Posted on 08/14/2006 11:39:26 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
"Get out of Bibi's house!" "Get out of Bibi's house!" "Get out of Bibi's house!"
Should the "cease-fire" be broken, as long as he immediately resumes military operations against Hezbollah he will be able to retain/regain a good amount of credibility.
At least I think so.
Politically speaking, Olmert is a dead man walking.
But will he free the IDF to fight????
I don't follow Israeli politics closely enough to know what he did to destroy his credibility. Anyone know this history?
I sincerely hope and pray that he will fail to do so, and quickly. Israel needs a Churchill, not a Chamberlain, and it needs to re-arm itself and train for the next round - which Neville Olmert has given as a gift to Israel.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
Disagree, Netanyahu regained credibility through being the only truly effective spokesman. The Israeli's welcomed his competence while Olmert floundered.
Give me Bibi!
Ping!
He must, or we can refer back to teh title of thsi thread.
Misunderspinning
By John E. Carey
August 14, 2006
President Bush is known for his malapropisms. Some are merely ascribed to the president; he doesn’t hold the copyright.
“Strategery,” a Saturday Night Live creation, became the title of a Bill Sammon book.
But these buzzwords tell us a lot of how the people in popular culture view their leaders and their world.
We might assign the new word "misunderspinning" to the Hezbollah-Israel conflict, now entering a difficult cease-fire phase.
Or for Israel: “misunderwinning.”
Israeli leaders are claiming tremendous gains, if not outright victory on one side of the border, and issuing a veiled threat on the other.
Israeli Prime Minister Mr. Ehud Olmert insisted, “Hezbollah won’t continue to exist as a state within a state.”
That assertion remains to be proven.
In fact, in Lebanan and the greater Arab world, Hezbollah is a state and its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, appeared almost daily of Hezbollah TV (al-Manar "The Beacon"), and al-Jazeera during the conflict saying, "We have not been harmed." Within 24 hours before the start of the “cease fire,” Hezbollah fired over 200 missiles into Israel. Maybe as many as 250.
Since destruction of Hezbollah and elimination of these missiles were the number one and two goals of the war for Israel, according to Boaz Ganor, an Israeli expert who discussed the goals with me at the outset of the conflict, who do you think “won”?
A government spokesman said Israel came out ahead in the Lebanon war and will abide strictly by the U.N. cease-fire deal. "The situation on the ground is advantageous, the diplomatic situation is advantageous to Israel," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev.
Yossi Kuperwasser, a brigadier general in the Israeli army, wrote in an article for the Jerusalem Post, "We created the necessary conditions to compel the international community to... ultimately turn Lebanon into an accountable, sovereign nation. If this happens, Syria and Iran would be the main losers of this war."
We’ll see.
In Lebanon, as the clock struck 8 this morning and the cease-fire commenced, the streets of Beirut were littered with a new leaflet dropped by Israeli planes saying that Hezbollah had brought the people of Lebanon “to the edge of the abyss” and brought only “destruction, displacement and death.” The leaflet warned that the Israelis could return “with all necessary might.”
Addressed to Lebanon's citizens, Israel’s leaflet said, "Will you be able to pay this price again?"
Hezbollah distributed leaflets of its own on Monday congratulating Lebanon on its "big victory" and thanking citizens for their patience during the 34-day war with Israel.
This morning, as the cease fire begins, The Washington Post features a page one story under the headline “The Best Guerrilla Force in the World.” The article is, of course, about Hezbollah.
If Israel had won, the headline might have read “Finest Fighting Force On Earth Again Prevails” referring to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
I’m really a military analyst with only ten years in the media as a journalist and even I can figure this out.
For good or bad, Israel appears to have not prevailed in their goals in this war.
Israel, and in particular, Mr. Olmert’s government, are guilty of misunderspinning and also seriously misunderwinning.
The emmaciated stick figure Olmert has blown this so badly, it must go down in history as one of the great moments in military incompetence. That's not to say the IDF's performance was bad. When it was allowed to perform it did so heroically and valiantly. But the stick figure just tied their hands so badly, perhaps worse than has ever happened in modern warfare, that the result is this spurrious claim that "Israel could not beat Hezbollah" and the conclusion that a ceasefire must be agreed to. Prime Minister Skelator rather than changing policies just assumed the problem wasn't his hamstringing of the military, he didn't want to admit he blew it, but that the military even if unleashed from the shakles he put on it couldn't defeat Hezbollah. Yet he wasn't even willing to try.
So the result was this feckless and laughable flip flopping between a large scale invasion and a ceasefire last week that has just got to have the Mullahs in Iran and in Southern Lebanon laughing like hyenias. We know they've declared victory today. Any way you cut it, this is a disaster and Olmert needs to fall.
Let Olmert's utter incompetence and dithering be a warning to American's of putting a liberal or moderate weakling into the White House. Becoming the laughing stock of rogues and terrorists will be the result just as Olmert has now made Israel.
I agree. If the political damage that is claimed by this article was as severe to Bibi as believed, then Ya'alon could strike while the iron is hot. Netanyahu did very well showing himself to be united while at war and not attacking the administration which is lesson for the LEtists in our own country. That said, Ya'alon has the credentials and the time could be short for Olmerde.
(Go Israel, Go! Slap 'Em Down Hezbullies.)
The Israelis had better get a PM with some guts. Olmert blinked and the Hezzies are claiming victory.
For more, see my tag line.
So what? They would claim victory even if a nuke was lobbed and only one of them was left.
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