ANALYSIS-Olmert faces battle for survival after Lebanon war

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L1331921.htm

JERUSALEM, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Lebanon has a habit of bringing down Israeli leaders. snip

Lebanese entanglements have proved disastrous for Israeli leaders before.

Disillusionment with the 1982 invasion helped encourage Prime Minister Menachem Begin to step down in depression. His defence minister, Ariel Sharon, was also forced out.

An attempt to stop Hizbollah rockets with a big offensive was one factor that cost Shimon Peres the election in 1996.

Prime Minister Ehud Barak's pullout in 2000 after a 22-year occupation was criticised for being too swift and possibly encouraging a Palestinian uprising. He was voted out in 2001.

Olmert has to answer questions such as:

Why could Israel not use the Middle East's mightiest army to cripple Hizbollah despite its vow to?

[papau]

1. the mightiest army couldn't cripple Hez without civilian deaths at an

unacceptable level -

Indeed the 1000 civilian deaths that have occurred have cause worldwide pretend or real shock - a 20,000 death result would have "won" and crippled Hez - but only Arab terrorists are into maximum civilian deaths to make a point.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Bush admitted to killing 30,000 Iraqi people last December with his...

...invasion and occupation of Iraq and that didn't cause any worldwide pretend or real shock that I am aware of. Wasn't hardly a blip on the radar as I remember.

Why would you think Israel killing 20,000 Lebanese people would have?

I don't understand?

Don

[bigtree]

6. not with the type of military force Israel decided on

they would have been better served negotiating with the Lebanese from the start and forming a cooperative mission to do what Lebanon said they would but were materially unable. No one knows Lebanon better than the Lebanese.

I disagree that the higher number of Lebanese deaths would have 'won' anything. The effect of the killings would have reverberated into a widened war long before they reached 20,000, exacerbating the conflict and deepening support among those who were subjected to the slaughter for the only organization that was actively and materially opposing the assaults.

[papau]

7. I agree negotiating with the Lebanese for a co-operative mission -if real-

was the way to go-

But such negotiating is not a real/not a possible action where/when the Lebanese Government has been unable to agree on any action - God forbid an action of cooperation with the IDF - in the 6 years since Lebanon was last occupied by Israel - granted Lebanon was occupied by Syria until only recently and is still now occupied, albeit only indirectly, by Syria via a few Leb politicians and Army and intel folks more loyal to Syria than Lebanon, and via the "indirect" Hez/Syria cooperation on striking Israel and the Syrian funding of Hez.

The "deepening support" assumes Arab media does not already show Israeli Jews as the forever enemy and that Arab education does not already use Saudi funded books for kindergarten through all grades that teach kill the Jew is what God wants. How much deeper that support can get is not obvious.

I agree on the idea of Israel "better served negotiating with the Lebanese" - but the internationally recognized border between Lebanon and Israel is not agreed to by the Lebanese government - or by Hez.

The blue line -the Leb border - does not give the hill called "Sheba Farms" to Lebanon - it is occupied by Israel Syrian land - but Hez claims it for Leb. When does UN opinion/agreed on borders matter - is it only when applied to as a "no" to an Israeli position?

The overflights of the areas that rockets were being stored and then moving south and then being fired from in Lebanon were required by the lawlessness relative to international and Lebanese law caused by the Lebanese government being afraid to challenge the gang rule by Hez (and I and my family understand the Lebanese citizen in South Lebanon view on this perhaps a bit better than most since it is an analogue to the Al Capone/Chicago/food kitchen for everyone/social help days when Al was a guest in our Chicago apartment -and later our Lake county apartment - and Al was more popular than any politician of the day - including FDR).

The response does look like a disproportionate response and is easy to reject - and I'm into talk/talk for everything -- but, continuing with the Capone analogy, the US Fed response and its limited civilian deaths was only possible because of the local government not fighting/preventing under "states rights" the process needed to stop Al. There was no one to talk to about stopping the rockets in Lebanon. And there was no way to avoid "disproportionate" deaths in the population hiding Hez (even though most were not Hez in any way, shape or form).

Avoiding a World War 2 civilian death toll was the right and moral thing to do - even if the actual result is seen by some as an Israeli "loss" and a war crime of "disproportionate" deaths.

[Zhade]

9. SYRIA says it's Lebanon's land as well.

"And there was no way to avoid "disproportionate" deaths in the population hiding Hez (even though most were not Hez in any way, shape or form)."

The population wasn't hiding Hezbollah; Hezbollah was flitting in and out of urban areas. Don't distort the situation - the Lebanese had no choice, and couldn't leave though they wanted to, thanks to Israel bombing the roads and bridges out.

Those whose opinion matters - the UN, HRW, the Red Cross and other NGOs, world opinion - know these were war crimes, and won't soon forget them.

[papau]

11. SYRIA's gift of the farms is not in writing yet - is it? In WW2 the

population was not hiding the Nazi army - and we took out whole towns with the population size greater than the South of the Litani River Lebanon.

Here 300,000 Israeli's have fled south, and 600,000 Lebanese fled north - well before the road take out to prevent resupply of rockets had been completed.

As to war crimes - the UN/NGO bias against Israel and in favor of the Palestinians, while understandable because the Palestinians lives were screwed and the Israeli lives were more like being in the EU, has caused most to take calls of Israeli war crimes with a grain of salt.

"Disproportionate" deaths in the civilian population is the only thing on the table - and while a serious and very real and plausible war crime - it remains as the Scots say - "not proven" to have been "disproportionate" given the developing rules for operating against a terrorist organization hidden in and supported (see the election and the 2 dozen Hez MP'S from the south) by the local population, and when the governing authority for the country had announced that they were not going to challenge Hez to abide by the 6 year old UN resolution that ended the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and established the Blue Line border - and indeed they were not going to try to establish national government authority in the area, period.

[Zhade]

12. I stopped reading at the rightwing term "UN bias".

It doesn't exist, thus I can safely dismiss the rest of your argument.

[papau]

15. :-) like State Department bias against and Defense bias for :-)

peace :-)

[Zhade]

8. You could have made the point without 'Arab'.

It veers perilously close to a racist comment.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

2. Swatting flies with sledgehammers doesn't work.

A long list of "leaders" have discovered this all too obvious fact.

LBJ - Vietnam
Nixon - Vietnam/Cambodia
Reagan - Lebanon
Clinton - Somalia
Begin - Lebanon/Palestine
deKlerk - South Africa
Brezhnev - Afghanistan
Yeltsin - Chechnya
BushII - Iraq

The birdbrains in charge never learn.

[NNN0LHI]

4. I think it was Bush 1 who sent the Marines to Somalia. Not Clinton

Somalia was a little going away gift from Bush to Clinton as I remember it.

Don

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

5. Clinton backed the intervention.

And, got burned by it.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V113/N48/somalia.48w.html

President Clinton Thursday ordered 5,300 new combat troops and an aircraft carrier to Somalia "to protect our troops and to complete our mission," and at the same time he announced that he would bring all American combat forces home by March 31.

He said the objective of the new deployment was to give the Somalis a reasonable prospect of survival in conditions of near-anarchy and factional warfare. Regardless of the success of the new mission, he vowed to end the U.S. military presence in Somalia in six months.

In his first public explanation of why American troops were in that lawless land and when they would be getting out, Clinton said he had rejected calls from Congress and elsewhere to "cut and run" from Somalia because he believed that both Somali lives and American credibility were at stake.

"We face a choice," the president said. "Do we leave when the job gets tough or when the job is well done? Do we invite the return of mass suffering or do we leave in a way that gives the Somalis a decent chance to survive?"

Clinton argued that the United States had an obligation to try to complete a humanitarian effort begun 10 months ago. "We started this mission for the right reasons and we're going to finish it in the right way," Clinton said.

[papau]

10. "Backed" the intervention before it was launched? - no - and as to

not "cut and run" so as to maintain credibility but still get out a few weeks - this puts Clinton in play as a supporter of the intervention?

By the way I like your choice of source - the MIT Web - for the Clinton quote. Add another item to the very very long list of things I did not know and still do not know how to use - the usefulness the MIT web. I go over there and get overwhelmed by all that is there - just like in the old days!

[moondust]

13. Well, maybe.

I think a lot of people including the talking heads had/have unrealistic expectations based on past wars against conventional forces. There's only so much one can do from the air against a civilian-based militia that has dug itself in deeply over a period of years. Nevertheless, I think you're obligated to do as much as you can from the air to try to minimize the danger ground troops will face when they inevitably do have to move in.

[PA Democrat]

14. And Nasrallah has become a hero

See this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1902567&mesg_id=1902567