, the Leftists, the Islamic apologists, and the anti-war crowd all blame Israel for higher oil prices, slumping stocks and a potential recession. Folks with common sense should realize Israel’s strong response in the face of senseless terrorist attacks will make the world a better place. Folks with common sense will admit that this is a World War.

But the problem is that folks with common sense are ever interviewed by the media, or are elected to public office.

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