Robert Fisk on Bush's claim that Israel defeated Hizbollah

[Apollo11]

THE INDEPENDENT (London) - August 16, 2006

Robert Fisk: In the face of Bush's lies, it's left to Assad to tell the truth

In the sparse Baathist drawing rooms of Damascus, reality often seems a long way away. But it was a sign of the times that President Bashar al-Assad was able to bring the great and the good of Damascus to their feet by the simple token of telling the truth - which no other Arab leader has chosen to do these past five weeks: that the Lebanese Hizbollah guerrilla army has, in effect, won this round of their war with Israel.

There was plenty of hyperbole in the Assad speech. A conflict that has cost 1,000 Lebanese civilian lives can hardly be called a "glorious battle" but he did at least reflect more reality than his opposite number in Washington who, driven by self-delusion or his love of Israel, claimed that Hizbollah had been defeated in Lebanon.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1219457.ece

[Virginia Dare]

1. Another "bring it on" brain fart on his part....n/t

[Palladin]

2. Recommended and kicked.

Depend on Fisk for the truth. He lives there. The whole episode has highlighted that the supposed leader of the free world is a complete incompetent ignorant jackass. It's good for us, because the US military now sees him in this light also.

[PFunk]

3. I agree. Fisk is (as usual) right on the ball on this one.

[furman]

6. You must be joking. Fisk is notorious for distortion. Google "fisking" nt

[HuffleClaw]

7. 'fisking', fyi, is the term describing how the right bloggers/pundits

attacked fisk, not how he did anything.

[endarkenment]

8. Fisk is hated by rightwing turds worldwide.

And fisking is the rightwing turd meme used to dismiss what Mr. Fisk has to say.

[fedsron2us]

4. Juan Cole is rather more sceptical about Assad's 'success'

http://www.juancole.com/

Personally I think the recent conflict was a proxy war fought between the US and Iran to test each others mettle. The Israelis and Hizbollah were just pawns in the game while the people of Lebanon were the unfortunate victims. The main event has not kicked off yet.

[ShortnFiery]

5. The People CAN stop this insanity ...

But will they?

If and when "the main event" kicks off, protect your children because there's no way to win the war without troops (boots on the ground) a.k.a. The Corporate War Machine's "Cannon Fodder." Prepare to fight the onset of this war OR be prepared to have your beloved children DRAFTED (sucked into the intake of the USA's War Machine). :(

[rodeodance]

12. yes, I think Juan is onto something. I have this this other places.

[Az_lefty]

9. Israel lost this one..

their objectives were not met at all. Hizbollah not only still exists but they are still holding the IDF soldiers.

[rodeodance]

10. Blumenthal; Israel's debacle, courtesy of Bush (talks of this issue also)

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/08/17/bush/print.html


Israel's debacle, courtesy of Bush

With U.S. support, Israeli unilateralism was unfurled. The nation's security has never been so endangered, or its moral authority so tarnished.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Aug. 17, 2006 | On Monday, the day the cease-fire was imposed on Israel's war in Lebanon against Hezbollah, and just days after the London terrorists were arrested, President Bush strode to the podium at the State Department to describe global conflict in neater and tidier terms than any convoluted conspiracy theory. Almost in one breath he explained that events "from Baghdad to Beirut," and Afghanistan, and London, are linked in "a broader struggle between freedom and terror"; that far-flung terrorism is "no coincidence," caused by "a lack of freedom" -- "We saw the consequences on September the 11th, 2001" -- and that all these emanations are being combated by his administration's "forward strategy of freedom in the broader Middle East," and that "that strategy has helped bring hope to millions." If there was any doubt about "coincidence," he concluded a sequence stringing together Lebanon, Iraq and Iran by defiantly pledging, "The message of this administration is clear: America will stay on the offense against al-Qaida." Thus Bush's unified field theory of fear, if it is a theory.

Then, once again, Bush declared victory. Hezbollah, he asserted, had gained nothing from the war, but had "suffered a defeat."

At the moment that Bush was speaking an Israeli poll was released that revealed the disintegration of public opinion there about the war aims and Israeli leadership. Fifty-two percent believed that the Israeli army was unsuccessful, and 58 percent believed Israel had achieved none of its objectives. The disapproval ratings of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz skyrocketed to 62 percent and 65 percent, respectively.

The war has left Israel's invincible image shattered and moral authority tarnished, while leaving Hezbollah standing on the battlefield, its reputation burnished in the Arab street "from Baghdad to Beirut." Virtually the entire Israeli political structure has emerged from the ordeal discredited. When the war against Hezbollah ended, the war of each political and military leader against every other one began.

"You cannot lead an entire nation to war promising victory, produce humiliating defeat and remain in power," wrote Ari Shavit, a columnist for Haaretz, which published his call for the replacement of Olmert on its front page. As the political leaders accused one another of blunders, and beat their breasts in a desperate effort to survive (Olmert confessed "deficiencies"), the military commanders attacked and counterattacked. Gen. Udi Adam, head of the Israel Defense Forces Northern Command, who had been ousted as the offensive turned sour, gave a newspaper interview blaming the government for confusion and errors. Dan Halutz, the IDF chief of staff, issued an order forbidding all army personnel from giving press interviews, just as the newspapers were filled with the shocking exposé that Halutz had sold a stock portfolio within hours of learning of the Hezbollah kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers but before the Israeli government announced a response. The Knesset began an investigation. "We simply blew it," ran the headline on another column in Haaretz. .....

[rodeodance]

11. He also talks of Rice-----opportunistic but myopic, fretful, reckless. etc

......No administration official has suffered more collateral damage from the Lebanon war than Rice. Her flights to and fro have exposed her as vacillating and reckless, fretful and compliant, opportunistic but myopic, and in every guise ineffective. She wound up as the cheerleader on the rubble.

It can be said with a high degree of certainty, not simply tragic precedent, that the Bush administration engaged in this latest fiasco by ignoring the caveats and worst-case scenarios that must have been produced by the intelligence community. It is inconceivable that there was no intelligence assessment of Hezbollah's military, social and political capabilities, along with a range of potential outcomes. Unquestionably, such documents exist. One of them might well have taken the form of a Presidential Daily Briefing, which would have been presented to Bush by National Intelligence Director John Negroponte. It is also inevitable to conclude that having been briefed, Bush heard only what he wanted to hear.

Afterward, as the Israelis tore at one another, Bush proclaimed victory, following his Iraq P.R. formula. While his phrases might be a tonic to his political base, the rest of the world, especially now the Israelis, receive it as the empty rhetoric it is. The more Bush declares success when there is failure, the more U.S. credibility is tattered.

Perhaps the most important and unanswerable question is whether Bush believes his own propaganda. Whether he believes what he says is beside the point, because the only thing that matters is that he acts on it. The propaganda may be false and distorted. It may be historically and analytically meaningless, like Bush's recent adoption of the neoconservative ideological code words "Islamic fascism," lacking in any significant empirical value. But such pejorative phrases are helpful in stymieing public debate by evoking connotations of Hitler and Mussolini, who never dreamed of restoring a mythical caliphate. Bush's propaganda is his policy. And with every failure, it seems a new front is opened. .........