Quote:
Originally posted by Sidd Finch
Do you really think that the world -- or you, personally -- would respond more favorably to a threat to shoot down civilian airliners, than it would to the destruction of runways? Please.
Israel in particular could not make such a threat, when Israel and Israelis have faced attacks on civilian planes so many times in the past.
And I beg to differ -- I would not be shocked at all to see Iran (for example) send a plane, empty but for two pilots with martyr fantasies, to "test that assertion."
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If so, they still didn't need to come back to bomb the airport's fuel installations after they had already cratered the runway. Here's the NYT:
- The Israeli attack on the Beirut airport the first such attack by Israel since 1982 blasted craters into all three runways, but did not hit the main terminal. Israeli planes later attacked the fuel stores at the airport, setting at least one tank on fire and filling the night sky with flames. And early Friday, another air strike severed the main road between the airport and the capital.
That said, I am sympathetic with the rationale of closing the airport to keep Hezbollah from flying the two soldiers to Iran. I just don't see a need to do so much damage to Lebanon's infrastructure.
