Battle of the Speeches Breaks out in Wake of Lebanon War (Juan Cole)

[laststeamtrain]

Battle of the Speeches Breaks out in Wake of Lebanon War

Israel shot 5 Hizbullah fighters on Tuesday and Hizbullah fired ten rockets inside Lebanon at Israel troops. Emergency workers dug 38 bodies of civilians out of the rubble in Lebanon. But despite these provocations, the ceasefire more or less held. The Israelis were towing damaged armored vehicles out of Lebanon.

I suppose it is better for them to wage a war of words than one of bombs, though one tends to lead to the other. Since the United Nations resolution calling for a halt to hostilities, Prime Minister Olmert, President Bush, Secretary-General Nasrallah, President al-Asad and President Ahmadinejad have all been procliaming the war a personal victory.

I don't know why they would want to claim it.

It was such a stupid war. It was thick-as-two-blocks-of-wood strategy on all sides. It was moronic for the Israelis to plan it out last year. It was idiotic for Hizbullah to cross over into Israel, kill soldiers, and take two captive. It was brain dead for the Israeli officer corps and politicians to think they could get anything positive out of bombing Lebanon back to the stone age and making a million people homeless. It was dim-witted for Hasan Nasrallah to threaten Israelis with releasing poison gases from Haifa chemical plants on them. It was obtuse for the Israelis to confront a dug-in guerrilla movement with green conventional troops marching in straight lines. It was dull of Hizbullah to fire thousands of katyushas into open fields where they mainly damaged wild grass. The few times when the rockets managed to kill someone, it was often an Arab Israeli civilian. Stupid...

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http://www.juancole.com/2006/08/battle-of-speeches-breaks-out-in-wake.html

[papau]

1. All well said - the $5.7 billion Israeli cost plus the north of $6 billion

Lebanese cost (including 2.7 billion of infrastructure loss) was forever lost for no reason.

Israeli leaders lost 2% of its GDP - making them not only as stupid as Bush, but also as costly to to the Israeli citizen as Bush is to Us over Iraq.