In the aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon War

What’s this? The war was incompetently handled?! Who could have guessed? [quote=“Israel’s chief of staff resigns”]
Israel’s Chief of Staff Lt Gen Dan Halutz has resigned amid inquiries into the conflict with Hezbollah last summer, the military has said.

Gen Halutz told PM Ehud Olmert he was quitting “as investigations have run their course”, Reuters news agency quoted an army spokeswoman as saying.

Several internal inquiries are being conducted into the government and the army’s handling of the 34-day conflict.

[b]The military was widely criticised for failing to achieve its war aims.

Israel attacked the Lebanon-based Hezbollah after the group captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a cross-border raid last July.

But Israel failed to free the soldiers or soundly defeat Hezbollah before a ceasefire ended the fighting in August.
[/b]
The Israeli army lost 116 soldiers. Forty-three Israeli civilians were also killed by more than 4,000 Hezbollah rocket attacks.

About 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the conflict, mostly civilians in Israel’s vast bombardment of the county and land invasion in the south. [/quote]
Wait a sec… what’s that part in bold say? Israel failed to defeat Hezbollah and failed to free its soldiers? So close to 1500 people died, for nothing? And… didn’t I read, just a few weeks ago…those soldiers are still being held, there’s deal in the works involving Egypt… it’ll cost Israel a few hundred prisoners released (and a whole lot of face) to get their guys back. Is that right?

Gee, why’s it taken so long for this guy to resign?
Why’s he the only one?

I agree. Israel should have hit them even harder and not caved in to outside criticism.

A politically controlled and regulated war fought in the media and drawn to a “cease-fire” with terms proscribed by politicians and terrorists. And Hezzie rocket attacks continue.

Yeah…thats gonna work…NOPE.

Lt Gen Dan Halutz is doing the honorable thing by his resignation. He makes a clear statement that his military cannot operate under such restrictions.
This is not an insignificant action for an Israeli General Officer to take.

[quote=“jdsmith”]I agree. Israel should have hit them even harder and not caved in to outside criticism.[/quote]They tried that before, for fifteen years. The results included Sabra and Shatilla, and Ariel Sharon’s resignation as Israeli Defense Minister. You’d like more of the same?

Let’s get something straight J, I don’t LIKE any violence against anyone.

There are ways to win wars and ways to prolong wars.

Some of the biggest stinks in the latest round of Israeli “warfare” were centered on bogus photos and stories…remember the “targetted ambulance?”

Blindly following this kind of mockstory led to enormous pressure on Israel to withdraw early. No wonder the guy resigned. He couldn’t do his job. His job was to fight a war and win it.

Yet another example of “play nice nice” on the battlefield. Who wins? No one. Sooner or later Hezbolla will attack again and Israel will bitch slap them again.

All hail the “humane” continuation of the same. :raspberry:

Not “like”: enjoy. “Like”: want, desire. Not “want, desire” as in ice cream on a hot day, but a trip to the dentist when you lose a filling. Fair enough?

There are ways to win wars, ways to prolong them, and wars that need not, or cannot be fought. Given the past, and results, this war either needed not, or could not be properly fought. What were the aims? Bring the boys back home, knock the stuffing out of Hezbollah, and in slapping down Hezbollah, strengthen Beirut’s control over the south. What were the results? Israeli soldiers still held, more than a hundred of their comrades dead, civilians on both sides, dead, and the Hezbollah’s influence over the government in Beirut has increased. That’s not a failure of the generals alone.

As for the mockstories, they weren’t the reason for international outrage. Icing on the cake, sure. But a blockade of land, air, and sea, the targeting of convoys of refugees, and let’s not forget thousands of foreign nations lined up to board whatever ships were available… they probably had more to do with it, don’tcha think?

Who wins? No one. Why, because it wasn’t brutal enough? Brutality didn’t do the job when given the chance in 1982.

It would do us well to remember that it’s usually the case that wars are fought for completely different reasons than what is fed to the troops, let alone the everyday civilian population(s).
And that once they are started, even the best-laid plans are blown into the vortex.

What has happened to the age-old tradition of reading between the lines? A grain of Salt, & all that?

My deductions:

  1. Israel demonstrated its’ unwavering willingness & ability to bring the fight to their enemies. :bravo: Civilains were hurt, but such is the nature of modern urban warfare. :snivel:
  2. Hizbollah, and other militias demonstrated their increasingly sophisticated (i.e. foreign funded) tactics and weaponry. :doh:

And much like everything else in the Middle East, a draw is at least a partial victory. It resonates all down the lines, of consciousness, the alternating visages of antagonists caught in the throes of a death struggle, and last but not least: all the history that’s left behind.
That is, until The Next Episode. :grandpa:

babble babble babble. “Sabra and Shatilla”? Why don’t you tell us about the assassination of the Lebanese president or does that stray too much from your drug-induced fantasy world?

babble babble babble. “Sabra and Shatilla”? Why don’t you tell us about the assassination of the Lebanese president or does that stray too much from your drug-induced fantasy world?[/quote]

Which Lebanese president was that?

Oh look! that whole foolish war was a colossal fuck-up.
Who would have thunk it?

Well, hindsight’s 20/20. There’s no way anyone could have foreseen that this could have gone so wrong. :unamused:

[quote=“BBC”]In a night-time address on Israeli television, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has insisted he will not resign. This despite a damning report on his decision to go to war in Lebanon last July.

The authors of the report were appointed by Mr Olmert after a public outcry over the perceived failures of the conflict.

Neither of Mr Olmert’s war aims were realised - the Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah was not destroyed, the two Israeli soldiers captured by the group were not returned but a lot of people died during 34 days of war.

The panel of investigation has divided their study into two parts.

This interim report looks at Israel’s decision to go to war and the events leading up to that point.

[b]It concluded that various political and military leaders, past and present, were to blame for the failings but that ultimate responsibility fell on the shoulders of Israel’s prime minister.

The committee found that Ehud Olmert’s decision to go to war was taken “rashly” and “hastily” with “no comprehensive plan”.[/b]

It accused Mr Olmert of not doing his homework - not researching the situation in Lebanon, not checking that Israel’s army was prepared, not examining Israel’s alternatives to war.

It dismissed his stated war aims as “over-ambitious” and “unfeasible” and criticised him for not amending those goals when he realised the conflict was not going Israel’s way.

Political survivor

[b]Also in the committee’s firing line were Israel’s former Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and Defence Minister Amir Peretz.

The committee lacks the legal power to demand resignations but Mr Peretz is not expected to stay long in his job.

Dan Halutz stepped down earlier this year after a military inquiry into the Lebanon war. [/b][/quote]

Ok, so they botched it, we got it. But, obviously you would have been against even harsher action, so what exactly is your solution? Just let them do what they want? Negotiate with Palestinian or Lebanese leaders who have at best no control over the violent groups? Sign yet another cease fire agreement, to be broken whenever Hezbollah or Hamas feels they need to make a statement?

Oh, don’t undersell the importance of “they bothced it.” At the same time, please, don’t neglect the idiocy of the default “go to war” position.

But as to your question, that was taken up by the report’s author:

[quote=“Haaretz: Winograd”]The head of the committee, retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, in reading the conclusions of the inquiry, said that the outcome of the war would have been better had Olmert, Halutz and Peretz acted differently.
[…]
In fact, said Winograd, some of the war’s objectives were unattainable and the leadership lacked creativity.

“Some of the declared goals of the war were not clear and could not be achieved, and in part were not achievable by the authorized modes of military action,” the report said.

The committee also leveled criticism at the entire government, saying that the cabinet voted to go to war without understanding the implications of such a decision.

According to the report, “the government did not consider the whole range of options, including that of continuing the policy of ‘containment’, or combining political and diplomatic moves with military strikes below the ‘escalation level’, or military preparations without immediate military action - so as to maintain for Israel the full range of responses to the abduction.”[/quote]
Now, that’s what the report’s author would advocate, not me, but does it satisfy?

Don’t be such a coward. Why do you always avoid giving your own opinion?

I was going to let this one go but I just can’t.

Israel has to constantly cripple its military because of international pressure. Before it makes a strike against civilian targets it drops flyers over the target zone stating that an attack will take place soon. This alerts the enemy as well as the supposedly “innocent” civilians, and there is no advanced method of communication needed to gain that intelligence. All they have to do is pick it up off the ground. Hezbollah deliberately fires rockets from civilian areas, KNOWING that Israel will have no choice but to counter-attack. And like a trained poodle, the press jumps on it and we’re all treated to the headline in next days paper, “Israel Kills Lebonese Civilians.” There in the bottom of the page sowhere we see, “Hezbollah fires rockets at Israel.” There is rarely mention of the fact Hezbollah -in addition to using civilians as human shields- directly targets civilian areas in Israel.

And now the press is having a field day with this report, with again virtually no coverage of Hezbollah’s terrorist antics. Why does the press always harp on Israel, but so rarely address Hezbollah/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/etc.?

Charges of cowardice from someone who seems to get the willies ever time he hears the muezzin… that’s a bit much, isn’t it? I often offer my own opinion; I don’t pass of those of other as my own. In this case, I believe the point is whether or not there were alternatives to war, and the report’s authors make it clear that there were. I’m pretty sure that their findings will carry more weight than my opinions, and thus better satisfy the questioner.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, so I specifically asked if the answer was satisfactory.
But you’re getting pissy about it, so what am I missing?
(or is something being lost in the medium?)

[quote=“gao_bo_han”]And now the press is having a field day with this report, with again virtually no coverage of Hezbollah’s terrorist antics. Why does the press always harp on Israel, but so rarely address Hezbollah/Hamas/Islamic Jihad/etc.?[/quote] Perhaps because the one is a state, while the others are terrorist organizations/ political parties tied to terrorists, and we expect barbarity of one side, but not of the other: having our expectations satisfied isn’t usually newsworthy.

Seriously, if Iraqi insurgents torture and kill a dozen people, that comes across as just another day at the market, and a slow day at that. If US soldiers do the same, that’s shocking. If Bill Gates makes another billion dollars, what of it? If he gives it away, that’s noteworthy.

Or perhaps it’s because the one is sensitive to public pressure while the others are incorrigible. :idunno:

Don’t mistake cowardice for suspicion and distrust.

Most of the time you answer with more questions than statements, or some lame pseduo-intellectual group A, cultural varient Y1 bullshit. But occasionally you grow some spine and stake out a position, and even less occasionally actually make sense.

But the Palestinian “people” have, in a free and open election, chosen these terrorists as their leaders; therefore, they are culpable for their government’s actions. Peoples of democracies everywhere are culpable for their government’s actions. Likewise, Palestians, as well as a supermajority of Muslims worldwide, supported Hezbollah in the 2006 summer war. And yet the press continues to divorce Palestinians from the militant groups who support them. That would be comparable to only criticizing the Israeli Defense Forces but not Israelis. In the latter case that is never done. The world holds Israel as people culpable for the IDF’s actions, and the world should also hold the Palestinians and Lebanese responsible for Hezbollah (and al-Maliki by the way, he openly championed Hezbollah in the 2006 war).

Most of the time you answer with more questions than statements, or some lame pseduo-intellectual group A, cultural varient Y1 bullshit. But occasionally you grow some spine and stake out a position, and even less occasionally actually make sense.[/quote]Simple minds demand answers before understanding the question.

You can play the “I’m just folks, but I know what I know” card and write-off my post as “lame pseduo-(as opposed to lame psemono?)intellectual” clap trap if you like, but “Group A, cultural variant Y1” is simply a somewhat-more-reader-friendly version of what analytical philosophy has to offer. If you’d rather cut yourself off from the insights and arguments it offers, that’s fine: we can stick to talk radio. I’ll put on my Al Franken hat… I assume you’ll play the role of Pat Robertson… we can type incoherently at one another. It might be a little hard on the keyboards, but it won’t tax or stretch your mind much. Sound like a plan?

Eh, nevermind. I’ll just get bored and let my end of the “conversation” lag.

So everyone on here but you is a narrow-minded pandering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator rabble-rousing populist hack? Because you’re the only one who can’t just discuss the topic at hand without resorting to lame abstractions.

Nice choice for me by the way…Pat Robertson. I’m an atheist…and you picked a theocrat. I’d much rather you put me in the roll of Robert G. Ingersoll. He was a secularist who really knew how to stir a crowd.

[quote=“gao_bo_han”]So everyone on here but you is a narrow-minded pandering-to-the-lowest-common-denominator rabble-rousing populist hack? Because you’re the only one who can’t just discuss the topic at hand without resorting to lame abstractions.[/quote]Any time you feel like addressing me, or my posts, rather than a caricature thereof, be sure to PM me.

Bit of a habit with you isn’t it?

Anyway, I am with Gaobohan. I think that the fear of Muslim extremism is based on rational reasoning. I think that not just the Israeli but also many Western militaries work under conditions and strictures that are patently ridiculous ESPECIALLY when you consider the reaction of the opposing team. It is the same nonsense that we get into whenever “abuse” is discussed.