Israel and Hezbollah exchange artillery fire near Lebanon, is Hezbollah joining the war?

 

Smoke rises in Lebanon after the strikes. Reuters.

Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged artillery fire on the border with Lebanon raising fears that the Iran backed group could join the war with Hamas. Reuters. Hezbollah launched guided rockets and artillery at the Sheeba Farms area of northern Israel, a territory that is also claimed by Lebanon. Israel returned fire with artillery of their own and a drone strike destroyed a Hezbollah tent, which was quickly replaced. A second rocket attack from Hezbollah followed two hours later. Hezbollah said they are in direct contact with Hamas and celebrated their massive attack. 

My Comment:

This is, so far, a minor incident. A minor artillery exchange does not mean much, especially since it's unclear if anyone was killed or hurt on either side. Still the implications are clear, Israel is going to have to defend their northern border with Hezbollah as well as their fighters could pose a threat to their forces there as well as civilians. 

The elephant in the room is that Hezbollah is an Iranian proxy and the implication is that Iran could possibly join the war alongside Hamas. Iran could launch large numbers of missiles and their Hezbollah minions could attack Israel directly. Iran is, of course, an ally to Russia and from there the whole thing could spiral into World War III. That's the theory at least and the worst case scenario. Will it happen? 

I do think that this attack was pretty haphazard and unplanned. Hamas achieved strategic surprise to the point that not even Hezbollah knew what they were going to do. This strikes me as a last minute, "we need to do something" kind of attack that didn't accomplish much of anything other than to show that Hezbollah supports Hamas. 

It does certainly complicate things for Israel. They took quite a bit of damage in their initial battles with Hamas and could face extreme resistance from the terror group as they invade the Gaza Strip. I also expect heavy armor losses due to drone strikes. There has already been a video released of one of Israel's Merkava tanks being destroyed and burned down after a bomb was dropped on it via drone. 

In short, Israel might have their hands full here and having to counter Hezbollah forces in the north will complicate things. Even if Hezbollah does nothing else for the rest of the war, Israel is going to have to deploy troops and armor to the north to counter any moves made by Hezbollah. They might have had to do it anyways, but now it's for sure. 

If anything does happen in the northern front, I expect it to take awhile for it to develop. Hezbollah was caught of guard by the Hamas offensive, just like everyone else. It will take some time to prepare their troops for battle and if Israel is extremely lucky the war could be over by then. I'm not expecting that, indeed I am expecting this war to be one of the bigger ones Israel has been involved with and that buys time for Hezbollah to get an attack ready. Perhaps this time Israel will be prepared for it... 

Massive surprise attack against Israel, dozens dead, Israel declares war on Hamas.

 

Palestinians celebrate over a destroyed Israeli tank at the border with the West Bank. AP.

A massive surprise attack by Hamas targeting Israel has left dozens dead and Israel in a state of war against Hamas. AP. The attack was launched from the Gaza strip and involved a massive rocket strike and teams of infantry attacking border cities. At least 22 Israelis are dead and hundreds more wounded in the largest attack in years. Video released on social media shows Hamas fighters capturing Israeli civilians and soldiers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that the country was at war. It is unclear why the attack was launched now and Saudi Arabia called for both sides to show restraint. It is also unclear how the Israelis missed the preparations for the attack.  

This is a breaking news story. The following news outlets have live feeds updating information as it comes in. As with all breaking news stories, keep in mind that information quickly becomes out of date.

BBC. 

Washington Post. 

France 24.

Fox News.

My Comment:

This was a massive attack and, by all appearances, a wildly successful one. Hamas was not only able to launch thousands of rockets at Israel, they were also able to infiltrate deep into Israel and attacked via air, sea and land. The Israelis, by all accounts, appear to have been caught totally off guard. 

The sophistication and equipment for this raid is fairly surprising. The combat footage I have seen has professional looking soldiers armed with modern equipment. The AP was even saying that some fighters infiltrated Israel via hang gliders, which is just impressive if true. They were also able to destroy at least one tank and may have taken other armor from the Israelis. 

Hamas and their allies have also taken Israeli civilians and soldiers hostage, and have stolen some of the bodies of the people they have killed. Some of those people may have been of high rank in the military and all of them are major bargaining chips for Hamas as the war continues. 

There are reports of civilians being killed. What isn't clear is how many of them were killed on purpose and how many of them were killed in the crossfire. With the fog of war a real problem right now it's pretty impossible to tell, but I have seen video and pictures of at least a few civilians dead. 

Israel has of course responded with airstrikes and is sending the troops to fight the infiltration teams. Those battles are ongoing and it isn't clear how long they will take and if they will succeed or not. I don't know what the Palestinians goals are, they may be suicide squads out to cause as much chaos as possible before they are destroyed. But if not, I can't imagine they are going to stay and fight for long. Despite the, quite frankly, brilliant surprise attack, it will not take long for Israel to regroup and deploy its forces. 

What is shocking about this is that nobody seemed to have a clue that this was going to happen. I am pretty tuned into international news and Israel vs Palestine was not a conflict on my radar right now. Serbia? Sure. Armenia and Azerbaijan? Also sure. But this conflict? It kind of came out of nowhere right? I mean, most of the news we have been hearing about Israel has been positive as it warms in relations with the Arab world. That obviously didn't include Palestine but still. 

This was a major Israeli intelligence failure and I would not be surprised if heads roll for this, metaphorically or otherwise. A huge coordinated offensive like this doesn't just happen out of the blue, there are major preparations that go into it and that is something that should have been spotted by the Israelis (and by the United States as well). The fact that it wasn't is probably a testament to Hamas, but still, it's almost unbelievable that the Israelis didn't know this was coming. It's not quite on the scale of Pearl Harbor or 9/11 here in the United States, but it's close. 

Speaking of the United States, this is not something we need right now. America has enough problems and it's very possible that this conflict could grow larger. From what I understand Hezbollah is praising the attack and it's very possible that Iran could get involved as well. That could draw both Russia and the United States into the war due to alliances, and boom, we get World War III. That scenario is, to be frank, unlikely, but it certainly is something to keep an eye on. 

As for the war itself, I think Israel will "win" if anyone ever wins in wars between Israel and her Muslim neighbors. They have the advantage in technology, weapons and troops while Hamas just had the advantage of surprise. It will be a tough war though and one with no clear endgame at this point. If Hezbollah joins the fighting it would be a lot closer and if Iran does? Well, then all bets are off. 

And a final note, I might be the only person that is not very invested in who wins the conflict. But man, if you go on Twitter right now it's a mess. People really hate both sides of the conflict even when it doesn't really affect them directly (at least not yet). I personally hate the propaganda on both sides, neither side is totally right and neither side is totally wrong. I'm just glad it's happening over there and not here. 

An US F-16 shoots down a drone from Turkey after it overflew American troops in Syria.

 

A Turkish Bayraktar TB2. Politico/AP.

An US F-16 shot down a drone operated by Turkey after it overflew American troops in Syria. Politico. The Bayraktar TB2 drone was shot down after it launched strikes at Kurdish fighters only a mile away from US troops near Hasakah. The drone was destroyed after it reentered an exclusion zone. Turkey has stepped up attacks on Kurdish YPG units after a PKK terror attack hit Ankara. The destruction of the drone will likely cause tensions between the United States and Turkey, two NATO allies, to increase. No US Troops were injured in the attack and Turkey has denied that they owned the drone. 

My Comment:

The war in Syria is certainly heating up again. Turkey and the Kurds are going at it, so is the United States and Turkey. And somebody, nobody seems to know who, blew up Syria's war college today via a drone strike. For a war that has faded into a background it's a bad sign that things are returning to chaos. 

This was, of course, in response to the terror attack in Ankara. Given that that attack mostly failed, only two cops were injured and one totally innocent man was murdered by the terrorists, it's amazing how much chaos is erupting from it. Nobody expected Turkey and the United States to be threatening each other like this. 

From what I can tell the shootdown was justified, Turkey was flying the drone and bombing targets right next to American forces. As it approached an exclusion area they shot it down. I think given the behavior of the drone it was totally justified. I don't think the Turks would attack American troops on purpose but there is a real chance they could have done it by mistake. There is no way the commanders on the ground there could risk their troops like that, they basically had to shoot this drone down. 

I do have to wonder why on Earth we have troops there in the first place. We don't really have much interest in Syria anymore with al-Qaeda and ISIS gone and zero chance of Bashar al-Assad will be removed at this point, so one wonders why we would be there in the first place. Especially among the Kurds, who are the enemies of Turkey right now. 

As for Turkey, this was a pretty big blunder by them. I understand why they are attacking the Kurds, they hate them and blame all of them for the actions of the PKK terrorists. The PKK deserve the hate, given that they are radical communists who are willing to use suicide bombers, but the YPG aren't and it's dumb that they are attacking them instead of concentrating on the PKK. But I think they are just using the PKK as an excuse to do what they want to do anyways, which is bomb the Kurds. 

Will anything come of this? I would think not, unless something like this happens again quickly. I am guessing there will be diplomatic complaints but nothing more than that. The United States has to have a gentle hand with Turkey due to the fact that they are a critical NATO ally. Should a war between NATO and Russia happen, which is a real possibility, the Turks will likely make up a good portion of the cannon fodder. 

Of course, I think that is too high of a price to pay. Turkey is not a good ideological match for NATO and their attacks on the Kurds, who have been very good allies to the United States, make a case for them being kicked out of NATO. Of course, I'd rather see NATO disbanded myself but if it has to exist does Turkey have to be a part of it? 

NATO military chief warns that NATO nations are almost out of ammo due to the Ukraine War.

 

A Ukrainian Howitzer. BBC/Reuters. 

NATO's highest ranking officer, Admiral Rob Bauer said that "the bottom of the barrel is visible" referring to the lack of ammunition due to aid to Ukraine. BBC. He called for NATO members to drastically increase production of weapons and condemned the "just in time" style production of weapons. NATO was low on weapon stockpiles even before they gave weapons to Ukraine due to low military spending on weapon production. The Ukraine conflict has devolved into an artillery attrition war and Russia is currently outproducing the West. 

My Comment:

You know who isn't running out of ammo? Russia. Not only have they massively improved their production to wartime levels, they are also cutting deals with Iran and North Korea for even more weapons. They have a massive advantage in weapons even with the billions of dollars of aid given to Ukraine. 

Admiral Bauer is right though, the lack of weapons in NATO is absolutely a serious problem. If a major war were to break out we would run out of ammo pretty much instantly. Be that a war with Russia or a war with China, we would not have the artillery, missiles and drones to fight back effectively. 

Of course this was a problem before the Ukraine war broke out. I remember Trump complaining about NATO not reaching their 2% funding goal back when he was in charge. You would have thought that the war in Ukraine would have lit a fire for them but it obviously didn't. It also shows that starting a war with Russia was probably not the best idea for NATO. 

I don't see this problem getting any better either. The global economy is not doing that well and there isn't exactly a lot of money to go around for a major increase in weapons production. And people are getting sick and tire of the funding Ukraine gets already. An anti-Ukraine party won in Slovakia and may well do the same in Poland. 

And that has nothing on what is happening in the United States now. Budgeting anything right now will probably be impossible until we have a new full time speaker of the house and it's very likely that whoever replaces Kevin McCarthy will not be so fond of sending more weapons to Ukraine. 

But the low stockpiles are a major problem even if Ukraine gets cut off. There is always the possibility of a major war breaking out and not having weapons in that scenario is not going to go well for America (or Europe for that matter). Though I am not a fan of rewarding the big weapons manufactures for pushing us into a war with Russia, we do need to have enough weapons to fight a major war for more than a few days. 

Regardless, I think the writing is on the war for Ukraine. Their offensive failed and people are noticing. People are also noticing that we don't have much money left for them and forget about weapons. I get the feeling that this is probably the last hurrah and people are going to realize that Ukraine is a lost cause. What happens after that is a mystery but I do know that there isn't much that can be done to prevent it at this point. The time to fix the low weapon stockpiles was years ago, not now, and it's really too late to do anything now that will actually have an impact on the war... 

In an unprecedented vote, the House votes to remove Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

 

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. Fox News/Getty.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy lost his job today in an unprecedented vote. Fox News. Eight Republicans, led my Representative Matt Gaetz, joined all present Democrats to oust McCarthy 218-210. McCarthy was barely elected to the position, after 15 rounds, this January. McCarthy was never popular among the right wing of the Republican Party but the final straw was his deal with the Democrats to fund the government. Doing so spelled doom for McCarthy as Gaetz and eight other Republicans voted against him. McCarthy has already announced he will not run again for the Speaker of the House. 

My Comment:

Wow, a lot can change in just a couple of days. I had assumed that Matt Gaetz and his threats to remove Kevin McCarthy were a bunchy of sound and fury signifying little to nothing. I was wrong. Just a couple of days later and McCarthy is gone for good and we will have a new Speaker of the House soon. 

McCarthy was never popular among the MAGA wing of the party. Indeed, he was barely confirmed in the first place and he had to cut a pretty big deal to get the support to do so. Unfortunately for McCarthy he didn't actually stay to the terms of the deal.

Cutting a deal with Democrats to keep the government funded though? That was a huge mistake. It absolutely infuriated not only the members of congress that he cut the deal with but the party base as well. Everyone was mad about it besides the members of the uniparty. 

What people wanted was for McCarthy to use his considerable leverage to extract some kind of concessions from the Democratic Party. The party is totally out of control, the border is completely open and the justice department is persecuting the top candidate for President. McCarthy was, apparently, fine with all of that. He absolutely refused to do anything about it and now he's gone. 

The biggest loser here is probably Ukraine though. Like I wrote yesterday, it's going to be very difficult to get a funding bill through congress now. McCarthy was generally pro-Ukraine and there is no guarantee that the next speaker will be. And even if the next one is, it's going to be very difficult to cut a deal with Democrats to get Ukraine funding given that the same thing that happened to McCarthy will probably happen to them. More likely a vote for Ukraine funding won't even be allowed to come to a vote, and that assumes that the drama of picking a new speaker ends anytime soon. It might be difficult to get a speaker that all sides can agree too. 

As to who is going to replace McCarthy, it's a very open question. I know Donald Trump's name has been floated, and doing so would fix a lot of problems, but I don't see that happening. Though a non-member of the house can indeed serve as Speaker, it's never happened. Then again, a house speaker has never been removed from office like this either. 

Other candidates include Steve Scalise, who is a hero to the right after surviving an assassination attempt by a crazed Bernie Sanders supporters, and Lee Zeldin, who isn't in the house anymore. There are probably a lot more names but those three, Trump, Scalise and Zeldin are the ones I have heard of the most. 

One thing is for sure, Matt Gaetz is not going to be the one that gets it. Gaetz burned a lot of bridges with the Republican Party and there is no way that any Democrats are going to vote for him. There are rumors that Gaetz himself will be kicked out of congress due to his actions and I honestly wouldn't be surprised. 

I do have to say that it's funny that the Democrats kind of stabbed McCarthy in the back. He cut a deal with them to pass the funding bill but the second he needed their help to stay as Speaker they betrayed him. Not a single Democrat voted to help McCarthy. 

I don't think the Democrats should do a victory lap here though. The next speaker is not going to be willing to work with them the way Kevin McCarthy is. And it's very possible the next speaker will be willing to play hardball. They are still banking on the idea that any government shutdown would be blamed on Republicans but polling already says any shutdown will be blamed on Joe Biden. This isn't a win for Democrats and they would have been much smarter to try and keep McCarthy in power...