The war was to show the Arabs--who only understand force, you know--that Israel was not to be messed with; that anybody who dared start something with them would be destroyed.

Or to get an increased UNIFIL presence in Southern Lebanon. I'm not sure what the latest talking points are.

Matt's implied criticism of Israel's military activities of the past month is overly broad.

Hizbullah had, over the past six years, established a military presence along Israel's northern border. At some point the strength of that presence had to be tested. And testing it offered an ancillary benefit -- its weakening.

Various tactics of the IDF -- the bombing of "Lebanese" infrastructure and of Shia controlled South Beirut, for example -- are up for criticism. But the claim that Israel's future military planning, a prime reason for going to "war" against one's enemies, obtained no benefit is naive.

It's good to know that you are an ends justifies the means kind of guy Matt. I honestly expected more from you than that. I gather what you are saying is that if the war had turned out better perhaps by killing Nasrallah, than you would have found all of the civilian casualties in Lebanon to have been worth it after all.

It's sad to find that your metrics are still so vaguely defined. In precisely what manner has the war failed, and in what manner has it succeeded. Arguably, according to a Haaretz reporter I heard yesterday, while the army failed to kill Nasrallah, they did in fact kill about 30% of Hezbollah fighters and did destroy much of their infrastructure. That's not as good as Israel may have hoped for, but it does potentially make northern Israel safer for awhile, until Hezbollah is allowed to rearm itself with Iranian and Syrian funds.

Arguably, Israel in fact made its point, that with six years of neglect from the UN, Hezbollah now does threaten Israel's very existence.

Anyway, good to know that if in fact the Iraq war ends better, say in a year, or five, or the conservatards new goal of 30 years, that you will be there to say what a douchebag you were this entire time for opposing the Iraq war just because a nation was led into it through lies.

I ain't much of a philosopher, but as I said, good to know you are an ends justifies the means kind of d00d. That philosophy I understand. I don't agree with it, but I understand it.

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

I posted this link on another threat, but its worth doing it again. A certain op-ed writer took aim at his favorite enemies:

Opening salvo:

Five weeks have passed since the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers provoked Israel to launch its most unsatisfactory military operation in 58 years. What problem has been solved, or even ameliorated?

Next:

Henceforth, the Lebanese state may be an appendage of Hezbollah, as the collapsing Palestinian Authority is an appendage of the terrorist organization Hamas. Hezbollah is an army that, having frustrated the regional superpower, suddenly embodies, as no Arab state ever has, Arab valor vindicated in combat with Israel.

Then he cuts through Bushco's complete GWOT nonsense, concluding:

...the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism...

And finishes with this flourish:

Foreign policy "realists" considered Middle East stability the goal. The realists' critics, who regard realism as reprehensibly unambitious, considered stability the problem. That problem has been solved.

The name of this liberal Osama-hugging, anti-Semitic, America-hating, Al-Qaeda type?

George Will.

First, the assumption that this war was one Israel fought "by choice" is flawed.  Simply accepting the Hezbollah incursion into Israel and the destructive "diversionary" missle attack and swapping terrorists for the soldiers was never a realistic option.  Israel had the right and the obligation to respond to Hezbollah's unprovoked aggression across the international recognized border.

The right question, therefore, is not what was the war far, but yoru second question, namely what was the point of the ceasefire delay given that the diplomatic solution reached (the redeployment of the Lebanese army and a bulking of the UNIFIL forces, but no serious disarmament of Hezbollah) could have been obtained weeks ago. 

A partial answer is that Israel did use the extra time to inflict serious damage to Hezbollah.  The problem is that it is impossible to determine exactly how much damage was inflicted given the conflicting reports of Hezbollah casulties.  The greater the damage, the less pointless the cease-fire delay. 

But the more complete answer is simply that the Israeli military and political leadership appears to have screwed up.  Had Israel launched an extensive ground offensive weeks earlier rather than wasting energy on "strategic" bombing of South Beirut, the result may have been a far more decisive military setback for Hezbollah.  If Olmert truly believed that such an operation was too risky, he should have cashed in his diplomatic chips earlier duirng the window where the Sunni Arab regimes were tacitly supporting Israel's actions and spared civilian casulties on both sides.

It was clearly in America's strategic interests for Iran's proxy in Lebanon to crushed.  Having Hezbollah on the border, capable of launching rockets in Northern Israel whenever it is convenient for Iran is counterproductive to almost any U.S. foreign policy aims in the region, whether it be preventing Iran's development of nuclear weapons or advancing an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

It also  in America's interest for Sinora's government not be fall as well, which is why we ultimately  put heavy pressure on Israel to accept the ceasefire.  (Although it is unclear whether delaying the cease-fire an additional month would have significantly damaged the Sinora's government to any greater extent if Israel had ceased strategic bombing attacks.)  But the delay of the ceasefire and its ultimate impostiion both had a rational basis. 

The question -- off topic though it may be -- is whether DirtyMac is a troll or a jerk.  Clearly, he's a coward.

"Jew-Hating"???? IMO, this is but one subchapter in at least a decade old, neo-con "gun barrel diplomacy" driven, christian fundamentalist influenced plot that was designed to mesh (and exploit...)with Likud's "direction":

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/27/AR2006072701906.html
CQ Transcripts Wire
Thursday, July 27, 2006; 10:49 PM

...Senator Chafee?

CHAFEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome, Ambassador.

As you said, we have a crisis and tragedy unfolding in the Middle East. And without a doubt, this is an extremely important area in the world: energy-rich, all the religious areas that are important.

And in addressing that, you said that, "We are actively engaged in New York in identifying lasting solutions to bring about a permanent peace in the Middle East. To do so, however, requires that we have a shared understanding of the problem. The United States has a firm view that the root cause of the problem is terrorism, and this terrorism is solely and directly responsible for the situation we find ourselves in today."

And you're a brilliant man. That statement doesn't make any sense. Terrorism is a device. There's got to be something deeper for the root case. Can you go a little deeper?

BOLTON: Well, I think the statement really refers to the conflict in Lebanon.

Now, I think the real root cause is the absence of a fundamental basis for peace in the region. And I think that striving to get to that point is the objective of our diplomacy now; not to simply acquiesce and a return to the status quo ante, but to see if there's not a way to turn the hostilities that are now going into shifting the basis on which we really deal in the region.

And that's why we have resisted calls for an immediate cease- fire, which has the risk of simply returning to the status quo ante.

Nobody is under any illusions about the complexity of the problem......

When you consider the following "background", it seems to explain how decisions that the Bush admin. made in 2001, to "shift toward Israel" along with the opinions of Bolton, Feith, and Rumsfeld that Israel should retain "biblical lands" and land Israel occupied because it "won the war", have resulted in the current lack of U.S. influence....or will.....to broker a cease fire:

http://harpers.org/sb-six-questions-for-wayne-white-2308402183.html
Posted on Sunday, July 23, 2006. Wayne White, now an Adjunct Scholar with Washington's Middle East Institute, was Deputy Director of the State Department's Office of Middle East and South Asia Analysis until March 2005.....

1. Condoleezza Rice is leaving for the Middle East. Is her trip likely to lead to any favorable diplomatic outcome?

I don't think so. At least not anytime soon..........
I believe her activities have been tailored to give the impression of action while not designed to make any real progress toward the urgent ceasefire that should be everyone's highest priority.
Consider that the new Bush admin., more than nine months before 9/11, according to Paul O'Neill and others present at the first Bush national security meeting, abandoned pursuit of a diplomatic solution to the Arab/Israeli conflict, and shifted to a focus on toppling Saddam and an Israel bias:

http://www.mclaughlin.com/library/moo_transcript.asp?id=33
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN'S "ONE ON ONE"

GUEST: RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR
RE: "THE PRICE OF LOYALTY"

TAPED: THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004
BROADCAST: WEEKEND OF JANUARY 24-25, 2004

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: The price of loyalty. In an extraordinary literary collaboration, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill shared his memories -- plus 19,000 pages of official documents -- with a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. The resulting book is a first x-ray of the inside of the Bush White House.....

....MR. SUSKIND: It was the first meeting of the National Security Council. The president presided, talked about how the National Security Council works,......

......MR. SUSKIND: And Condoleezza Rice. The president described this is the way it works. He threw it to Condi, said Condi will be managing this process.

And then he set policy right at the start of the administration. He said first off, we're going to pull out of the Arab-Israeli conflict. There's nothing we can do to help those people. He talked about that for a while. Colin Powell expressed immediately reservations, saying if we do this -- this is 30 years of U.S. policy. We have been fully engaged. If we do this, we will unleash Sharon and it will tear the fabric of the Mideast. And the president said at some time, a show of force can be really clarifying. That's not a direct quote, but almost.......

......MR. MCLAUGHLIN: He said Clinton overreached and it all fell apart.

MR. SUSKIND: About the Mideast.....

.....MR. SUSKIND: Well, it sounded to people in the meeting as though it was, you know, preordained and scripted, meaning that this meeting was going to be about Iraq. Not everyone knew that prior to the meeting, based on the briefing documents that were available. But what became clear immediately at that point is it would be essentially a presentation on Iraq and what to do....

http://www.issues2000.org/2004/George_W__Bush_Foreign_Policy.htm

President Bush echoed the [pro-Israel] view: 'We're going to correct the imbalances of the previous administration on the Mideast conflict. We're going to tilt back toward Israel." Bush continued, 'If the two sides don't want peace, there is no way we can force them.' Colin Powell said, 'a pullback by the US would unleash Sharon and the Israeli army.' ; Bush added, 'Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p. 71-72 Jan 13, 2004

Consider that this article documents the Bush appointments to the DOD and State Dept. of several folks, including Perle, Feith and Bolton, who advocated, back in 1996, removing Saddam, and supporting the retention by Israel, of the "biblical lands", and Rumsfeld's officially distributed opinion that Israel won the "so called occupied" territory, in war.....a seemingly counterproductive opinion, compared to longstanding U.S., M.E. policy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A45652-2003Feb8
Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical On Mideast Policy

....The Bush administration's alignment with Sharon delights many of its strongest supporters, especially evangelical Christians, and a large part of organized American Jewry, according to leaders in both groups, who argue that Palestinian terrorism pushed Bush to his new stance. But it has led to a freeze on diplomacy in the region that is criticized by Arab countries and their allies, and by many past and current officials who have participated in the long-running, never-conclusive Middle East "peace process.".....

..........One of Abrams's mentors, Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, led a study group that proposed to Binyamin Netanyahu, a Likud prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999, that he abandon the Oslo peace accords negotiated in 1993 and reject the basis for them -- the idea of trading "land for peace.
" Israel should insist on Arab recognition of its claim to the biblical land of Israel, the 1996 report suggested, and should "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."

Besides Perle, the study group included David Wurmser, now a special assistant to Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton, and Douglas J. Feith, now undersecretary of defense for policy. Feith has written prolifically on Israeli-Arab issues for years, arguing that Israel has as legitimate a claim to the West Bank territories seized after the Six Day War as it has to the land that was part of the U.N.-mandated Israel created in 1948. Perle, Feith and Abrams all declined to be interviewed for this article.

Rumsfeld echoed the Perle group's analysis in a little-noted comment to Pentagon employees last August about "the so-called occupied territories." Rumsfeld said: "There was a war [in 1967], Israel urged neighboring countries not to get involved . . . they all jumped in, and they lost a lot of real estate to Israel because Israel prevailed in that conflict. In the intervening period, they've made some settlements in some parts of the so-called occupied area, which was the result of a war, which they won."............

......The State Department pressed for continued negotiations and pressure on Sharon to limit the scope of his military response to Palestinian suicide bombers, while the Pentagon and the vice president's office favored more encouragement for the Israelis, and less concern for a peace process which, they said, was going nowhere anyhow........

But the administration did make a series of statements and gestures intended to restrain Sharon's response to suicide bombings, and to reassert the traditional U.S. policy that Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank had to cease. At the urging of Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, Bush publicly embraced the idea of a Palestinian state.........

These policy goals were put on paper, by the people in the Bush admin.,who are now carrying them out, as far back as in 1996. There is reliable evidence from former U.S. treasury sec'ty Paul O'Neill, and from other attendees to the first., Jan. 30, 2001 Nat'l Security Council meeting of the new Bush admin., to support the notion that abandoning of the Israel/M.E. peace policy goals of all post 1952, U.S. presidents, was announced as the new policy, along with a "shift toward Israel", and Bush pronouncing that "Sometimes a show of strength by one side can really clarify things", and then the meeting shifted to Iraq policy, which has dominated the agenda, ever since.

9/11 was still over nine months away, and there was and is, nothing happening that would contradict the present results of a pre-9/11 policy shift that replaced diplomacy with the use of U.S., and now IDF, military force.

Democratic elections have been held in Lebanon, in Iraq, and in the Palestinian state, and the problem is that the U.S. and Israel do not approve or accept the will of the voters who live in those "newly democratic" states.
There seems to be no acceptance by the U.S. or Israel, of the possibility that the voters in all three jurisdictions were influenced to vote for candidates that offered a militant opposition to the armed forces of both the U.S. and Israel.

It seems that the policy of the new, closer U.S./Israeli alliance is to try to kill the entire armed opposition. It isn't working out too well in Iraq, and it won't work in Gaza or in Lebanon, either.

Matt if you were an Arab, especially a male in young/middle adulthood, living in Iraq, Gaza or in Lebanon, how would you have reacted to the elections of Mr. Sharon and Mr. Bush and the policies that they pursued together? How would you react if you were living in one of those places, now? Would it make a difference if you were a sunni muslim, experiencing the effect of the rise of shia influence, unleashed as a result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq?

Since the policy pre-dates 9/11, it follows that the Bush mantra that "9/11 changed everything".....is bullsh*t propaganda.....
Israeli Jews are no more "victims", than Americans are, as a consequence in both countries, of too many voters duped or somehow persuaded to vote for "leaders" who act against the best interests of almost everyone!

Matt,

Obviously the intent by Israel was to stop Iran's power-grab by destroying Hezbollah.

Just because the mission was not successful does not mean it had no point. Come on, man. Perfection is rare.

Comment rating wars are really dull boys and girls.

Mod spam down, way down. After that, just don't mod things you don't agree with up.

But modding down opinions you don't like is juvenile and is the reason that we are in the mess we are in today.

---- Just say no to 0 ratings. Especially from petey, the ratings abuser.

Kasserine Pass and Market Garden?  Those battles/operations were part of a larger long term conventional war Ellen.  Is your view that the only way to get a satisfactory (from Israel's/the US's POV) outcome to this is by further long term military action?  I don't think Hezbollah can be cleared out by conventional military action unless that action is massive resulting in thousands of Lebanese civilian casualties.  And I don't think the Israeli military is well suited for long term campaigns.

Sorry Jerry, Your comment got a 1 because it put words in Matt's mouth and then drew a contrary conclusion based upon those words. That's called a strawman argument and is "not productive".

You said:

"I gather what you are saying is that if the war had turned out better perhaps by killing Nasrallah, than you would have found all of the civilian casualties in Lebanon to have been worth it after all."

Where did Matt say that? He didn't. You did.

But based upon that you decide Matt is an "ends justify the means guy"?

The point of the karma system is to elevate discussion. I did not mark you a troll which leads to banning - I simply marked that comment unproductive.

Even I make unproductive comments. I suspect this is one of them.

Well considering the hash the US has made of dealing with what led to the firing to begin with I'm willing to give the Europeans a chance. They surely cannot make things WORSE than we have these last 3 years.

(Uh, to clarify I mean degrade things as much in the next 3 years as we did in the last, I'm well aware things can get worse by adding any of their failiures to ours.)

Outdenting it a bit, Libertine, but still with you.

Consider the Planning Staff's problem. The IDF has been on constabulary duty for the past six and maybe, twenty years. In Gaza and the West Bank it has been able to rely on informants. And over that period of time several things have happened:

1) An uninfiltrated guerilla organization of unknown capabilities has positioned itself on its border, and as importantly

2) The nation -- and especially, its 18-35 year olds with their "soft hands" -- have joined the global economy, and

3) The IDF has "professionalized" turning to Russian immigrants rather than to Reservists (citizen-soldiers) to man it.

How else but by way of war can the planners assure themselves that the IDF can defend the nation?

Um, if someone points out that both the ends and the means were absolute disasters (and they were), how does that make them an ends-justifies-the-means kind of guy?

In 2001, the Clinton policies seemed to have led to the Intifada. It was not at all clear that outside US "Assistance" was actually helpful. A case can be made that 50 years of meddling by outside powers (the US, UN, the Arab States) has preserved the Arab-Israeli conflict and prevented a solution rather than provided one. With nothing obviously beneficial, a policy of watching and waiting seemed the essence of reason and wisdom. If the "Disengagement" had brought peace then perhaps the watching and waiting would now be praised.

Consumatopia,

If Israel had offered to work with the Lebanese in the first place instead of bombing so many non-Hezbollah targets, it would make sense to say what you did, but it's too late now.

How would that even happen when Lebanon doesn't recognize Israel?  There's not much room there for diplomatic cooperation, let alone an alliance.

And I do see the points you are making Ellen, outdenting noted, I hate posting on the right margin...lol.

But the bottom line is why would the IDF back off from Hezbollah now?  By backing off the attack now the IDF allowed Hezbollah to remain a viable military force and it allows them to reconstitute their forces.  I can't figure out how this latest war conducted by the IDF makes Israeli's more confident in the IDF being able to defend them...

Without US assistance there might very well have been peace in the ME because the Jews would have been driven to the sea. Israel had no good option, and, owing to the past history of final solutions, over-reacted. That reaction has led to an apparent failure, but that could be illusion. A message was sent that they will react with force, and they now realize that building a walled country won't stop missiles.

I've always believed that Egypt agree to peace because Israel threatened to bomb the Aswan Dam--and I expect similar threats will be sent to Syria. After this performance, Damascus must realize that the threat is not hollow. They're gonna get it next because it is much easier to defeat a state than to eliminate a terrorist organization.

Is this a good situation? No, but it was inevitable. Either shit or a dove will be flying soon. Stay tuned, this story never gets boring, unfortunately.

The Lebanese government has no intention whatsoever of disarming Hezbollah. Israel's original contention - that only she had the willingness to disarm Hezbollah - has been proven 100% correct.

the lebanese government has not had the ability to disarm hezbollah. what little ability they had before is now even more diminished.

and while israel might have a 'willingness' to disarm hezbollah (when was that willingness ever in question?), they have shown (100%) that they too lack the ability to do so.

i fail to see how any of that puts a point in israel's column.

If Lebanon couldn't or wouldn't disarm Hezbollah, it shouldn't have promised that it would. That's the reason the cease fire has failed.

Talking points:

1) Western Civilization is going to need some more generals in the coming years to fight Islamofascists. The war is a'comin'! All my goy friends will have the chance to relive the Crusades of Yore when the Caliphate comes 'round asking for donations. Good luck. Don't blame the Jews for trying to warn everybody. Pity everybody's listening to the French.

2) Party-time in So. Lebanon for Hezb'Allah and the Lebanese Army!! Not much more going to happen there. Aside from more rocket attacks, though things have been (thankfully and) strangely quiet the past few days. Did they fix the runway at Beirut Int'l? I haven't checked the schedule for BA, but they've had their hands full these days, haven't they?

3) Mazel-tov to President Bush on the appointment of Jay Hein to the post of Director of the Office of Faith Based Initiatives. Done while the Jews were looking hard at Israel and the war. Just goes to show you can't always base your faith on initiative. So we Jews have to pick: do we like Bush because he "supported" Israel during the recent war -- or do we hate him for what he is doing to the fabric of this country? I'm confused. Help!

4) Oh, Floyd Landis' father in law killed himself. My guess is that he was the one who slipped Floyd the extra epitestosterone. I DID wonder how he came back from the pits to win that 18th stage in the Tour de France. Doped? Naw, not Floyd! C'mon!

That's all I can think about right now. Wake me when it's over.

IRSSLEX

Look at the Special Night Squads, in the late thirties. They out-enemied their enemies.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Isn't a bit early to be declaring definitive conclusions on the war?  The ceasefire is a couple of days old and already people are jumping to conclusions, naturally siding with the most Israel-is-wrong interpretation possible.

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind:

• When Hezbollah fighters say it's a "good thing" that the Lebanese Army is coming in, one of two things are possible: either the army is so feckless and weak that they don't expect them to get in the way or, more likely, they are simply lying.  It's hard to believe that the Lebanese Army, which is mostly Sunni and Christian, will simply be best buds with the radical Shiites
• This brings up a more general point: EVERYTHING uttered by ANYONE who claims to speak for Hezbollah is almost certain to be a lie.  This isn't a case of differing interpretations, or different perspectives.  They lie.  When Hezbollah claims that Iran isn't funneling money in to Lebanon, as they did last night on NPR, they're simply lying.  When they minimize the extent to which they have lost people and weapons, they are lying.  It would help if people remembered that instead of taking everything they say at face value.
• While admittedly unsuccessful in its goal of eliminating the capacity of Hezbollah to fire rockets at Israel, the Israeli action WAS successful in reducing the freedom of movement of Hezbollah's fighters in the south, destroying much of their weapons and defensive infrastucture and killing hundreds of terrorists.  Hezbollah may have survived, but it IS degraded.  The new force in the south will probably impede the ability of Hezbollah to threaten Israel. 

None of this is to say that one should view Israel's actions uncritically.  Clearly, from both a strategic and tactical standpoint, they left a lot to be desired.  Given what they did not accomplish, it's certainly hard to defend the civilian casualties.  I just object to the notion that the whole thing was pointless.

Maybe I'm extremely dense, but I have read this "sentence" 20 times and I can't figure it out.  What is the subject?  What is the predicate? And what does that last clause mean?  At first I thought it was a joke, but from subsequent posts I think he meant it.  If so, is the underlined section a given?  Where is the evidence for "our deep-seated Jew-hating?"

Were all of us saying this was leading to pointless bloodshed and not much else really just driven by our deep-seated Jew-hating?

If the question is: Was this attack on Hizbollah (via the destruction of a large part of Lebanon) a huge mistake on every level?

The answer is:  Yes

The only thing it has to do with "Jew-hating" is that it probably increased it somewhat.  It also increased Hibollah-hating -- in the west (but it took their creds WAY up in the Middle East), by the way. 

Jan Knaus

Disarm Hezbollah yourself, Piper. You've got as good a chance as the Lebanese government does.

To the contrary, Matt is taking the view that it there were plenty of reasons outside anti-Zionism (or as he puts it "deep-seated Jew hating") to oppose Israel's military actions in the past 30 days.  That answer to Matt's hyberolic question is "of course not.".  Not everyone who though the Israeli response was "pointless" or "disproportionate"  were rabid anti-Zionists. 

That being said, it should be self-evident that one does not have to be anti-Zionist to advocate policies that are very bad for Israel.  After all, the idea of building settlements sprinkled througout in the West Bank and importing Arafat and Fatah from Tunis to Gaza were both grievious errors committed by Israeli governments who believed at the time they were doing what was best for Israel.

Egypt agreed to peace because the Israelis agreed to return all the Egyptian land taken in 1967. They have yet to make such an offer to Syria.

Great jumpin'  Jehosophat, what a pile of steaming poo, even by Valdron standards.  Israel lied on NPR about American money?  They lied about Israeli casualties? 

Good luck making that one stick.

It's rather interesting that you feel a need to respond with lies.  Are you so desparate to find a moral equivalence between Israel and Hezbollah that you need to stoop to gross falsification of fact?  Wouldn't it be enought to say, "But what about all those Lebanese civilian dead?"

This is the differnce between sober analysis and fanatical ranting.  The sober analyst looks at the facts and offers an interpretation.  It's usually not without bias, but it usually is based on fact.  The fanatic looks at the facts, and if they don't conform to his pre-existing beliefs, he just makes shit up.  Which is pretty much how you would describe a typical Valdron rant.

Nobody likes to hear "I told you so!" When true it's even worse! The cafe became quite boorish concerning Israel and how right it was to be wrong over the last few weeks.

If they could've, they would've! There was nothing holding Israel back from destroying Hizbollah accept ability. They failed, call it anything you like, but failure is loosing, same, same.

New age megiddoian cowboys burn down the house and the media think it's a Texas bbq and invite all their friends while the women and kids cry, die, fear, and loathe. Unfortunately the meat ran out early and nothing was left but beer drinking, freeloading, and high fiving till the break of dawn. The Cafe is still in hangover mode from the righteous party!

ROTFL. I knew you had a sense of humour guy. I'm glad you got the joke! I didn't want you to think I'd forgotten about you.

But I can't take all the credit, it was a BradtheDad rant, I just changed the names. Ironically, I've been getting ratings, but your original didn't. Go figure.

I did add an extra paragraph at the end because your claims about the devastation to Hezbollahs ground forces and facilities and their loss of freedom of movement seemed somewhat speculative. And by somewhat speculative, I mean based in fantasy and wishful thinking on your part.

But that don't matter. What matters is, we did it together, bud! And you got the joke. I'm sure you're going to be a lot of fun. ROTFL!

Aw....I made Ellen upset.

Is she gonna cry now? 

Boo hoo hoo.

That is the paradox of the Realist position. Realist will maintain that ethics has no place in foreign affairs and counsels leaders to act accordingly. Leaders do act accordingly--all side--only to sow hatred and bitterness in those people who suffer their injustices. This hatred MOTIVATES otherwise common people to take up arms against these realist forces, who stupidly respond by ratcheting up their unjust ways.
We forget that in this age of information THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING. And the common man generally operates from a sense of what is right and what is wrong. He is expected to. If he does not, his community brands him a sociopath. And you cannot expect the common man to make these effete distinctions between "domestic affairs" and "foreign affairs". And you know what? the common man is right, ethics does not tolerate such spurious distinctions. Ethics is universal and final. Realism is a transitory stage in global development.

The cost in human life was simply too high.

As some UN flunky said: There is somthing FUNDAMENTALLY WRONG when the number of dead children is greater than the number of dead fighters.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

I'm not sure where I would place Lind on an ideological spectrum, but he was probably the first civilian (while a Congressional staffer) brought into the Marine think-tank plus evening bull sessions of the "Maneuverists" encouraged by Commandant Al Gray. Lind, I believe, then got them involved with Air Force COL John Boyd, the theoretician of the "lightweight mafia", and there was considerable synergy. The concepts picked up momentum, and were incorporated in the Army's AirLand Battle doctrine.

Air Force COL John Warden carried a lot of this into the 1990-1991 planning, but Schwarzkopf and Horner wouldn't accept him on the staff, but taking one of his proteges, Dave Deptula, who is now a three-star running Air Force Intelligence. As opposed to Boyd and Deptula, Warden tended to get poor grades in Plays Nicely with Others.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

That, is complete and total rot.

What color is the sky in your world? I am all for various views, however, I draw the line at outright delusion.

LEBANON was, until very recently, touted as a GREAT SUCCESS(!!!) of Bushs spendid little wat on terror(!!!). So, LESS THAN A YEAR after the Lebanese people voted the RIGHT WAY and booted Syria out, and our GREAT LEADER took numerous photo ops, all and sundry, I am supposed to give Israel a pass when they effectively destroy this FLEDGLING DEMOCRACY? We assured the PEOPLE OF LEBANON assistance, but we smile and inquire about dinner when it is destroyed over the KIDNAPPING OF TWO SOLDIERS? Thekilling of 37 children in one night, is when I stopped listening.

Israel lost MY RESPECT over this. I doubt am the only one.

CSPAN junkies visit http://spannerbackup.ipbhost.com

That, too.

Live by the sword...

It has not worked too well, ya think? I know, how about a new approach? Replace the status quo.

Fire Congress.

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I think the United States ,working with France may have been able to do that. Once upon a time.

It may not be too late. With a competent leader, of course.

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Pesky New American Century.

Pesky failure.

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I just read an AP report that says Iran is re-supplying Hezbollah as we speak.

The new UN Resolution is DOA it appears.

I would hope that it will be recorded in tactical manuals that unnecessary escalation of warfare to civilian targets very marginally related to the theatre of operations is not merely immoral but also stupid. Israel and USA lost "high moral ground" with nothing to show for it. Less than nothing.

Old realist position was that "high moral ground" should be dispensed with for any kind of remotedly arguable military gain. Now it looks, to Arabs and Iranians, like impotent lashing out in an attempt to hide a lack of strictly military successes.

Wereall of us saying this was leading to pointless bloodshed and not much else really just driven by our deep-seated Jew-hating?

 The sentence is ungrammatical

were we saying that this was leading to pointless bloodshed and not much else

then he continues:

really just driven by our dep-seated Jew-hating...?

 I think it needs an "and we" before "really" to make it a

 Were all of us saying this was leading to pointless bloodshed and not much else and we were really just driven by our deep seated Jew-hating.

so it is a conjunction of two sentences:

 1) This was leading to pointless  bloodshed and not much else

&

2) We were really just driven by our deep seated Jew-hating

First as regards Israel's justification for war, the facts are still in question. See this site for some quotes from Olmert and others which suggest that the kidnapping took place in Southern Lebanon.
http://www.counterpunch.org/schuh08152006.html

I have seen no evidence that Hezollah crossed the border. If someone else has, let me know, since the quotes in the article I linked to do no more than put the issue in question, they don't show that it happened in Lebanon.

But even apart from the empirical facts, it takes argument to get from the claim that Hezbollah crossed the border to the claim that it was morally justified for Israel to undertake an invasion of Lebanon. Myself I think Israel clearly had no moral justification for what they did, even if it is true that Hezbollah crossed the border.

As an empirical matter, I don't think that lengthening this conflict hurt Hezbollah, at least not long term. Israel did manage to kill more Hezbollah fighters, but they also improved Hezbollah's reputation within Lebanon and the wider Muslim world. The manpower they lost will probably be made up for and then some.

I can see only a loose connection between the supposed Iranian nuclear ambitions (which I agree must be frustrated, if in fact they exist) and Hezbollah's ability to fire unreliable rockets across the border. I suppose the idea is that Iran could intimidate the US and Israel into not taking stronger measures against Iran with the threat of rockets hitting Haifa. Of course it would be silly for the US and Israel, when the stakes were on the level of WMD's, to be deterred by Hezbollah's rockets, and it would be stupid of Iranian leaders to think they would be. I think this connection is very weak.

I don't see any connection between Hezbollah having rockets and the Palestinian/Israeli peace process. If the suggestion is that Israel invaded an Arab country with an eye towards improving relations with the Palestinians, then that is just dumb, so I will be charitable and assume that you don't think that is true. But I don't know what view you are getting at then.

Israel didn't target civilians, they targeted Hezbollah. Israel hit both civilians and Hezbollah, as this is a characteristic of modern weapons. Hezbollahs rockets, on the other hand, were essentially non-aimed weapons. That is, aimed at Israel in general, at the tightest, maybe a whole city. In practical and moral terms, this is indistinguishable from targeting civilians.

If Israel had seriously targeted civilians there wouldn't be any Lebanese civilians.

The Truth Matters,

Warren

Howard, Given that Lind is director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation, a self-described monarchist and conservative, I think we can safely place him on the right of the spectrum. :-)

"The Hezbollah/Israeli war was more of the U.S. saying, "We put you up for nothing. If you think your neighbor is playing his music too loud at night it's your responsibility to ask him to turn it down. But we support you."

So...um...bombs=loud music? Bombing someone's home is the same as asking him to turn the music down?

I wince at the complete inapplicability of this analogy.

If what was meant was logistical targets such as bridges and runways then what is the relevance of the term "High Moral Ground"?

Would 'moral high ground' be what the refugee convoys were on after Israel dropped leaflets on their town telling them to flee, and then bombed them as they fled?

It may be useful for you to learn something of the capabilities and limitations of actual weapons, before making sweeping generalizations.

Hezbollahs rockets, on the other hand, were essentially non-aimed weapons. That is, aimed at Israel in general, at the tightest, maybe a whole city. In practical and moral terms, this is indistinguishable from targeting civilians.

Israel didn't target civilians, they targeted Hezbollah. Israel hit both civilians and Hezbollah, as this is a characteristic of modern weapons.

If Israel had seriously targeted civilians there wouldn't be any Lebanese civilians.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

Seemed almost like I read Warren's point framed similarly before,

so I went and found it:

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.

Turns out the very same August 8 post concluded with this sentence that appears to have inspired some of the discussion on this thread, and is cited upthread:

Someone has to shout above the recrudescent Jew-haters on the one hand and the worshippers of force and militarism on the other.

Though admittedly not knowing Josh Marshall's intent, I remember when I read that, noting the use of "Jew haters" rather than "Israel haters," I thought of the following, and not so much about commenters in the liberal blogosphere of the far left variety (I happen to think the latter may be thinking too highly of themselves to think it was all about them):

....A young Shiite scholar named Amal Saad-Ghorayeb has advanced what in Lebanon is a controversial argument: that Hezbollah is not merely anti-Israel but deeply, theologically anti-Jewish. Her new book, "Hezbollah: Politics & Religion," dissects the anti-Jewish roots of Hezbollah ideology. Hezbollah, she argues, believes that Jews, by the nature of Judaism, possess fatal character flaws.

I met Saad-Ghorayeb one afternoon in a café near the Lebanese American University, where she is an assistant professor. She was wearing an orange spaghetti-strap tank top, a knee-length skirt, and silver hoop earrings. She is thirty years old and married, and has a four-year-old daughter. Her father, Abdo Saad, is a prominent Shiite pollster; her mother is Christian.

Saad-Ghorayeb calls Israel "an aberration, a colonialist state that embraces its victimhood in order to displace another people." Yet her opposition to anti-Semitism seemed sincere, as when she described the anti-Jewish feeling that underlies Hezbollah's ideology. "There is a real antipathy to Jews as Jews," she said. "It is exacerbated by Zionism, but it existed before Zionism." She observed that Hezbollah, like many other Arab groups, is in the thrall of a belief system that she called "moral utilitarianism." Hezbollah, in other words, will find the religious justification for an act as long as the act is useful. "For the Arabs, the end often justifies the means, even if the means are dubious," she said. "If it works, it's moral."

In her book, she argues that Hezbollah's Koranic reading of Jewish history has led its leaders to believe that Jewish theology is evil. She criticizes the scholar Bernard Lewis for downplaying the depth of traditional Islamic antiJudaism, especially when compared with Christian anti-Semitism. "Lewis commits the . . . grave error of depicting traditional Islam as more tolerant of Jews . . . thereby implying that Zionism was the cause of Arab-Islamic anti-Semitism," she writes.

Saad-Ghorayeb is hesitant to label Hezbollah's outlook anti-Semitism, however. She prefers the term "antiJudaism," since in her terms anti-Semitism is a race-based hatred, while anti-Judaism is religion-based. Hezbollah, she says, tries to mask its antiJudaism for "public-relations reasons," but she argues that a study of its language, spoken and written, reveals an underlying truth. She quoted from a speech delivered by Hassan Nasrallah, in which he said, "If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli." To Saad-Ghorayeb, this statement "provides moral justification and ideological justification for dehumanizing the Jews." In this view, she went on, "the Israeli Jew becomes a legitimate target for extermination. And it also legitimatizes attacks on non-Israeli Jews."

Larry Johnson, a former counterterrorism official in the Clinton State Department, once told me, "There's a fundamental view here of the Jew as subhuman. Hezbollah is the direct ideological heir of the Nazis." Saad-Ghorayeb disagrees. Nasrallah may skirt the line between racialist anti-Semitism and theological anti-Judaism, she said, but she argued that mainstream Hezbollah ideology provides the Jews with an obvious way to repair themselves in God's eyes: by converting to Islam....

excerpt from

IN THE PARTY OF GOD
Are terrorists in Lebanon preparing for a larger war?
by JEFFREY GOLDBERG
The New Yorker issue of 2002-10-14

If you buy that, and I tend to from other reading in the past, in that context, in the end, if a Nasrallah-headed Hezbollah manages to continue to successfully play this as new hero to the world of the eternally humiliated Shiites and some Sunnis, so successful that Zawahiri sees them as a competitor for affections of the disaffected, I myself see the war as a big failure for BOTH Israel and Lebanon and the world. Much depends on this reconstruction phase, and apparently some in the Bush administration realize this all of a sudden.

I think many of the smarter minds in Israel realized the results might be what has happened, but that there was overwhelming support at the start because it was at the state of "damned if you don't and also possibly damned if you do." That it turned out that Israeli intel was so bad (er, I'd like this opporunity to stress that point to conspiracists who like to blame everything on the world on the evil, supposedly brilliant Mossad) is a big blow to the fear factor part of Israeli defense, something that engendered a lot of past hate but also did serve as deterrence. But, as Ellen points out upthread, they have gained more intel now. What good does it do them? We don't know.

I've read arguments, including Howard Dean's and Senator Feingold's, that basically imply the reason all this happened is that the Bush administration in the end doesn't really care that much about helping Israel, that they treat it not so much as a client state as a puppet to play games with. (Hence, the lack of interest in any tries at diplomatic peace solutions since the one failure--just let it boil.) Seymour Hersh's most recent article sort of confirms this--they just let Israel flounder, get aggravated about Hezbollah attacks to a state where they got involved, just to see how they did. I am starting to buy it: guinea pigs in a messed up world, all.

So now we may have someone who might be a real genuine "Jew hater" as the new hero of many in the Islamic world. That Chirac, with Sarkozy in the background, Muslim haters both to some, is in the game now is not much solace for me. It may be that this reconstruction period coming up now is more important than the "war." If the pretty vicious Sunni v. Shiite divide in many parts of the world (think Zarqawi's Shiite hate, the segregation occurring in Iraq now, back to Osama's hit on Masood, the regular violence in Pakistan) lessens in some unity under Nasrallah, amplified on al-Manar, and some Iranian leaders "up yours to the West" statements for Islamic audiences, with Jews and Westerners as the enemy, you've got Samuel Huntington's wet dreams coming true. Finally, I would note that at least Osama thinks of Jews as "people of the book."

Thanks to member "crissie," posting on my thread Ditch US in terror war, say 80 percent of Britons,
I have this from Gerard Baker's op-ed today in the Times of London to confirm that I am not thinking alone:

The result? A strengthened Hezbollah and a new Arab hero, Sheikh Hassan Nasrullah; a reprieve for the beleaguered Assad regime in Damascus and a further fillip to Iranian ambitions; a strategic setback for Israel and the condemnation of Lebanon tragically to replay the turmoil of the 1980s.

The use of "Arab" will be to some, an error of semantics, that he should have used "Islamic" to reflect Persian Shiites, etc. I like to think it was an appropriate purposeful use of the term. Remember back in the good ol' daze how we learned all about the conservative Sunni Pashtun tribal thing exhibiting itself in the Taliban vs. the moderate Shiite Northern Alliance?

Oh, and on that topic, not really a BTW, but rather a big "what if true," I just ran across this speculative but very intriguing piece:

Saad bin Laden: The Key to Iranian-al-Qaeda Detente?By Chris Heffelfinger

On July 28, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard reportedly released Osama bin Laden's 27 year-old son, Saad bin Laden, according to the German newspaper Die Welt. Saad had been held under house arrest in Iran, along with other al-Qaeda figures who were arrested in round-ups by Iranian intelligence services during the past two years. Iran did not previously confirm that they were holding top al-Qaeda figures—allegedly also including al-Qaeda strategist Sayf al-Adil—but it was widely speculated that they sought to exchange these prisoners with the United States for guarantees of U.S. non-aggression, which Washington rejected.

The UAE-based al-Elaph reports that Iran has dispatched Saad bin Laden to the Syrian-Lebanese border to build cells for Hezbollah from among the refugees in camps in the region.....

From my own extensive past reading, I very much believe Iran has been holding these al Qaeda guys for quite some time. (I am not alone, so do people like Peter Bergen.) If this latest scuttlebutt is true, Iran has finally made some interesting decisions on that, perhaps inspired by the Lebanon situation, and they are hoping for a brave new umma world of some sort?

Your information is useful.

When I wrote their wouldn't be any Lebanese civilians I was indulging in hyperbole to make a point. That is, if Israel wanted to depopulate Lebanon it could have done a more thorough job of it. With or without nukes. I'll try to be more clear in the future.

The obvious connection between the Iranian nukes and Lebanon is that Hezbollah rockets could someday be used to launch nukes at Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and so on. Pushing back and regulating Hezbollah makes that harder for the Iranians.

The relationship between the Palestinian kidnappings and the Hezbollah kidnappings is that one occurred just before the other and statements were made in mutual support.

The counterpunch article referred to relies on the idea that the first confused press reports of an event are more to be trusted than later reports after more investigation.

The Lebanese radars had already been in use to attack that Israeli ship.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The obvious connection between the Iranian nukes and Lebanon is that Hezbollah rockets could someday be used to launch nukes at Israel, Jordan, Turkey, and so on.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*