[Abcdxxxx]

Okay see I read this stuff and I'm shocked that anyone would mistake themselves as capable of writing such an article without some basic understanding of the situation.

1) Israeli's try and parallel everything to American's. Their comparisons are always pretty thin and emberassing. They're obsessed with the status of American products because for years they could only get British hand me downs, and the rare US import was exciting. So of course they want to think of Lebanon as another Vietnam. They're dying to talk in the romantic terms we do with sorrow when Vietnam comes up. Even Americans try and parallel everything to Vietnam. It's immature. I mean, if this is our Lebanon, and Lebanon was their Vietnam, when we've already had our Vietnam then....

2) The only solid parallel between Lebanon and Iraq is a lot of Syrians flooding through unsecured borders.

3) The article doesn't mention that Lebanon was already embroiled in a 40 year civil war before Israel got involved. There was no option to align themselves with Shiites in those days. It wasn't like Israel snubbed one side of the feud, there was no diplomacy to be had within the Shiite community in 1982.

4) The "checkpoints" were operated by US Marines. It was an American invention, but it's debatable if you can even call them checkpoints. Our military stands at the side of roads and looks in cars. That's how the US "secures borders", and towns, and roads.

5) The article downplays Hizzballah's threat, claiming "fewer then 31 soldiers" die at their hands annually. What about the non-combatants who die? What about their financial activity supporting violence in the West Bank? What about the Journalists, and Soldiers they kidnapped in front of the UN observors who videotaped the event, that were executed? What about the daily shelling into the farms below?

6) Hizzbalah are a spin off of the PLO. Arafat was perched up in Lebanon gathering up tanks and putting together an army to rush into Israel, and what he left behind was Hizzbalah...who are still putting together an army with a plan to rush into Israel one day. It's an on going situation. I don't think we're ready to learn from it yet.

7) The article doesn't mention that Israel didn't pull out of Southern Lebanon for another 18 years, and that the land still remains occupied by Syria. If we're to learn anything, it's to take the threat of Syria, or even Iran, seriously.

8) The only real comparison is we're on terrain we can't master, we can't secure the borders, it's in the same region, and you have the same religious dynamics. You could probably make the same comparisons to El Salvador and so on and so on.