US & Lebanon: Unintended Power Shifts in Middle East?
By: Dr. Farooq Hassan
Harvard University
International events of a momentous nature in the past few years have proved that military solutions do not auger well for its users in this millennium. Since 9/11, despite overwhelming superiority of technology and armaments, it is beyond question that military over-kills have achieved little except physical demolition of structures, landscapes and of thousands of civilians. Indeed, there is incontrovertible evidence that it has generated a wave of nationalism seldom seen on the international scene since the beginning of the last century.
Wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and now in Lebanon have effectively demolished the notion of invincibility of supposedly super trained armies against rag tag militias who are determined to undertake “liberation” of their locales – at least as they see it in non conventional warfare. History seems forgotten by those who are supposed to know it. Those wishing to learn may read the accounts of the British Afghan Wars of 1842 and 1843 to comprehend that the greatest Empire of that time at Westminster was ruthlessness brushed aside by a handful of Pathans.