So, I'm reading Karol's entry over at Malkin's blog and I got to thinking.

This Lebonese inability to controle the Hezbollah military... Would that be like, say, the US armed forces suddenly going into Syria to topple that regime under the direction of Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush saying, "Sorry President Assad, I just simply can't control the Pentagon. You know how it is."

Maybe Olmert knew what he was doing when he "accepted" the U.N. deal...

Lebanon does not have a legitimate military. It's more of a camoflauge wearing police department.

I think Olmert and the IDF underestimated the readiness of Hezbollah to fight. I think if Israel had no regard for casualites the war would've been over in 7 days. But of course with the composition of the IDF they cannot function that way.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=%20750345&contrassID=2

This is good, I'm in the "I'm not an anti-semite" but some to the right of me might call you one"

"There was not as much as an protest, even when serious question marks began to arise about the strategic wisdom directing the campaign. Israelis accepted that they had to make terrible sacrifices, even pay for their leaders' mistakes, for the greater good."

What is "for the greater good" about a war that does not achieve its strategic aims? Not only was the war a military and political disaster from day one, but it was predictably so, as 18 years of occupation failed to disarm Hez. If Israel had gotten the U.N. troops in there without first bombing the hell out of Lebanon, it would have been seen as a loss for Hezbollah, and would have strengthened, not weakened, the more Democratic and peaceful aspects of the Lebanese govt.

Texas Rainmaker,

I think the name should be Texas Rainman.

Time to censor posts...definately time to censor posts....censor posts, yeah censor...

Read the bible dude, A letter from Paul to the Corinthians "...as Jesus travelled through Galilee he said to Peter ""do not censor posts in the future on any blog"", this is the word of the lord"

by the statement about the israeli's making sacrifices for the greater good - they meant they {the israeli's} were willing to live in the bomb shelters, send their loved ones off to fight, listen to the barrage of bombs dropping if only the greater good of defeating and disarming hezbollah happened - because olmert wasn't strong enough to do this with the speed and accuracy of past battles and because it didnt happen at all they may call a new vote to session and elect a new and hopefully stronger prime minister.

Maybe we have different understandings of the word strategy. Your strategy is basically your end goal. If this war had any strategic aim at all, it was to disarm Hez. Recognizing that it was strategically miguided is correctly recognizing that a quick war, or a long occupation, cannot disarm Hezbollah. Having come to that realization, Israelis should have called for an immediate end of the war, and it is most likely the reason Olmert was willing to end it.