Posted on 08/09/2006 11:37:26 PM PDT by BurbankKarl
Thanks so much for all you've done keeping these threads going, Karl.
in before the ping?
thank you so much, Karl, I really appreciate all of your efforts!
'Plot to blow up planes' foiled [UK TERROR THREAT LEVEL RAISED TO IMMINENT]
cobbled together for another run
Peretz and Mofaz tensions boil over
By HERB KEINON
In the five months since Amir Peretz dethroned Shaul Mofaz as the country's defense minister, the two kept their tensions out of the public eye.
That period ended Wednesday, when a harsh exchange between the two leaked out of the tense, six-hour security cabinet meeting.
According to these leaks, Peretz erupted after Mofaz, who today is the transportation minister, made a tactical suggestion regarding the plan that Peretz and Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz brought to the ministers for their approval.
Rather than moving the forces from the South to the North, Mofaz recommended starting at the Litani and moving downward.
"If you would have brought this plan to us on the first day of the war I would have supported it," Mofaz said.
"Only Saturday night [at a meeting of the Forum of Seven], I asked the defense minister if he wanted to expand the operation, and he and the IDF said 'no.'"
Peretz yelled, "What do you want? What did you do as defense minister? Where were you for those years when Hizbullah built this threatening array [of missiles]?"
Mofaz replied, "Why are you taking things in this direction? This is not the time."
At that point, Prime Minster Ehud Olmert intervened. He said that the whole world was watching now, and that the entire country was "judging how we are acting at this time. I expect you to keep your cool."
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525841730&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
New Thread Ping
IBTP
Well almost. :)
I think you most certainly are. Have you been following this on FOX? Geez!
Enlightened or Unhinged?
Left-wing intellectual bankruptcy has left us unwilling to truly fight the enemy
The minute we leave south Lebanon we will have to erase the word Hizbullah from our vocabulary, because the whole idea of the State of Israel versus Hizbullah was sheer folly from the outset. It most certainly will no longer be relevant when Israel returns to her internationally recognized northern border.
Amos Oz in "Try a Little Tenderness" (Interview) Ha'aretz, March 17, 2000
We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies, we want that we will be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies.
Ehud Olmert Address at Israel Policy Forum, New York, June 9, 2005
Anyone wishing to understand how Israel was led (or rather misled) into the lamentable predicament it finds now itself, need look no further than the foregoing citations. These epitomize the malaise that has afflicted Israel's national fabric for the last two decades – and whose bitter fruits we are now reaping.
The first citation encapsulates the feebleness of mind and failure of judgment of the bon-ton addicts who form the elite of Israel's civil society and who have set the tone of public debate in the country since the 1980s. The second reflects the feebleness of spirit and failure of leadership that has characterized the Israeli polity over the past quarter-century, and allowed the nation to be swept away in torrent of politically-correct drivel.
As a result the country is now confronted with a dismal situation in which the IDF, purportedly the strongest military force in the region, equipped with the most advanced armaments on land, sea and air, is patently unable to neutralize a tiny paramilitary organization, numbering several thousand at most, without a single aircraft, tank or battleship at its disposal.
Million refugees
Over a million Israeli civilians have been forced to flee their homes or to cower in bomb shelters; commercial and industrial activity in large portions of the country have ground to a halt, and humanitarian suffering has began to reach alarming levels.
The ongoing fiasco is all the more inexcusable, and government's inadequate, incompetent response to it all the more inexplicable, in light of the fact there was virtually nothing unpredictable about the development of the recent crisis. It was common knowledge that the Hizbullah had amassed 14,000 rockets and missiles. Assuming the Israeli government didn't assume this arsenal had been accumulated for merely ceremonial purposes, how did it plan to contend with this clearly discernable threat?
The extent of danger posed by the Hizbullah weaponry could readily have been assessed. For even we assumed that at least 90 percent of it was ineffective – because of inaccurate launchers, dud inventory, destruction of stockpiles and/or launchers by the IDF – this still would mean several hundreds - possibly up to a thousand - civilian casualties, enormous physical devastation and colossal economic cost.
Some strategy
But as the days have turned into weeks, now it's a month, it has become alarmingly clear that the Olmert administration had no effective plan to protect its citizens – even against a small group of irregulars.
The fact no such plan of decisive action was formulated to deal with so foreseeable a crisis is a grave dereliction of responsibility by the Israeli leadership. Indeed, as the conflict drags on one may be excused for thinking Olmert's master strategy is to let Hizbullah bombing until it runs out of ammunition.
One hardly needed to be a military expert to realize that neutralizing Hizbullah would require massive deployment of ground forces. Even if the inexperience of the current political leadership could be considered a mitigating factor in the initial days of the fighting, it soon became clear - as Hizbullah attacks continued unabated - that the exclusive reliance on airpower was ineffectual.
The hesitant use of limited ground force – predictably - did little or nothing to bring about a perceptible change in the patterns of the daily barrages raining down on Israeli towns and villages. Yet, in spite of an unprecedented, benign international environment, the government stubbornly refused to recognize the military imperatives of the situation - and the long-term strategic costs of that refusal.
Psychological prisoner
Olmert, still tied to the notion of unilateral withdrawal that brought him to power, has proven unable to free himself from the psychological stranglehold of the perverse constraints and taboos that Israel's intellectually corrupt elites have imposed on the public debate.
Constrained by the false axioms they inculcated into the discourse, Olmert found himself imprisoned within the confines of the distorted intellectual architecture that precluded any possibility of effective policy responses to a reality that made his election platform look absurd.
As the government dithered, its weakness and hesitancy began to take heavy toll on a range of vital national interests – degrading Israel's deterrent posture in the Arab world, eroding the Arab fear of the consequences of attack on Israel's civilian population centers and infrastructure; accumulating diplomatic damage via continual bombing of Lebanon which did little to quell the deluge of rockets on Israeli civilians, but much to stir up international condemnation; fomenting growing anger across the Moslem world – and hence pressure - on regimes that tacitly endorsed a swift crushing of Hizbullah; and perhaps most disturbingly, undermining the US perception of Israel's military prowess and hence of its value as an ally.
Only now, a month into the fighting, and coerced only by failure rather than guided by wisdom, has his government began to seriously consider a wider ground offensive which could have brought hostilities to a close much – possibly weeks – earlier.
When the current fighting ends, the nation will have to conduct a soul-searching reevaluation of the criteria that determine who is fit to lead it into the future and what the principles are that should shape that future. For the continued survival of the Jewish nation-state, such a re-evaluation is imperative.
(08.10.06, 07:25)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3289040,00.html
No...foxless except for trying the live feed from time to time...it doesn't format right for me, though, in either ie or Mozilla.
What a busy day, Lebanon offensive by the IDF on hold and the Brits stop a plot to blow up 20 or so planes........thanks for starting the thread!
THANK YOU,,,i got lost .
The Hezzies slept in this morning, almost 2 hours late:
Sirens wail in Haifa, Nahariya and Western Galilee
Sirens wailed in Haifa, Nahariya and the Western Galilee, police say.
Residents were urged to enter bomb shelters for fear of terror attacks. (Hagai Einav)
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3289070,00.html
(08.10.06, 09:14)
I will have to agree with Olmert on this one. The whole world is watching and they had better resolve their differences and keep their cool.
Thanks Karl, I guess sleeping is out of the question now with all this news going on.
09:43 Iran says West dragging feet on Middle East truce (Reuters)
09:34 Four rockets hit Nahariya, two land in Kiryat Shmona (Haaretz)
09:32 Heavy fighting between IDF, Hezbollah in Marj Ayoun area (Haaretz)
09:27 British authorities thwart terror plot to blow up plane over Atlantic Ocean (AP)
09:14 Netanyahu: Expansion of ground operation comes late, but not too late (Israel Radio)
Iranian revolutionary guard corps shout anti-U.S. slogans during Friday prayers in Tehran May 26, 2006. Members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard have been found among Hizbollah guerrillas slain by Israeli forces in southern Lebanon, Israel's Channel 10 television reported on Wednesday citing diplomatic sources. (Raheb Homavandi/Reuters)
Looks like the Israelis will need more refrigerated facilities to keep the slain Revolutionary Guard they are finding.
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