Everything else is noise and propaganda...

Taxi drivers in the south were charging up to $400 per person for rides to Beirut — more than 40 times the usual price. In remote villages of the south, cut off by strikes, residents made their way out over the mountains by foot. The price of food, medical supplies and gasoline rose as much as 500 percent in parts of Lebanon as the bombardment cut supply routes. The World Food Program said estimates of basic food supplies ranged from one to three months. The U.N. estimated that a half-million people have been displaced, with 130,000 fleeing to Syria and 45,000 believed to be in need of assistance. -Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press

How do you mess with a civilian population, I mean really mess with them? Israel has an idea: bomb their supply routes, their airports, bridges, ports and highways, their food factories and hospitals and water mains, and then issue a warning for them to get out. Then watch the fun: will they try to drive on bombed-out highways? Will they attempt to walk through the mountains with their children, their grandparents and whatever belongings they can carry? If they're trying to transport their families in trucks or vans, you can bomb those as they leave their villages, since the IDF has declared all civilian trucks to be legitimate targets.

It's also worth noting that if the attempt is to rout Hezbollah entirely from the region, this is beyond counterproductive. Israel may be succeeding in destroying much of Hezbollah's stash of rockets (which also dwindles rapidly as Hezbollah launches them at Israeli civilians). But think London in the Blitz, think of Tokyo, think of the Iraqi resistance: aerial bombardment brings the citizens of the bombed area together. Hezbollah already had a great deal of support in Lebanon, largely because of its many non-terror-related activities, like the wide-ranging charities, ambulance services, and other social services that provide the sort of support the weak Lebanese government doesn't supply. Now the Lebanese people are under attack, a bloody and indiscriminate attack, and their government is doing nothing-- not fighting Israel, not bringing food and water to the shelters, nothing. Who's doing something? Hezbollah.

There's certainly a large chunk of the Lebanese population that blames Hezbollah for bringing this bombing onto their heads, but there's little doubt that Hezbollah's support is wide and growing. And now Israel is launching a ground invasion. Have they learned nothing from Vietnam and Iraq and for that matter the British Empire? If you bomb and invade a country whose citizens are dead set against you, you can kill as many resistance fighters as you want. There will always be more. They will keep fighting you and fighting you. Hezbollah will establish new headquarters. They'll get new rockets (despite the publicity about getting them from Iran, many of Hezbollah's rockets have turned out to be from China). And they will have no shortage of volunteers.

So yeah, this war's clearly not about rescuing two kidnapping soldiers. (Incidentally, isn't anyone worried that if the soldiers are being hidden in Lebanon, they might die in the bombing raids? If this were a movie, that would be a continuity error.) It's not about getting rid of Hezbollah. So what is it about? Tariq Ali argues that "[Israel and Washington] want to isolate and topple the Syrian regime by securing Lebanon as an Israeli-American protectorate on the Jordanian model." Israeli activist Uri Avnery agrees: "The real aim is to change the regime in Lebanon and to install a puppet government... That's the main thing. Everything else is noise and propaganda."

Where does that take us? What would that mean for the region? Would Iran take it lying down? Will the US, which at the moment appears confused and directionless, attempt to step in? Is this World War Three, or will it stay localized the way it did when the Israelis pulled the same damn thing in Lebanon in 1982? Stay tuned...