COL Harry Summers to North Vietnamese counterpart: "You never won a battle against our troops."

North Vietnamese senior colonel: "true, but irrelevant."

The history of war is replete with tactical failures that were strategic victories, and vice versa. Bowing to my Texan friends, the Battle of the Alamo was not exactly a triumph of Texan arms. Had Santa Anna, however, bypassed the Alamo, Sam Houston would never have had time to consolidate the forces that decisively beat Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.

In WWII, the Germans seemed unstoppable against the Soviets, even though they alienated a potentially friendly population. Unfortunately for the Third Reich, the Soviets brought in General Winter and General Mud, and troops trained to work with them.
--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

. . . two soldiers had been abducted on Israel's northern border [and] I believe that Israel had no choice but to respond to the provocation by Hezbollah. Jo-Ann Mort

Or it could have exchanged some Hizbollah captives.

Israel has been -- and necessarily and rightly so -- a society dominated by its military since the time of the Arab Revolt in 1936-37. The IDF has two functions: the acquisition of land in Eretz-Israel and the expression of Israel's regional super-power status.

Israel went to war this time

--- to harden this generation of sabras and to attach it emotionally to the IDF

--- to determine whether its current military strategy and tactics were adequate

--- to interrupt the building of Hizbollah's "Maginot Line"

--- to support the Maronites and to drive Hizbollah out of the Lebanese government, and

--- to remind the Arabs that it remains the big dog in the Middle East.

To claim, as Ms. Mort does, that the IDF went to war over a couple of captured soldiers is to misread its history and to seriously underestimate its sophistication and its resolve.

Having a moral cause for a war is not the same as having a feasible plan. Just as the USA had numerous grounds for toppling Hussein so did the Israeli's have ample basis for acting against terrorists in Lebanon.

But in war, it's not enough to justify. You have to win.

 Lebanon is showing Israel, just what Iraq is showing the USA that the capacity to kill the enemy does not necessarily mean you can defeat him.

As the WSJ said last week, 'so far, Israel has nothing to show for its efforts: no enemy territory gained, no enemy leaders killed, no abatement in the missile barrage that has sent a million Israelis from their homes and....Israel is headed for the greatest military humiliation in its history."

Just as America learned in Iraq, Israel is learning with Hezbollah, that you can end up creating terrorists faster than you can kill them.

Israel is being judged just  like the USA by her actions, not by her intentions...and so far that means both are losers.

Zhukov wasn't bad either. And Rossokovsky and Chuikov.

About loosing because of winning: in 1920 Soviet Union was in war with Poland, Stalin was in charge of southern armies and Tukhachevksy of the northern ones. Tukhachevsky performed brilliantly and Stalin pretty bad. The immediate result was that Tukhachevsky was hugely exposed from the southern flank and forced to retreat. The long term result was that Stalin apparently never forgot that he looked much, much worse...

Jo-Ann: "It's time for U.S. to be a true ally of Israel..." We have our own demons to exorcise, so Israel is left with an enabler rather than a friend. But what happened in Israel? This was supposed to be a reasonable government?! First, Abbas is thoroughly humiliated, then he looses elections (surprise!), then Hamas is treated to full ostracism, money are stolen from Palestinian Authority, transfers from abroad are blocked, Palestinians are subjected to daily assasinations, they do not stop Kassam rockets (surprise!) so they are subjected to some bombing that apparently is totally boring to Israeli public etc.

How is it that Israelis did not figure out that (a) they can do whatever they want, so (b) they have to think twice, because no one else will. It is not as if Israel was plagued by mental retardation!

I read that mechanism of anorexia is that a person, usually a girl, cannot get rid of a false image of her body -- however think, she sees herself as too fat. There is also a "reverse anorexia", more frequent among young man -- no matter how overgrown the muscles are, they think that they look to scrawny -- so they must take more steroids. I think that Israeli have a similar self-image problem. Do they need big brother to tell them that steroids are bad for you? Too bad, big brother has an even worse steroid addiction. (Israel being paranoid about Hezbollah is somewhat exagerated, but how about USA being paranoid about Nicaragua? Can you top THAT?)

Last remark: why Israel is not "exactly winning". It really boils to giving a strong appearance what the true goals of the operation are and then not living totally to these expectations. If the goal was a "sufficient punishment", a total success could declared at any time.

sedh: you ask Jo-Ann to reject the official version, to admit that we can believe nothing, and thus we are in the realm of putting together pieces of an incomple puzzle to make reasonable conjectures.

This is pretty terrifying. Correspondingly, this is pretty hard to absorb. Myself, I was shocked by the controversy in UK on the following topic: did Her Majesty's government exagerate intelligence by suggesting that Saddam could send missiles with chemical warheads all the way to British bases in Cyprus, while the intelligence mentioned merely artillery shells? This controversy raged when it was already abundantly clear that there were no long range rockets and no chemicals, nothing, zip, nada, and that intelligence agencies with all their professionalism amassed an amazing pile of crap, and only then this crap was duly exagerated (raw intelligence being as wholesome as raw sewage). There is no there there. It is so terrifying that by unanimous agreement of the government detractors and the government the controversy raged about the minutia. American public controversy did not even reach such state of "quarter-clarity". We would need to think what the hell Clinton was doing etc.

Or perhaps not so terrifying after all, but terribly inconvenient. But Israel is not all that secure so if you are Israeli this is indeed terrifying. You have to believe something!

I believe that Israel had no choice but to respond to the provocation by Hezbollah.

It had a choice about how it responded

if ................. is to exist within internationally recognized borders and to live as a secure state, then it has a right to have those borders respected

For twenty points : In the space provided alternately insert either  Isreal or Iraq .

Explain why it only applies in one case but not the other.

In fact, what is going on is that Bush/Olmert have agreed to occupy Lebanon and pressure Syria to join in a war, which, it is hoped would, in turn, pressure Iran. Israel benefits, because after the UN Resolution is agreed to, and Israel is occupying Lebanon, then Israel can force a settlement on the Palestinians in which more land is taken from them. Israel gets the land, Bush gets his neocon vision of regime change in Syria, and the opportunity to attack Iran is opened up in a wider war. Ran HaCohen and Robert Parry have already addressed the strategy:

The End of Lebanon?
by Ran HaCohen

"...The Israeli plans to make Lebanon understand its role in the new regional order – that is, to submit to Israel's superiority and give up its South – were hinted at briefly at the outset of the war in the words of Israel's chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Dan Halutz: "we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years." By now, we have a more detailed plan:

"A senior General Staff officer told Ha'aretz that for the first time since the fighting began, Israel plans to attack strategic infrastructure targets and symbols of the Lebanese government […] 'we are now in a process of renewed escalation. We will continue hitting everything that moves in Hezbollah – but we will also hit strategic civilian infrastructure.' […] IDF will recommend an additional significant expansion of the operation, including the conquest of most of Lebanon south of the Litani River, including the area around Tyre, and a significant increase in air strikes on infrastructure targets. 'It could be that at the end of the story, Lebanon will be dark for a few years,' said one." (Ha'aretz, Aug. 7, 2006)

http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/?articleid=9496

Bush Wants Wider War
by Robert Parry

"...U.S.-Israeli strategy can be traced back to the May 23, 2006, meetings between Olmert and Bush in Washington.

At those meetings, Olmert discussed with Bush Israel’s plans for revising its timetable for setting final border arrangements with the Palestinians, putting those plans on the back burner while moving the Iranian nuclear program to the front burner.

In effect, Olmert informed Bush that 2006 would be the year for stopping Iran’s progress toward a nuclear bomb and 2007 would be the year for redrawing Israel’s final borders. That schedule fit well with Bush’s priorities, which may require some dramatic foreign policy success before the November congressional elections.

At a joint press conference with Bush on May 23, Olmert said “this is a moment of truth” for addressing Iran’s alleged ambitions to build a nuclear bomb.

“The Iranian threat is not only a threat to Israel, it is a threat to the stability of the Middle East and the entire world,” Olmert said. “The international community cannot tolerate a situation where a regime with a radical ideology and a long tradition of irresponsible conduct becomes a nuclear weapons state.”

Olmert also said he was prepared to give the Palestinians some time to accept Israel’s conditions for renewed negotiations on West Bank borders, but – if Palestinian officials didn’t comply – Israel was prepared to act unilaterally.

The prime minister said Israel would “remove most of the [West Bank] settlements which are not part of the major Israeli population centers in Judea and Samaria. The settlements within the population centers would remain under Israeli control and become part of the state of Israel, as part of the final status agreement.”

In other words, Israel would annex some of the most desirable parts of the West Bank regardless of Palestinian objections. That meant the Israelis would need to soften up Hamas, the Islamic militants who won the last Palestinian elections, and their supporters in the Islamic world – especially Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

In a speech to a joint session of Congress, Olmert added that the possibility of Iran building a nuclear weapon was “an existential threat” to Israel, meaning that Israel believed its very existence was in danger.

And so:

"One interpretation of the Lebanese-Israeli conflict is that Bush and Olmert seized on the Hezbollah raid as a pretext for a pre-planned escalation that will lead to bombing campaigns against Syria and Iran, justified by their backing of Hezbollah.

"...if the bombing of Iran develops as an outgrowth of a tit-for-tat expansion of a war in which Israel’s existence is at stake, strikes against Iranian targets would be more palatable to the American public.

"The end game would be U.S.-Israeli aerial strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities with the goal of crippling its nuclear program and humiliating Ahmadinejad."

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/080206.html

"As we enter into the election season, it would be most helpful if those politicians who will talk about how much they support Israel do so by strongly, strongly suggesting that she resolve the Israeli-Palestinian situation, and move to a viable two-state solution. Israel has wasted too many decades, aided by the U.S., in not resolving that problem." Joanne Mort, August7,2006

Perhaps you missed this Ms. Mort, but here in the US where you live, there may be a discussion of the Middle East at TPM, but there is none amongst politicians who vie to provide more outrageous aid to Israel than the other. They vie to provide the most one-sided view of the matter. So maybe you need to think about that. How has that state of affairs arisen and how can it be changed. Now it would seem to me the first step would be to stop justifying everything that Israel does and seriously going after the right wing neocon AIPAC. But since you are unwilling to do that (I especially like how you reduce your evaluation of the whole disaster to a maningless bromide "I believe that Israel had no choice but to respond to the provocation by Hezbollah.") And then you avoid the question of THIS response in THIS circumstance. And you cover yourself with the requisite disclaimer that you do not agree with every military move Israel makes. (Well, like which ones? Why cannot you even verbalize that?) When you next worry about solving the Israeli-Palestine problem, take a look in the mirror. You will see the reason there is no discussion. Why anyone who opposes Israel is an anti-semite. and more importantly, why Israel does no wrong.

Good one, Zionista! Now ask him if he thinks that Israeli's use the blood of gentile children to make Motzah.

J-A M:
". . . two soldiers had been abducted on Israel's northern border . . . "
". . . whose sole targets are civilians . . . "

The Israeli narrative is frayed. The IDF's tactics of crossing an internationally recognized border to defend their right to have their own respected, of bombing Beirut slums and bridges, as a defense against terrorism, is fundamentally incredible.

Israel is making itself the moral equivalent of Hizbullah, and, on that all important, front, they are losing the war, rather badly.

First off, I don't think that Israel is losing the war.

Here's today's Haaretz editorial

Let there be no doubt: Despite the efforts of the prime minister and IDF generals to enumerate the IDF's achievements, the war as it approaches its end is seen by the region and the world - and even by the Israeli public - as a stinging defeat with possibly fateful implications. The criterion by which the result of the military conflict is measured, in Israel and abroad, is the number of missiles falling on the Israeli population, which has not slowed, but has even increased during the fighting.

115 missiles today, so far.

scroll back up to my comment above and follow the links.
Bullshit is bullshit.

This is a textbook example of the dilemma faced by liberals on Israel.  On the one hand, most people, including most liberals, take it as a given that sovreign nations have a right to defend themselves.  On the other hand, getting out of the "root cause" mentality - the one that says we shouldn't actually fight, but rather get at the "root cause" of the conflict - is exceedingly difficult.

In a way, the Lebanon conflict has brought this into sharp focus.  Liberals, including those who support Israel generally, could safely be critical of Israel when the stakes for Israel's survival were low, as in the conflict in the West Bank and Gaza, where Palestinian bombers might kill a few people at a time, but didn't funamentally threaten the viability of the state. 

But this is a different situation.  Israel faces a mortal enemy in a Hezbollah that is backed to the hilt by an Iranian government that is sworn to Israel's destruction.  American liberals may scoff that this is all just harmless saber-rattling, but if you're the Israeli government, responsible for the security of six million Jews in Israel (Hmm, where have I heard that number before?), you can't afford to take that chance.  We already know that Hezbollah has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.  We know that Iran is working on nuclear weapons.  Project out 5-10 years from now and hey, suddenly you've got a real threat.  What happens when Hezbollah puts some kind of Iranian-supplied WMD on one of those missiles?  Doesn't even have to be a nuke.  Will liberals STILL be whining about Israel's "disproportinate" response?

This is why the idea that the Lebanon war should just spur Israel to "a negotiated agreement" with the Palestinians is so unfathomably ridiculous.  What could such a "negotiated agreement" possibly look like?  Given the fact that the Palestinians have used Gaza as nothing but a missile launching pad, what responsible Israeli government could ever trust them with more land in the West Bank, closer to Israeli population centers?  Are we saying that Qassam missiles flying into Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and possibly shooting down airplanes flying into Ben Gurion airport is something Israel should just try to live with?  What makes her think that with the Arab world all riled up over the "injustice" of the Lebanon campaign, they are even interested any more in negotiations?  Negotiations have never even tried to address the most contentious issue of all, the status of Palestinian "refugees".  Palestinians have indicated over and over again that they're not interested in a deal that doesn't include repatriation rights for them, which is a non-starter for Israel.

But none of this stops Ms. Mort from issuing fatuous pronouncements about the need for more negotiations with the Palestinians - the same Palestinians who are cheering as missiles fly into Israel, killing Arab and Jew alike.  No.  It's time for liberals to realize that some situations can't be negotiated, and this is one of them.

There are many anti-Semites, in the Arab world and elsewhere, who are arrayed against Israel and wish for its destruction.  But it seems to me that Joanne Mort is actually something as dangerous as an anti-Semite: the liberal Israel supporter who can't adapt to the new reality that Israel confronts.  Understand: there is no negotiating your way out of this.  The forces lined up against Israel really are bent on its destruction.  A ceasefire may be achieved and there may be lulls in the action, but the threat isn't going away.  And there's nothing, repeat NOTHING, that Israel can concede in any kind of negotiation that will change that.

Brad The Dad writes:

This is why the idea that the Lebanon war should just spur Israel to "a negotiated agreement" with the Palestinians is so unfathomably ridiculous. What could such a "negotiated agreement" possibly look like?

In any case, all that is happening right now confirms in my mind the central importance for Israel of coming to a settlement with the Palestinians not in the distant future but now. Very soon. Both as a matter of justice and self-interest. A full state, based on the green line, with access to water and the sea. With all that has happened over the last six or seven years it may not be able to be a warm peace at first or perhaps for some time. But it has to happen, both, as I said, as a matter of simple justice, but also as a matter of basic self-interest for Israel and the United States. The Palestinians themselves have never been an existential threat to Israel. That was clear as far back as the 1948-49 war. But some of her neighbors and particularly those in the wider neigbhorhood very much are. And the running wound of the occupation only inflames and complicates defending against those threats.

The format forces me to reply to myself. Mort made the point of Hezbollah lobbing rockets at civilian targets. That is a war crime and hezbollah is guilty of it. Israel has killed 500 civilians and uprooted and made homeless one million Lebanese, and destroyed a great deal of civilian infrastructure. That is a greater war crime. Now Josh Marshall joins in with more support for this fatuous comment:

"I've thought for a while, and considered posting on it, that for all the discussion of how targetted or not targetted Israel's attacks in Lebanon are, there's pretty little discussion of the fact that all of Hizbullah's rockets are intentionally aimed at civilian areas. Every one."

As I've pointed out, not every one. But this argument is really phony from the get-go. Let us ask Israel to allow Hezbollah drones and Lebanese aircraft to fly over Israel proper, as IAF regularly does over Lebanon, and if after Israel allows Hezbollah this information gathering they still fire rockets at civilian targets we can all roundly condemn Hezbollah. This is ASYMMETRIC warfare. They hit what they can. This is the same in ALL asymmetric warfare. It is the same type of justification neocons use in their denunciation of "terrorism" every time an established leader they like is attacked; and applaud the "freedom-fighters" everytime an established leader they do not like is attacked. The bottom line is if you are not horrified at the utter devastation Israel is bringing to Lebanon given the nature of the casus belli in this case then you are always going to advance a weasel-argument that justifies every Israeli crime. But spare us at least your bemoaning the lack of serious discussion on obtaining a long-term serious settlement of the Middle East problem...you really have zero interest in it.

Update: I strongly agree with the last paragraph of Josh Marshall's comment:

"Now really is the time for those who believe in a just two-state solution in Israel-Palestine and a deescalation of the warfare threatening to tear the entire region (and US power along with it) apart to make themselves heard. Someone has to shout above the recrudescent Jew-haters on the one hand and the worshippers of force and militarism on the other."

This also means insisting that the Israeli side stop trying to dictate a solution and enter negotiations seriously.