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Originally Posted by guy44
Yeah...bombing Lebanon from an offshore Navy ship would not have destroyed, or significantly damaged, Hezbollah. That kind of thing would only have made them stronger at the time.
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No, it wasn't very effective at all. The guns on the Jersey were WWII era and the ability to place shell where you wanted it was pretty limited. Bombs weren't nearly as smart as they are these days. We ended up hitting targets that were all too often civilian. Which in turn made Hezbollah more popular and thus more powerful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by guy44
That kind of thing would only have made them stronger at the time. Also, IIRC, U.S. intel was woeful, even compared to now, in the Middle East at the time and we didn't really know who was responsible.
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Yep, hindsights 20/20. At the time we were completely focused on the the USSR and the cold war. Much, if not all, of our intelligence efforts were focused in that direction. Considering all the signs it looks like we might have wanted to have more on the ground intel Op's going in the ME. I remember during the first Gulf war there being a lot of stories regarding how we had a mere handful of people who could even speak any of the local languages. The cold war had been over for years and we had a lot of folks able to speak Russian. Might have been smart for us to start learning these ME languages and cultures. But even after that we still didn't have a good understanding of the region. You'd think under Bush I and Clinton there would have been a huge push to engage and get better intel in this region. I don't think we did a very good job in this area.