Isn’t it news when a presidential candidate lies to the media and won’t give them access? I would think so, but it took an internet news site to get the letter from the networks complaining to the Obama camp about just this behavior. So it’s a big secret he’s more secretive than George Bush? You would think this would be a topic of discussion, a legitimate issue to bring to the public’s attention, especially since it involves them. (If we have learned anything it is that media is notoriously egocentric.) But we have nary a word of public complaint or a harsh story on Obama’s cocoon existence. Hmm. Could it be that “the right of the people to know” and their professional dignity are small beans compared to their mandate to assist their favorite son candidate?
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Oh oh, this does not look good
Long time Israel supporters Pat Buchanan and Michael Scheuer just got excited.
Maybe things are looking up for Hamas.
Joe- you are painting with a pretty broad brush there. I highly doubt Samantha Power has much of anything in common with buchanan or scheuer. she’s a serial interventionist for one.
as per the topic I’d say the big winner in the second lebanon war war michael totten who shut down the comment board on his websiteafter he got flamed for dairing to criticize the IDF. look at him now. lol. terrified
Lester,
The only people terrified of the IDF are terrorists and the civilians they live among. I’ll criticize the IDF whenever I feel like it. I know far better than you do that nothing bad will happen to me because of it.
Who has seen or has comments on “Waltz with Bashir”?
I agree with Michael Totten, the IDF is not perfect, but it is a professional military force (unlike Hamas which is a terrorist organization). In truth, Hamas terrrorizes fellow Palestinians more than the IDF does.
Nasrallah and Hezbollah, now holding three times the amount of missiles and rockets they had before the war, are deterred – until they are no longer deterred.
Its hard to believe those missiles will not get used one day. It is not in the arab’s nature to let weapons go to waste, and it is certainly not in A’jad’s nature either – if he has any say – and he does.
I believe they wait for the opportune or necessary moment. Any conflagaration with Iran or Syria will see those weapons used.
As for the ptoential for civil war, the veneer of civilization is very, very thin, there, and easily stripped away. They have killed many times more of each other than ISrael ever did. Lebanon is a colonial construct of incompatible ethnicities, getting all the more incompatible as time passes and fundamentalism seeps in to the most heavily armed constituency.
Of course Israel ‘won’ that conflict, on points.
But the Arab conception of truth is what the Arab says it to be, at the moment. Only a hard, small core of strategic thinkers in Arab societies appreciate the truth, which they use in planning for the next round.
The fashionable neocomradely line appears to be that Tel Aviv won in the summer of 2006 but the victory is classified information.
Of course every schoolboy remembers James Mill explaining to John Stuart, “There is no God, but that is a family secret.”
Happy days.
John McCloskey: The fashionable neocomradely line…
Does that include the Lebanese?
Actually, the IDF is a conscript military force with a very small, highly capable professional core. The IDF, particularly the ground forces, are deliberately heterogenous: there are elite standing units such as the Sayeret Matkal, Sayeret Golani and Sayeret Gi vati that are equivalent to the best special forces in the world. Then there are the standing or school brigades–the 7th Armored Brigade, the Golani Infantry Brigade, the 35th Parachute Brigade, which are as good as the line forces of any army in the world. The reserve brigades, however, are a very mixed bag, depending on their assigned mission and the quality of the reservists assigned to them. Some are quite good, but others might be characterized as mediocre at best.
Binding it all together is a highly trained general staff and officer corps, which for operational prowess and flexibility is probably the best since the Wehrmacht at its apex. One real weakness of the IDF is the lack of a strong NCO corps along the lines of the U.S. military. NCOs are basically just conscripts picked out from the herd and given additional training. They do not compare to the 20-30 year professionals of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps, or the British army and Royal Marines. As a result, the IDF is officer led, and officers perform a great many of the functions performed by NCOs in our armed forces.
The real miracle of the IDF is its ability to pull of complex and difficult operations such as the one in Gaza with such diverse unit capabilities. They manage by carefully matching forces to missions, using their elite as the “can openers”, the sharp tip of the spear that breaks through the enemy or executes the dangerous snatch and grab operations. Less capable forces are assigned less difficult missions–guarding the frontier, manning lines of communications, following up and occupying positions already seized by the cutting edge troops. It allows the IDF to multiply the effective size of its force, doing more with objectively less, than if they tried to create an homogeneous, general purpose force along the lines of the U.S. Army.
You write:
‘We did not believe,” he said on Lebanon’s New TV station, “even by one percent, that the captive operation would result in such a wide-scale war, as such a war did not take place in the history of wars. Had we known that the captive operation would result in such a war we would not have carried it out at all.”
These are not the words of a man who thinks of himself as a victor. Nor are these the words of a man speaking to those who think they have won. He did not issue his apology because he hoped to appease his Christian, Sunni, and Druze opponents in Lebanon.’
Actually, such a statement most certainly could be fully compatible with one who sees himself a victor. All he’s saying in this statement is that he had no idea that the Israelis would respond the way they did. This is because the Israelis had been taking hostages from south Lebanon for years as bargaining chips, and he was simply responding in kind, getting some bargaining chips of his own by taking some Israeli soldiers prisoner. He had no idea that the Israelis would (over)react in the way that they did. The Winograd Report is generally understood as an admission of Israel’s inability to achieve any of its objectives in this war and as such is generally understood as an admission of defeat, and also depicts Israels reaction to the abduction of the soldiers as an overreaction. I am not necessarily saying that therefore Hezbollah won, though, since an admission of defeat by one side in no way means a victory for the other. Many wars in fact have no victor, a misapprehension you seem to be laboring under.
As for your broader point, when you ask rhetorically “If the 2006 war was such a success, why wouldn’t Nasrallah want to rack up another divine victory?” again there is a much simpler explanation: He stayed out of the war because entering the war by attacking Israel would not advance any goal of his whatsoever. That is, he did not attack Israel for roughly the same reasons that Iran, Pakistan, Brazil or Singapore stayed out of the war. Why in the world would they want to enter the war in the first place?
http://www.truthdig.com/images/eartothegrounduploads/leb_girls_350.jpg
^neo con lebanese wearing ironic nasrallah t shirts
Lars says:
“I am not necessarily saying that therefore Hezbollah won, though, since an admission of defeat by one side in no way means a victory for the other. Many wars in fact have no victor, a misapprehension you seem to be laboring under.”
Michael is suggesting that Hezbollah didn’t win, something you say you don’t necessarily disagree with. The “misapprehension” here is yours, since you are equating this with his saying that it was a victory for Israel.
You should know, many wars have no victor, and so it follows that a declaration that side A didn’t achieve victory isn’t the same as saying side B did.
Hear, Hear, Michael Totten. It’s about time someone straighforwardly pointed out that it’s a very strange sort of “winner” who sits quiet in his bunker while an enemy with limited forces is occupied pounding an ally.
Hezbollah may have built up its inventory of weapons but apparently it hasn’t been as successful in building up its inventory of willing killers.
David Warren summed up the Israeli “strategy” – if that’s even the right word – in a way that squares entirely with Mr Totten’s reporting and arguments:
Much has been said about the difficulties that Israel like all modern states faces when confronting a militarily much weaker, but ideologically more uncompromising enemy, yet Hamas and Hezbollah leaderships face challenges, too. Repelled by the Israelis and constrained by their own constituencies, those who fight and die under the Islamist banners may eventually have to turn elsewhere for opportunities to prove their manhood – possibly in struggles against each other.
Leave aside the fact that ten times more Lebanese than Israelis were killed in that war
Tell me: Does that count all the civilians that Israel’s military slaughtered in cold blood?
John,
If by “slaughtered” you mean killed mostly by Israeli airstrikes and artillery by not moving away from Hezbollah buildings, compounds & rocket teams, then yes, I’d presume it does. Of course one could also accuse Hezbollah of deliberately cozying up to civilian concentrations in order to increase civilian casualties, but that would be awfully cynical, wouldn’t it?
Tim
quote:”Of course one could also accuse Hezbollah of deliberately cozying up to civilian concentrations in order to increase civilian casualties, but that would be awfully cynical, wouldn’t it?”
This is so standard a response that many people take it to be a fact. Has anyone demonstrated that Hezbollah delibrately fires from civilian concentrations so that more of their own people gets killed?
Such reasoning comes from evil minds and acceptance of such reasoning comes from stupid people.
On the other hand, it is a fact that the IDF often take civilian hostages and pushed them ahead in battle. There is no mention of this FACT in the western media, but constant mention of the above HYPOTHESIS about the Arabs.
http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/Timeline_of_Events.asp
tim- you shold read michael tottens blog from the time of the lebaon war. the entire nation was under attack, not jsut hezbollah, not by a longshot. it was collective punishment
Having terrorist groups not fire rockets at you may not be victory, but it’s a step in the right direction. Such attacks are not the desperate acts of the wretched of the earth pushed to the wall, but militant groups convinced they can get away with it.
BIG PICTURE leads us to another load of crap. Go here:
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=7&x_issue=39&x_article=1533
and find out what other lies b’tselem tells in the name of all self-loathing, socialist Jews.
Israel has tried to please everyone, and ends up pleasing no one. They might as well nuke the entire outer rim of Middle East countries ……and Iran too…..and get it over with.
Sounds like a plan to me.
#20-Back in my scholastic days, I had the pleasure of reading Amnesty International’s report on police brutality. In brief it was pure crap written to reach a preconceived ideological endpoint with a methodology that even a fifth grader would have rejected. These are groups that package a prefabricated political agenda as a human rights agenda.
Byron,
Your reference does NOT generally dispute the numbers b’tselem claims. It questions however, whether those that b’tselem put into the non-partipant in a clash can be a terrorist. Well, logically that can be, of course. And, let’s give that b’tselem also got that 11 year old killed by the IDF to be wrong. He was actually killed by Fatah. So what? what’s the big deal?
It is as if quibbling over ’20 killed as sure terrorists and 15 killed as non-particpants’ and the more exacting ’20 killed as sure terrorists and 15 killed as non-participants but can be terrorists’ is going to make a world of difference. But to the guilt ridden world of the Israel first people, such a semantic distinction is enough to post BS to the end of the conflict.
BIG PICTURE,
I must apologize, but I don’t get a single coherent thought that applies here from your response. Maybe it is me. Maybe I am guilt ridden, but I think you are full of nonsense. Next you will be reminding us that jews use pali blood for their demonic rituals. And the Protocals of the…..oh nevermind.
Throwing antisemitism does not stick to me.
I don’t have any personal quarrels with Jewish people. My posts are to remind them that they should stick to their moral heritage and in the end it will be better for everybody, most of all the Jews.
Speaking of deterrence factor.
Quick Google search for “hezbollah attacks list”:
http://www.aijac.org.au/resources/hezb_00-06.html
That is the list of attack by HA on Israel committed between 5/2000 and 7/2006.
Below is the list of attacks by HA on Israel committed between 8/2006 and today:
0
Say what you will, but facts are very stubborn thing.
One more thing. One extra day Lebanon goes without war makes it so much harder for Nasrallah to start another one regardless of how many new weapons he will get.
PS. Israelis know how to hit hard, Lebanese know where to hit.
The Second Lebanon War could be described as the Arab version of “Victory”. The traditional criteria of which army is the winner include 1) extent Strategic goals were attained 2) Damage inflicted on the enemy’s ability to make war 3. Casualty rates .
Although, the PUTZ Olmert made the comment that the war was in part to make Hezbollah return the kidnapped Israeli soldiers, this couldn’t be a realistic strategic goal. Nothing Israel could do would have prevented Hezbollah’s transfer of the kidnapped soldiers to adjoining nations which are allies. OLMUTT only made this statement purely for politics. The real bottom line strategic goals for each side are for Hezbollah (who are cannon fodder for the insane criminals in Tehran) : Destroy or significantly weaken Israel , as the punk Ahmejhad is constantly repeating. Result : total failure. Iran’s four billion dollars resulted in the death of 40 Israeli civilians , ironically the majority of whom were Arab citizens of Israel. reduced Israel’s GDP by “staggering” one percent. The Second Lebanon war , as shown in the Gaza campaign actually strengthened Israel. ISRAEL: Prevent Arabs from their overall strategic goal of taking possession of Israel : RESULT Excellent Prevent Arabs from seriously weakening Israel , especially by inflicting very high numbers of casualties.
Israel had a lower casualty rate in the Second Lebanon War than during the Six Day War. Strategic goal: Damage Hezbollah’s ability to kill Israelis . Success. Hezbollah doesn’t have real access to the Israeli border since the Second Lebanon War. The reason the Arabs in Southern Lebanon believe Hezbollah lost the war may be related to the massive damage Israel inflicted on the infrastructure of Southern Lebanon which reduced the GDP of southern Lebanon by 50%. The War ended as usual by with the US preventing Israel , unlike the Allies in WWII, from totally eliminating it’s enemies power to carrry on the war.
I wanted to add, if anyone wants to know the real winner notice the “tremendous support ” (sarcasm)Hezbollah provided Hamas by opening a second front on the Northern Israeli border.
Hezbollah is now terrified of Israel. They refused to do anything to take pressure off of Hamas during the Gaza campaign, despite intense pressure from Iran to open the second front.
It never ceases to amaze me how little you understand about Lebanon, Michael. For those of us who live here, there’s little to no resemblance between the country you’re describing here and the actually existing Lebanon.
Has it ever occurred to you that Hezbollah stayed out of the war because it had nothing to gain at this time? In 2005, Nasrallah announced that following the broken down German-mediated negotiations for prisoner swaps, Hezbollah would capture Israeli soldiers in order to trade for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. He did, and then fought Israel to a standstill. Finally, last summer, the swap went through according to plan.
This latest fight had nothing to offer Hezbollah. Right before Israeli elections, a few months before Lebanese elections and weeks before a new administration took over in Washington was obviously a bad time to be at war. Contrary to Israel, being at war right before elections is an electoral gamble, especially if there’s no clear objective to be attained.
As for Hezbollah making clear that the rockets were not theirs, that’s standard practice, and you’ll find the same behavior between 2000 and 2006. Whenever someone like the PFLP-GC launched rockets, Hezbollah would put out a statement that they had nothing to do with it. And when Hezbollah attacked, usually along the border or in the Shebaa Farms, they always took credit.
Hezbollah is a politically savvy organization and does not enter into war with Israel just for the hell of it. The 2006 war was clearly a net gain political for Hezbollah. But when they either gain ground or outright win the elections this June, I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to chalk that up as an Israeli success, too.
Who won the 2006 war?
It’s differenced assuming how you interpreting the meaning of “wining”. Israel defined “wining” by large strategic definitions she was eager to achieve (stopping Hizbullah rocketing, getting the 2 IDF soldiers back, to limit Hizbullah (Hi-lah) independence inside Lebanon). Israel achieved less than she declared, which made the impression that she lost the battle.
On the other hand Hi-lah in pre-2006-war continued exercising their terror activity as they saw suitable. Most of Hi-la power was well spread next to the Israeli border waiting to good occasion and reason to attack Israel. Israel stroke that deployment in Southern Lebanon and ruined many of Hi-lah posts in Southern Beirut. Hi-lah was surprised to the Israeli reaction. 1701 deprived the will of the Hi-lah to go back south to the Israeli border. Although the Hi-lah tripled its armaments most of it put north to the Litani River although building tunnels and fortress next the Israeli border. In any case the Hi-lah gave Israel the clearance to any further attack if needed in the eyes of the Israelis according to 1701 decision. That is a huge advantage for the Israelis.
Israel just studied that lesson and didn’t fix some horizontal targets for their military operation against Hamas. She said that she launched the attack in order to hit the Hamas and to collect revenue from any Hamas violence. The Hamas also were surprised to the un- proportional reaction of Israel (what proportional meaning? That Muslim terror organization has the permission to attack civilians on daily basis?). Hi-lah is well aware that this policy aimed at them too. Trying to make any terror attack against Israeli or Jewish institutes abroad will energize again the conflict, but this time Israel will react harmfully damaging all southern Lebanon to its neck. The Lebanese government is responsible for letting those terrorists preserve their state within state.
BIG PICTURE (24):
Somehow what always bothers the blogs’ writes is that we should remind Jews to adhere to their moral heritage and not open War to defend themselves when necessary. In other words, you suggest. That the Jews should continue to play the poor and horrified people that can’t protect himself while rowdy bigots attacking them in the streets because by self-protecting they desecrate the reminiscences of Jews that were persecuted by gentiles through all generations.
You can only dreem!!!
My posts are to remind them that they should stick to their moral heritage and in the end it will be better for everybody, most of all the Jews.
Reminds me of Eric Hoffer’s remark that alone of all the peoples of the world, only the Jews are expected to behave like Christians.
Do you demand such moral purity of everyone, not just Jews? Or perhaps you believe that the Arabs *are* acting according to their moral heritage. An argument that way could be made.
Sorry, the above post should, of course, have had quotation marks thus: “My posts are to remind them that they should stick to their moral heritage and in the end it will be better for everybody, most of all the Jews.”
I might also add, Big Pic, that Israel is in one sense sticking to its moral heritage anyway, mainly the one that says, “Am Yisra’el chai,” “the people of Israel lives.” Being able to fight back and to take war against us to our enemies is, I grant you, a new twist on that heritage, but personally I’m OK with that.
I trust the next time Hezbollah fires missiles into Israel, the IDF will drop their bombs on Damascus. That would win a lot of friends in Lebanon.
Sean: It never ceases to amaze me how little you understand about Lebanon, Michael. For those of us who live here, there’s little to no resemblance between the country you’re describing here and the actually existing Lebanon.
So tell us, smart guy, what percentage of Lebanese want a repeat of 2006?
Do you want to go another round? How much fun was the last one for you? Can’t say I enjoyed it much, and I was in Iraq when it started.
So my pointing out that Israel is off the moral course is interpreted that Jews should remain victims in the world?
That’s just another angle of the antisemitic charge.
Look at the other long standing conflicts around the world: N. Ireland, Tibet, Kashmir and Sri Lanka.
In N. Ireland the Catholics and Protestants, live together, though not necessarily in the same neighborhoods. In Tibet, Hans and Tibetans also live together. In Sri Lanka a bitter war is taking place. Civilians have been caught in the cross fire and in reaction to some bad incidents, the Sri Lankan government instituted the Zero Civilian Casualty policy a few years back. Today, the government is winning the war, in part because the Tamil civilians are abandoning the Tamil Tigers and coming over to the government side.
The worse of these conflicts is Kashmir. The Indian occupation forces are accused of many human rights violations, but my sense is that the hatred does not come close to that between the Jews and the Arabs. Fact is the Indians don’t bulldoze houses whenever they spot some gunman hiding behind a civilian house, nor do they hold up people at checkpoints for hours and humiliate them.
To say that Israel , the world’s 4th military power, is just standing up to being a victim is laughable in light of the comparison with the world’s other long standing conflicts.
34- you are missing the point
You don’t get it, do you? The question is not who wants a repeat of 2006, since now it’s 2009, and the country is in a very different position: post-Doha, right before elections, post civil strife last May, etc. Despite Israel-centric views of the region, there are plenty of other variables that shape public opinion, many of them with more weight than the IDF.
Hezbollah went to war with Israel in 2006 in order to achieve certain concrete goals. Those goals were achieved, so it’s absurd to ask who would want a “repeat,” since the situation is completely different. Another, more intelligent and very different, question is who wants the national defense to include the “Muqawama” (resistance – or Hezbollah).
In April 2008, according to a poll carried out by the Lebanese Opinion Advisory Committee, the country was pretty evenly split — around 48% of Lebanese wanted the country’s defense to include the “Muqawama,” whereas 51% wanted only the state (national police and army) to be responsible for national defense. This spread changed significantly in July, when those numbers went to 38% and 62% for including the “Muqawama” and only government forces, respectively.
So why the change? Did Israeli deterrence suddenly increase for no reason? Did Lebanon suddenly read your blog and realize that Israel won in 2008? Of course not. What happened was the fighting in May, when Hezbollah, Amal and the SSNP took over West Beirut and clashed with the PSP in the Chouf, forcing the end of the stalemate and eventually the Doha agreement.
These factors have an influence on the behavior of Hezbollah, just like domestic politics affect Israel’s decisions to go to war or not. So like I said before, upcoming elections and no clear gains to be had from entering this war are the most likely explanations for why Hezbollah sat it out.
As for your idea that “very few people in Lebanon sincerely think Hezbollah won the 2006 war,” that’s just plain false. You parrot the talking points of Samir Geagea, who far from representing a majority of Lebanon, doesn’t even represent a majority of Lebanese Christians. Even those who think that Lebanon, as a country, lost the war think that Hezbollah, as a party, won. But when you spend your time in Lebanon being informed by guys like the Guardians of the Cedars, it’s understandable how you’d have such a warped view of the country. Maybe if you were to learn Arabic or even just talk to people who don’t just want to tell you what you want to hear, you’d understand the country a little better.
Until then, I really wish you’d stop projecting your (pro-Israel) views on the country at large and passing that off as informed analysis to people who don’t know any better.
To so-called “Big Picture”:
To pick just one datum at random:
“A 2005 study conducted by Médecins Sans Frontières found that Kashmiri women are among the worst sufferers of sexual violence in the world, with 11.6% of respondents reporting that they had been victims of sexual abuse.”
If Israel were to engage in such practices, would that get her back on course, in your opinion?
Is it remotely possible that the hatred is not perfectly symmetrical? Might one dare consider the possibility that Arab hatred of Jews is not quite, to coin a word, proportional?