Israel-Hezbollah post-mortems. There are a lot of ‘em, and they’re not pretty. Ralph Peters, in the New York Post, claims it’s “Hezbollah 3, Israel 0.” Haaretz, in “The Day After/How We Suffered a Knockout” is heavier on fact and less emotional than Peters, but scathing, just the same. It appears there were massive failures all around, failures in intelligence, failures in military strategy and tactics, and a failure of will on the part of the Olmert government. Yes, Hezbollah was bloodied; they suffered some tactical defeats and their infrastructure has been severely damaged. But they remain standing; they will not be disarmed by the Lebanese government, the UN, or any multi-national force; their prestige has grown immensely on the “
There are opportunities here. First and foremost, Israel and the US need to take a cold, hard look at the failures and immediately, not a microsecond later than immediately, begin to digest the “lessons learned” and initiate corrective action. The second thing is for the West’s leaders—specifically Olmert, Bush, and Rice— to quit acting like Baghdad Bob. As Mirengoff, quoting Bill Bennett, says “It does us no favor to declare a defeat a victory.” This defeat is a wake-up call, it’s not Armageddon. We need to get to work.
One of the best comments I’ve ever read, anywhere:
The thing that irks me is that liberals get their knickers in a twist about
Posted by: caspera on
Caspera was commenting on Ace’s post about torture, in response to a Guardian editorial on the same subject. I’ve written on the subject of torture before; I won’t repeat myself. That said, Ace’s post is thought provoking, if nothing else. And the comments, as I’ve already noted, are good.
This is interesting: “Nine No Longer: Panel Declares 12 Planets.”
The solar system has 12 planets.
That is the conclusion, to be announced today, of an international panel formed to devise a scientific definition of a planet and settle an increasingly intense dispute over whether Pluto qualifies. The panel suggests retaining Pluto and immediately adding three new planets to the nine that are familiar to any schoolchild: Ceres, currently considered a large asteroid; Charon, now considered a moon of Pluto; and Xena, a recently discovered object that is larger than Pluto.
[…]
The proposal defines a planet as an object that circles the sun and is massive enough that its own gravitational forces compress it into a roughly spherical shape. Depending on its composition, a planet would have to be at least roughly 250 to 500 miles in diameter to qualify. It designates a new subcategory of planet, the ``pluton," a Pluto-like planet that takes at least 200 years to circle the sun. Pluto, Charon, and Xena are all plutons, and scientists expect many more to be discovered. Under the proposal, Ceres is an ordinary planet.
[…]
A number of scientists said in interviews that they expected the new definition would be accepted, but others, including Brown, opposed the idea. Calling it ``a big mess," Brown said he didn't like the complexity of the system, or the idea of a panel determining what new planets are.
Brown said he would have preferred to simply declare that anything as large as Pluto is a planet, meaning there would be 10 planets -- the existing nine and Xena -- with the possibility that a few more would be discovered. Also reasonable, he said, would have been to disqualify Pluto as a planet, because of differences like its small size and its different orbit.
Wow. Think of all those instantly obsolete textbooks, wall displays, models, and the like. I don’t think your average planetarium has budgeted for this…
Today’s Pic: Plane Pr0n from the Air Force Armament Museum at Eglin AFB,
Great articles, Buck. Especially those on the post-mortem of the latest conflict. Painful, but true. I see that there was more to Israel's failure than simple reluctance to fight world opinion or to inflict too many civilian casualties. I'd like to know how they think it should have been done, though. I'd be interested in any analysis you might come across for what this might have been. (Better equipment and more soldiers in the field right away is only part of it, I suppose?)
ReplyDeleteYou're right. Time to accept the truth, consider what went wrong and learn from it (if possible!) And sooner rather than later.
Some career diplomat on a C-SPAN panel yesterday said we should just give Hezbollah their (air quotes) "victory" and try to use it as incentive to... Oh, heck. I forgot what he said after that. I remember thinking, hmmm, really?
And here's what ol' Maha thinks Israel should have done (after some poor guy asked her several times - and got her totally riled up, I might add):)
What could Israel have done? Considering that a majority of the people of Lebanon, and the government of Lebanon, wanted Hezbollah to disarm, one solution would have been to help the people and government of Lebanon get strong enough to force Hezbollah to disarm. They might have offered to give some kind of aid, financial or otherwise, to help Lebanon’s military and police forces get up to speed. And at the same time find ways to persuade the Shiias in Lebanon that they didn’t really need an armed militia any more. This would not be diplomacy, but public relations. The point is not to get some leaders to sign an agreement, but to change the minds of the supporters. Again, Israel should have worked with the government of Lebanon on this.
(Emphasis mine)
And, yep. I can live with "coercive interrogation techniques," especially in the immanent prevention of the loss of innocent life. It's hard to get a straight answer from those on the left about this as well. They're afraid of "the slippery slope" I think, but life is not one level road by any means.
I might agree with Brown about the planet issue. By the way, my youngest son captured this last night from one of his favorite sites (YTMND) on the size of the universe. (That's "You're the Man Now Dog" and if you don't know what that's all about, here's an explanation.)
To work! To work!
Bec sez: (Better equipment and more soldiers in the field right away is only part of it, I suppose?)
ReplyDeleteThe consensus, to my recollection from what I've read, is the Army should have gone in almost immediately, no later than a week after the assault began. I've read contradicting reports; one (or more) said the IDF wanted to go in on the ground immediately but Olmert and Co. dithered and kept saying "no," until it was too late. Other reports say the IDF had an "airpower" strategy and didn't want to go in with the Army, once again, until it was too late. And of course, this is simplifying things a great deal. I'll try and remember what the best analyses were and where they are...
I tend to agree with Brown, too. I don't know if it's because I'm stuck in my ways or that he seems to make more sense than the "other guys."
:-)
Maha's pretty long on glowing generalities and short on the hard specifics, ain't she?
One of the chief liberal-left failings is to believe that all human beings have the same rational and liberal (in the classical sense) belief system. They simply cannot, or will not, acknowledge that some people cannot be negotiated with -- they still have a 7th century belief system, take that "eye for an eye" stuff literally, and only respect strength and power. I suppose it's a culture thing. Which is why I hope the libs don't achieve power in the near future, to cut to the chase! :-)