Basic HTML Version
totol wor. All suffer, whether civilian or military.
Top: Bombed-out civilian buildings in Damascus.
Middle: lsraeli soldiers token captive near
Domascus. Right: A modern Soviet-built
SAM missile. Bottom: A captured Syrian soldier.
8oth above. Bruno 8srbey - Magnum
8oth below, Ch. Simonpietri - Sygma
20
T
THE
major world powers, the
October war was a testing
place for the latest sophis–
ticated weaponry, a theater for wit–
nessing the movement of la rge
forces in live battle conditions. l f
anything, what has been learned is
how to make war more lethal next
time.
Scarcely had the fighting stopped
when milita ry men were enmeshed
in analyzing and reanalyzing troop
deployments and positions to see
what each side could have done dif–
ferently. New weapons gadgetry,
seen for the first time, were studied
for ftaws and weaknesses by devel–
oper nations to improve effective
killing power. Likewise, opposition
forces studied them in order to dc–
velop anti-sys tems.
How ironic that the very cradle of
the world's great religions should
become an arena for learning war
and for testing the world's newes t
military hardware.
The
Cost
For the combatants, the fourth
confrontation had an added lesson
- how cos tly war is, not just in
terms of life and death reality. but
economically.
Both sides suffered heavily. Accu–
rate Arab statistics are ye t unpub–
lished, but from known Is raelí
figures, we could probably estímate
the Arabs' war costs to be as high as
the lsraelis'.
lt
is estimated tha t the
total cost of the war to Israel was in
the neighborhood of 4 billion dol–
lars. That's two thirds of Israel 's an–
nual GNP. Overall, the war is
expected to reduce Israel's living
standard sorne
JO
percent.
Cold, isolated statistics, however,
can't convey to those untouched di–
rectly by war the severe heartache,
upheaval and psychological trauma
suffered on both sides. Statistics are
woefully inadequate in picturing the
emotional pain and bereavement
experienced by wives, husbands,
sons , daughters, relati ves and
friends over their killed and
maimed loved ones. The unhappi–
ness and misery of the thousands of
PLAIN TRUTH February 1974