Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
Be advised there are graphic images of violence in this post, partly because the American TV networks have suppressed such imagery. Nothing is quite as elusive as Arab blood on American eyeballs. Now that's information warfare.
When God looks down on a "proportionate response," what does S/He see (via the agonist)? Beirut satellite image:
I won't go into details, but always look at Juan Cole's site. Some of the links come from there today. The Agonist is also essential reading, and Antiwar.com's blog. Good points about Western hypocrisy, and said today:
This whole thing was about Olmert proving he had stones as big as Sharon. (Shades of Fallujah in 2004 if you ask me.)
Pat Lang, formerly a top dog at the Defense Intelligence Agency, observes of the IDF withdrawal from Bint Jbeil:
Sounds Like They Couldn't Stand The Heat.
The IDF pulled its ground forces out of Bint Jbeil Saturday all the way back into Galilee. They fought there for days to take the town, lost some men and then started house demolitions. According to my Israeli sources, Hizbullah counter-attacked in strength starting Friday night. The next day Israel withdrew from the town.
It sounds like the politicians couldn't stand the prospect of real war. Or, more fancifully the IAF has laid an elaborate trap for HA. Some of the members of our seminar will prefer that idea.
A week ago the Jerusalem Post said that a "civil administration" (i.e. occupation) government for South Lebanon was being prepared, but it looks like it won't be needed at all.
Essential reading (and not just because I interviewed the guy!) in the Nation:
Anger in the Arab World by Rashid I. Khalidi - posted July 27
In what passes for analysis of the war involving Israel, Lebanon and Palestine in US and Israeli government circles, in the well-oiled PR machine that shills for them, and in much of the US media, we are told about a struggle against terrorism by a state under siege. The basic argument is that Israel is "responding to terrorist violence," and that the only real question is, How soon will Israeli force, backed by American determination, prevail? But this scenario has little to do with reality in the Middle East.
There will be no "destruction" of Hezbollah, and no "uprooting" of its infrastructure or that of Hamas, whatever the results of Israel's siege of Gaza and its merciless attacks against Lebanon. The rhetoric about "terrorism" has mesmerized those who parrot it, blinding them to the fact that Hezbollah and Hamas are deeply rooted popular movements that have developed as a response to occupation--of the West Bank and Gaza for nearly forty years, and of southern Lebanon from 1978 to 2000. Whatever one might say about the two movements' callousness in targeting civilians (a subject on which Israel's defenders are hardly in a position to preach), both have won impressive victories in elections and have provided social services and protection to their people.......
.....Much depends on whether an Israeli, American or Israeli-American war with Syria and, much more serious, Iran can be avoided. If escalation of what is already a major war in Gaza and Lebanon can be prevented, the conflict's regional effects will be mitigated. Much depends on how fast European public opinion, turning rapidly, expresses its revulsion at what is happening in Lebanon. Tales of the massive destruction and civilian casualties are being carried home by tens of thousands of French, British, Italian and German evacuees, many of them dual nationals, appearing on French and British TV talking about the atrocities they have seen. Much also depends on how adventurous Iran and Syria choose to be, how much punishment Hezbollah can take and still keep fighting, and how wise the Palestinians are in dealing with their difficult internal situation. And much depends on how far the man in the White House will go with his instincts. If he reins in his darker impulses and those of the Israeli general staff, which is running the show on that end of the alliance, the current slide into the abyss can yet be halted. If not, the Middle East and the United States are headed for catastrophe.
Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian: The neocon resurgence: The delusional US mindset that made the Iraq war a disaster has resurfaced in Lebanon. Lebanon Daily Star: "America's credibility will be a casualty of Israel's war: Whatever reasons arabs ever had to trust washington are going up in smoke".
Osama Bin Laden wins BIG: July 21: "Doing bin Laden's Work for Him" by Michael Scheuer, the CIA guy that ran the Bin Laden unit for years. Gotta read this one:
Most damaging for G-8 leaders will be this week's validation for Muslims of bin Laden's assertion that the West considers Muslim lives cheap and expendable. They will see that three kidnapped Israeli soldiers and several dozen dead Israelis are worth infinitely more to the West than the thousands of Muslims held for years in Israel's prisons, the hundreds already killed in Lebanon, and the eradication of Lebanon's modern infrastructure.
So bin Laden wins without lifting a finger........The impact of this Israel-Hezbollah round will not stop with the inevitable truce that will be declared after Israel ruins Lebanon. While temporary order may return to the Levant, America, Britain, and the West should not fool themselves. They have again gratuitously picked sides in a fight between two inconsequential nations; the survival of neither is a genuine national security interest for any G-8 state. Led by Washington's absurd, 30-year obsession with the minimal Shia threat to America, and blind to the hatred generated among Muslims by their foreign policies, the G-8 have mightily strengthened the enmity, durability, and resolve of the Sunni extremist movement that bin Laden leads and personifies.
Egyptian Al-Ahram Weekly On-Line: First Iraq, now Lebanon: Mainstream media is making the same excuses furnished in Iraq for the destruction of infrastructure and the mass killing of civilians in Lebanon, writes Firas Al-Atraqchi.
Where were those Israeli soldiers captured? Obviously the moral foundation of the war is that Hezbollah captured those Israeli soldiers over the 'Blue Line', inside Israel. But there are stories burbling up that they were actually captured inside Lebanon on some kind of Israeli commando raid. It seems implausible, but the story is out there.
Neo-cons ginning up Iran war NOW: This is a MUST-read: Iran: The Next War:
Even before the bombs fell on Baghdad, a group of senior Pentagon officials were plotting to invade another country. Their covert campaign once again relied on false intelligence and shady allies. But this time, the target was Iran. BY JAMES BAMFORD
This story HAS to be read. It explains the AIPAC spy scandal, how Ahmed Chalabi told the Iranians that the U.S. was reading their encrypted messages, how Michael Ledeen is gearing up the Iranian opposition to stir up more trouble in Iran. This is a very big deal. I won't quote a lot from here, but this story tracks with a lot of the stuff we've tried to cover here on HongPong in the past. And now it is really getting put into motion. Some jackass on National Review denies everything.
Lebanon Daily Star reports yesterday that Israeli military casualties has forced a change in Israel's military strategy, abandoning a large expansion of ground warfare.
Middle East Report: Israel's War Against Lebanon's Shiites by Jim Quilty in Beirut - July 25. Features copies of Israeli propaganda leaflets (pictured here). Lots of details about those tricky complexities of Lebanese politics.
CSM: UN deaths prompt 'diplomatic firestorm': Annan calls attack on observers in Lebanon 'apparently deliberate,' but Israel angrily denies charge. July 28: "Israeli strikes may boost Hizbullah base: Hizbullah support tops 80 percent among Lebanese factions." July 26: Asia Times Online: Hezbollah banks on home-ground advantage By Sami Moubayed.
Antiwar.com: Be sure to read Fourth Generation War in Lebanon by Ehsan Ahrari. Justin Raimondo: Lebanon: Are the Yanks Coming? Let's hope not…. and Lebanon: Winners and Losers: Bin Laden wins, and we lose. Also, Israel is winning the battle, but not the war on July 25. However, it appears they have lost the battle too. The Fire Next Time by Osamah Khalil about the impact on the rest of the Arab world. Lawless by Nebojsa Malic. Israeli Offensive Targeting Relief Efforts? by Aaron Glantz. Five Myths that sanction Israel's war crimes by Jonathan Cook. (This article was too long though)
On Iraq check out the review of Unembedded, about freelance photo-journalists in Iraq. The photo below was in the book.
Voice of America News conveys Lebanese refugee stories:
'Tehfa says the bombs are not the only danger. Yaroun is all but cut off from the outside world. "Plus, the people die without food. There is no water, no electricity, no gas. Nothing!" she added. Tehfa literally walked to safety, wearing a pair of black flip-flop sandals and carrying nothing but her shiny black handbag. After nearly two weeks under siege, she and a group of about 70 townspeople - waving a large white flag - walked six kilometers to the nearest village, a place called Rmeich. Another Australian, Fatima Salim, managed to find a car to take her to Rmeich, and then slept in a cramped apartment with 80 other people for three days. "I lost my mother, my brother, my sister-in-law. I do not know where they are gone," she said. "Because I go out from one door, they go out from another door. And for one minute, I cannot see my parents. I do not know where they are." '
Some angry Lebanese post photos of wounded Lebanese children, and photos of Israeli children writing messages on bombs. Graphic. They also posted images of the "Marwaheen Massacre" where Israeli jets pounded and killed a fleeing Lebanese familiy earlier in fighting. The family had previously been turned away from a UN post, which is why the Blue Helmets had to pick up the pieces, literally:
Washington Post editorial from Tuesday: "Air Power Won't Do It" as I said earlier. Interview from a week ago with a former Bush hand on Lebanon in Harpers.
News updates from Wednesday, noted because the Dell this fleeing Beirut guy is heaving over the fence looks just like the old HongPong server. Civilians killed as Israelis target ambulances. From nearly a week ago, the AP was reporting the tenacity of Hezbollah fighters against Israel. Hezbollah fighters popped up in Beirut shortly after Israeli bombings without delay. On the 26th, UK Times said Ferocity of Hezbollah comes as a surprise as Israeli intelligence turns out to be incredibly shitty:
[Israeli] domestic support remains strong, but the first cracks have appeared, with media commentators accusing the army of providing an “insulting level of intelligence” about Hezbollah’s defences. As they munched watermelon yesterday, sweating Israeli soldiers were visibly shocked by the stiff opposition they had encountered, describing their Hezbollah opponents as a “guerrilla army” with landmines and anti-tank missiles capable of crippling a Merkavah battle tank.
“It was really scary. Most of our armoured personnel carriers have holes,” a paramedic told The Times after recovering three wounded tank soldiers. “It’s a very hard situation. We were in Lebanon before but it wasn’t like this for a long time.” A tank commander said: “It’s a real war.” In the Galilee town of Safed, Brigadier-General Shuki Shachar, deputy commander of the northern forces, conceded that the foe was not an easy one. “Hezbollah is a fanatical organisation. It is highly motivated to fight. I don’t want to give grades to the enemy, but they are fighting. They are not escaping,” he said. He insisted, however, that Israel was “changing the balance” after a belated recognition that the Shia group was dug in deeper than expected.
“After a few days we realised that Hezbollah prepared itself over the last six years with thousands of rockets, with hundreds of shelters, bunkers, with hundreds of rockets hid in houses of civilians inside south Lebanon,” he said. [this is one of those small things you figure out BEFORE you launch a war --Dan]
His forces had never intended to “conquer every square inch” of Bint Jbeil but had now achieved their objectives of taking the high ground. Wherever the Israel Defence Forces decided to act, the general said, “we have no problem to do so, no restrictions”.
Which is why they have already departed Bint Jbeil. Because they launched a war unaware of the honeycombs of bunkers and rockets. Hmm.
Things are definitely getting worse in Iraq but at least we got Lasers now?!! under the radar, it seems. News analysis: U.S. could face a showdown with al-Sadr, even more so as the U.S. eggs Israel on to kill more Shiites. In a shrewd move, the U.S. Army fired a gay Arab linguist. War Crimes trials for abusing and torturing detainees are a possibility. Time magazine: How the Lebanon Crisis Complicates U.S. Prospects in Iraq. Democracy Now reports: Star Wars in Iraq: Is the U.S. Using New Experimental Tactical High Energy Laser Weapons in Iraq? It doesn't quite sound like a laser. My money is on directed microwave radiation... I won't make a joke, because this is too creepy:
MAJID AL GHEZALI: Just the head was burnt, and the other parts of the bodies wasn’t anything happened on it.
NARRATOR: Al Ghezali reported that he had seen three passengers in a car, all dead, with their faces and teeth burnt, the body intact, and no sign of projectiles.
MAJID AL GHEZALI: There wasn’t any bullet. I saw the teeth, just the teeth and no eyes, all of them. With the body, nothing for the bodies. Just the teeth, and all the -- I mean, the heads were burnt.
NARRATOR: There were other inexplicable aspects. The terrain where the battle took place was dug up by the American military and replaced with other fresh earth. The bodies that were not hit by projectiles had shrunk to just slightly more than one meter in height.
......DOCTOR NO. 2: It seems to be a new weapon.
SAAD AL FALLUJI: Yes, a new weapon.
DOCTOR NO. 2: They are trying to do experiments on our civilians. Nobody can identify what the type of this weapon.
Ohohoho those crazy Iraqis and their stories. "How could such a thing be true?" says the skeptic. One possibility: half a billion dollars in spending may have produced something larger than a pen laser to fuck around with occupied Muslim populations. The last bit of the article:
WILLIAM ARKIN: So, right now you have about $50 million a year being spent on non-lethal weapons. You have about another $200 million or so being spent on high power microwaves, active denial-type systems. You’ve got probably another $100 to 200 million being spent on secret black laser programs. And then you’ve got the big lasers, the high energy laser of the Air Force and the other tactical lasers. So probably, when you add all of that up, you know, the United States is probably spending a half of a billion dollars a year right now on directed-energy weapons, you know, probably somewhere in the order of 300-400 million euros. So this is a significant amount of money. This is the size of the defense budgets of some countries in Europe.
On a lighter note, Joe Klein on Lieberman's Last Stand and another one of his friends ditches him. Polls are showing Lamont doing real, real well. Oddly, we discover that John Ashcroft was against torture, which is part of the reason they got rid of him.
Blog bits: The Guns of August on DailyKos.com was an interesting roundup of everything. William Arkin tries pretty hard at the WaPo to keep tabs on this stuff. Al Qaeda says it ought to fight alongside Hezbollah and Hamas, a surprising twist. Some general remarks from Obsidian Wings. Neo-con blather about Arab governments supporting Israel turns out to be false. Arab-American Abu Aardvark notes that the Rome conference was a failure.
Idiot on Fox talks about how great it is that Israel attacked UN peacekeeping posts. Greek antiwar protesters toppled a statue of Harry Truman (bet you didn't see that one coming). Kind of a funny video of these cute (Iranian?) girls talking about how much they like Hezbollah.
More Haaretz of course: Haaretz has an interesting feature on how Israeli intelligence agencies have attempted to wrap their heads around Hezbollah's tactical reality. Opening a window on intelligence. "No Time to Lose" by Amir Oren is about the peculiarity of the blaring American "green light" to bomb the shit out of Lebanon. The plan was 2 kilometers "cleared", but it ain't happening. Hezbollah, an empire of millions. Big questions, great frustration indeed. Moral Muddle - interesting questions at an IDF base about the morality of killing Lebanese civilians. A kind of funny article about Arab journalists. Check out The turnabout will come quickly By Meron Benvenisti, a peace guy explaining why the war will be abandoned in Israel. From Wednesday, The war so far / No goals attained By Ze'ev Schiff. Was there a proper decision process? By Aluf Benn. Has the army failed? By Amos Harel Finally,
Morality is not on our side By Ze'ev Maoz
There's practically a holy consensus right now that the war in the North is a just war and that morality is on our side. The bitter truth must be said: this holy consensus is based on short-range selective memory, an introverted worldview, and double standards.
This war is not a just war. Israel is using excessive force without distinguishing between civilian population and enemy, whose sole purpose is extortion. That is not to say that morality and justice are on Hezbollah's side. Most certainly not. But the fact that Hezbollah "started it" when it kidnapped soldiers from across an international border does not even begin to tilt the scales of justice toward our side.
German paper Der Spiegel has INTERVIEW WITH LEBANESE PRESIDENT EMILE LAHOUD: 'Hezbollah Freed Our Country'.
Mitch Prothero in Salon.com on the bullshit about Hezbollah hiding among civilians:
Throughout this now 16-day-old war, Israeli planes high above civilian areas make decisions on what to bomb. They send huge bombs capable of killing things for hundreds of meters around their targets, and then blame the inevitable civilian deaths -- the Lebanese government says 600 civilians have been killed so far -- on "terrorists" who callously use the civilian infrastructure for protection.
But this claim is almost always false. My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been.
For their part, the Israelis seem to think that if they keep pounding civilians, they'll get some fighters, too.
The Anglican Christian Bishop in Jerusalem gets blown off by American Christians. Pretty scathing letter from the Bishop:
.....Movement of residents of the West Bank is difficult or impossible as “security measures” are heightened to break the backs of the Palestinian people and cut them off from their place of work, schools, hospitals, and families. It is family and community that has sustained these people during these hopeless times. For some, it is all that they had, but that too has been taken away with the continued building of the wall and check points. The strategy of ethnic cleansing on the part of the State of Israel continues.
This week, war broke out on the Lebanon-Israeli border (near Banyas where Jesus gave St. Peter the keys to heaven and earth). The Israeli government’s disproportionate reaction to provocation was consistent with their opportunistic responses in which they destroy their perceived enemy.
In her recent article, “The Insane Brutality of the State of Israel,” American, Kathleen Christison, a former CIA analyst says, “The state lashes out in a crazed effort, lacking any sense of proportion, to reassure itself of its strength.” She continues, “A society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer’s brutal murder of a thirteen year old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post (one of nearly seven hundred Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the Intifada began) is not a society with a conscience.” The “situation” as it has come to be called, has deteriorated into a war without boundaries or limitations. It is a war with deadly potential beyond the imaginations of most civilized people.
As I write to you, I am preparing to leave with other bishops for Nablus with medical and other emergency supplies for five hundred families, and a pledge for one thousand families more. On Saturday we will attempt to enter Gaza with medical aid for doctors and nurses in our hospital there who struggle to serve the injured, the sick, and the dying.
My plan is that I will be able to go to Lebanon next week - where we are presently without a resident priest - to bury the dead, and comfort the victims of war. Perhaps as others have you will ask, “What can I do?” Certainly we encourage and appreciate your prayers. That is important, but it is not enough. If you find that you can no longer look away, take up your cross. It takes courage as we were promised.
Write every elected official you know. Write to your news media. Speak to your congregation, friends, and colleagues about injustice and the threat of global war. If Syria, Iran, the United States, Great Britain, China and others enter into this war - the consequence is incalculable. Participate in rallies and forums. Find ways that you and your churches can participate in humanitarian relief efforts for the region. Contact us and let us know if you stand with us. I urge you not to be like a disciple watching from afar.
2 Corinthians 6.11:
“We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians, our heart is wide open to you. There is no restriction in our affections, but only in yours. In return - I speak as to children - open wide your hearts also.”
Blackwater blowback: As I just mentioned, the incident with the Blackwater guys in Fallujah was a big deal – so big, it may have crashed the American war effort altogether.
Well that took a long time. I am done blogging for a while, at least a few days. Things are too horrible to leave my mind in this frame. It's the last Saturday in July, and here I am, presenting all this death and doom. I don't want to spend precious days doing stuff like this any more.
Pretty Twisted:
Nasrallah threatens to fire missiles at central Israel, says Israel wants cease-fire, U.S. opposed
By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies
Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah on Saturday vowed to fire rockets on communities in central Israel if the military operation in Lebanon continued, and accused Israel of being an American "slave."
"The bombardment of Afula and its military base is the beginning ... Many
cities in the center [of Israel] will be targeted in the 'beyond Haifa' phase if the savage aggression continues on our country, people and villages," Nasrallah said in a speech aired on Hezbollah's Al-Manar television.
"The Israelis are ready to halt the aggression because they are afraid of the unknown. The one pushing for the continuation of the aggression is the U.S. administration. Israel has been exposed as a slave of the U.S.," he said.
"There are developments on the diplomatic front, and attempts to end the crisis, thanks to our strong position. The enemy attained no military achievements. They admit this," Nasrallah said, claiming that Israel suffered a "serious defeat" in ground fighting around Bint Jbial. Nasrallah said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed to impose conditions on Lebanon and to serve Israeli interests during her diplomatic mission to the region.
"Now Ms. Rice is returning to the region to try and impose her conditions again on Lebanon to serve her project, the new Middle East and to serve Israel," he said. Nasrallah pledged to cooperate with the Lebanese government, which has presented a peace package that could lead to the eventual disarming of Hezbollah. The guerrilla group's politicians in the government agreed to the package.
Nasrallah did not mention the proposals specifically. But he suggested that Hezbollah would not follow through with disarmament if the government compromises on conditions outlined in the Lebanese proposal.
"We are keen to cooperate with the government," Nasrallah said. But "for Lebanon to win the battle, it needs political will no less than the will of the resistance fighters in the field ... The government is required to act in a way that reflects the Lebanese people's steadfastness and unity," he said.
"We have a historic opportunity in Lebanon to liberate every inch of our land, regain of our prisoners and guarantee our national sovereignty, so that our skies, water, land and our people are no longer subject to Zionist violation and aggression," he said.
Over the last couple days, a ton of links have piled up. I'm going to break them up by source. There may be a few quotes but I just want to blast through them.
Haaretz - center-left Israeli paper "of record":
IDF leaves Bint Jbail; 6 soldiers hurt in clashes with Hezbollah
Israel rejects UN call for 72-hour halt in fighting; France 'regrets' decision; UN to remove observers from Israel-Lebanon border; Israel cool on UN role in peacekeeping force
Ahmadinejad: Israel pushed self-destruct button in Lebanon - July 28
Addressing the clerical staff of the Friday prayer sermons in Tehran, Ahmadinejad said Israel and its supporters "should know that they cannot end the business that they have begun."
"The occupying regime of Palestine has actually pushed the button of its own destruction by launching a new round of invasion and barbaric onslaught on Lebanon," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted the president as saying.
No hidden agenda - By Uzi Benziman - Olmert is going to be fucked over by this mess.
Analysis / The alternative to Hezbollah may be occupation By Zvi Bar'el, Haaretz Correspondent
Nasrallah: Our rockets will hit beyond Haifa:
Nasrallah charges Israel with having planned its attack on Lebanon that came after Hezbollah abducted two IDF soldiers for about a year. He hinted that Hezbollah had not anticipated the severity of the Israeli strikes, but said that by kidnapping the soldiers, Hezbollah had saved itself from a surprise Israeli attack.
"We eliminated Israel's element of surprise before its plans were completed," he said.
A glossary of delusions By Aluf Benn - very pissed at Israeli left, right, Hezbollah and the international community
Apache crash probably caused by friendly fire - back on Monday
3 reserve divisions to start training after call-up okayed - also has details of disagreements inside the Israeli cabinet.
Wounded troops describe Bint Jbail battle as 'hell on earth' - July 27
20 new words and sentences from the dictionary of war clichés by Shmuel Rosner. This might be my favorite:
Green light: The American green light has a down side. When you have a green light - you're expected to win!
We'd love to have a cease-fire (Tony Snow): When Hezbollah runs out of ammunition.
An 'e-mail from Nasrallah' by Tom Segev. Some guy named Nasrallah wants the kids to grow up in peace... Yousry Nasrallah, an Egyptian film director. There are a lot of good reflections from Robert McNamara and the documentary Fog of War:
The seventh lesson that McNamara offers to history is the most important of all: Very often, heads of states and armies do not really see what they think they see. They see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what's convenient for them to see. McNamara suggests that leaders take a second look at their assumptions at the moment of reckoning: Not only can intelligence be faulty, the basic conceptions guiding them may also be flawed. The communist threat that stood at the center of the Western world's thinking turned out years later to be an optical illusion. Today the Western world believes in the Islamic threat. The rhetoric accompanying the war in Lebanon sounds in part like it was borrowed from the Vietnam War.
This article was pissed at all sides: Justified, essential and timely By Avraham Tal
Contrary to what the critics are arguing, the IDF is not fighting a small guerrilla organization. It is dealing with a trained, skilled, well-organized, highly motivated infantry that is equipped with the cream of the crop of modern weaponry from the arsenals of Syria, Iran, Russia and China, and which is very familiar with the territory on which it is fighting. In such a showdown, even when you have tanks and fighter planes, the going is very slow, and, sadly, you must also pay a heavy price in terms of casualties.
Hawk suggesting they never considered all the missiles that would rain down on Israel: With a thunderous roar by Yoel Marcus.
Very recommended: Diminishing expectations By Doron Rosenblum:
This war, with all its hundreds of casualties and tremendous damage, broke out not because of the abduction of the soldiers, but because of a speech: Hassan Nasrallah's short, bragging speech in which he provoked Israel's new leaders.
Was it a clever trap laid by the wily fox, or perhaps one uncalculated moment of catastrophic hubris when, with that defiant smile, the Hezbollah leader told his listeners that Ehud Olmert, Amir Peretz and Dan Halutz are inexperienced and "small" as compared with Ariel Sharon? And, as though to add fuel to the fire, he emphasized the "small" with his fingers.
It's possible that the war would at least have been postponed if the prime minister or the defense minister had been a woman, or if Hezbollah had made do only with the incident in which soldiers were killed and abducted, without the provocative speech. But with that speech, and with this kind of cast on our side - bad-tempered Olmert, egocentric Peretz, arrogant Halutz - Nasrallah had a better chance of emerging unscathed if he stood barefoot in a puddle and stuck a nail into an electric outlet.... So the war, whatever its price, was unavoidable. Let us therefore not be surprised that it has no well-defined "strategic goals." It burst out reflexively, like a blow delivered below the belt.
The U.S. may have to resume talks with Syria By Shmuel Rosner: The U.S. realizes that Israel will probably not succeed in destroying Hezbollah's infrastructure.
Sources: Shin Bet issues warning to families of terrorists ahead of strikes
Now for other sources: I really recommend this overview of Hezbollah that tells pretty much the whole arc of the story, from the 1980s civil war to just before today: Boston Review: Hizbullah’s New Face: In search of a Muslim democracy by Helena Cobban (April/May 2005):
In 1985, the IDF withdrew from a large region stretching southward from Beirut and consolidated its positions within the so-called security zone, a broad strip of land inside Lebanon, running the length of its L-shaped border with Israel. Much of South Lebanon then became a free-fire zone for Israeli artillery, aerial bombardments, and periodic ground operations, all of which inflicted considerable casualties in the southern Shiite villages. But with the IDF’s permanent positions now removed far from Beirut, Hizbullah was able to establish a national headquarters in the Dahiyeh, and from there a group of talented political organizers set about building Hizbullah into a single, very effective nationwide party with its roots reaching deeply into the Shiite communities of the south, the Beqaa, and Greater Beirut.
All kinds of people, from hardscrabble farmers to well-educated members of the liberal professions, were brought into the constellation of mass organizations that the party established in every region, every profession, and every sector of the economy. Timur Goksel, who last year retired after 24 years as the chief political advisor to the UN’s (highly constrained) peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, told me how surprised he was to discover that the members of the first Hizbullah delegations sent to deal with him, in the mid-1980s, were not wild-eyed Islamist radicals but calm, serious men who were doctors, engineers, or businessmen: men of real substance in their local communities.
[snip]........Nasrullah’s leadership strategy—combining efforts at mass organizing and inter-group negotiating with a “militant” image and targeted violence—has many parallels with that pursued by the African National Congress leaders in South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s. And just as the ANC realized its longtime goal of establishing a one-person-one-vote system in South Africa, so too did Hizbullah succeed in May 2000 in winning an unconditional Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.
The contribution of mass organizing to Hizbullah’s early growth and to its success in winning Israel’s withdrawal has seldom been recognized in the west. It is true that Hizbullah built a smart, bold, and well-disciplined military wing that inflicted nontrivial harm on the IDF and its proxy forces from the so-called South Lebanon Army. That violence never came anywhere close to overwhelming the IDF militarily, but it did continue relentlessly, and the IDF was never able to suppress it. Meanwhile, over time, the IDF’s continuing losses in Lebanon spurred the emergence of a broad pro-withdrawal movement inside Israel that by 1999 had propelled the withdrawal issue to the top of the national agenda. The promise of withdrawal helped the Labor Party’s Ehud Barak win the 1999 election, and in late May 2000 he followed through.
That withdrawal was very popular inside Israel. But since 2000, a number of Israelis have expressed concern that Hizbullah’s success had “significantly dented Israel’s deterrent capability throughout the region.” Proponents of this view are largely right in judging that Hizbullah’s 2000 victory served as an inspiration to, among others, militant nationalists and Islamists inside the Palestinian territories. But they are wrong to attribute the victory solely to Hizbullah’s military capabilities. For what actually brought Barak to his very sensible decision to withdraw was his realization that winning the military battle in Lebanon (which Israel did many times between 1982 and 2000) could never be translated into winning lasting political gains there; Hizbullah always survived to fight another day. And the roots of Hizbullah’s remarkable resilience lay in the success of its mass organizing.......
......Nasrallah can be seen, then, as an extremely pragmatic political operator, both in his policies toward Israel and (as noted earlier) in the policies he has adopted within Lebanon. Several researchers have noted the tactical agility with which Hizbullah leaders have been able to develop and pursue a pragmatic political “program” (al-burnamij al-siyasi) containing realizable short- and medium-term goals while at the same time keeping in mind the political “ideology” (al-fikr al-siyasi) that defines their long-term goals. But these men’s political choices can also helpfully be seen (as Judith Harik has suggested) as the result of their shifting use of the four intersecting ideological “frames” within which they operate: Islamism, Lebanese nationalism, Arab nationalism, and global anti-imperialism.
All right, this post is getting too long. I will post a few more links in a while, from a more varied set of sources.
Mossad and IDF disagree over damage to Hezbollah
By Ze'ev Schiff and Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondents, and The Associated Press
Last update - 11:05 28/07/2006
The heads of two Israeli intelligence agencies disagree over how much the Israel Defense Forces assault has damaged Hezbollah, although both agree that the group has been weakened.
The Mossad intelligence agency says Hezbollah will be able to continue fighting at the current level for a long time to come, Mossad head Meir Dagan said.
However, Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin disagrees, seeing Hezbollah as having been severely damaged.
Both intelligence chiefs agree that Hezbollah remains capable of command and control and still holds long-range missiles in its arsenal, they said at a security cabinet meeting Thursday.
Yesterday there were protesters at Grand & Summit Avenues here in St. Paul. The first were a group of Jewish guys - Hassids I think. I stopped by to talk with them for a minute, but I didn't want to get confrontational. I mentioned how the Israeli government's decision-making process had been hasty, as reported in Haaretz (and noted here), the government hadn't actually looked at the possible consequences of its action. 'What about Hezbollah's process?' one replied. True enough. I wished them luck and was on my way. Later some peace protesters showed up across the street. I had no camera, but the photos would have been interesting.
That's the rough thing about it all. Everyday people in the middle of it get fucked over, injured and dead. Their societies are set back years as the belligerent groups get the upper hand, and the wheel keeps turning around and around.
It was Friday evening, the sun was setting, and soon it was Shabbas, one of the more perilous periods of reflection in some time. I can't say I would know what to do, what Israel's shrewd decision at this next turn ought to be. It is now clear to the directors of Israel's intelligence services that Hezbollah's ability to fire rockets into Israel is not going to be curtailed by military action anytime soon, and they are perfectly aware that Hezbollah's strategy is to bog Israel down in a very hot occupation as long as possible. If the Shiite organization survives (which it will, in one form or another) then they can claim their victory – a pyrrhic one, as always. Hezbollah has a new type of rocket with a range of around 90 kilometers that they launched at Afula.
Hezbollah unveils new rocket; UN official fears war will last into late August; Canada winds down evacuation from Lebanon
Jul. 29, 2006. 01:00 AM; KATHY GANNON - ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAQOURA, Lebanon—A top UN peacekeeping official said yesterday he feared the war in southern Lebanon would continue until late August and voiced fears Israel would flatten Lebanon's southern villages and destroy Tyre "neighbourhood by neighbourhood'' if Hezbollah rockets keep landing in the Jewish state.
At UN peacekeeping headquarters in Naqoura, barely a stone's throw from Israel, political affairs officer Ryszard Morczynski said Tyre would become a target of intense Israeli attacks because Hezbollah was firing rockets from the city's suburbs into Israel's northern port of Haifa.
Hezbollah boasted yesterday of a new kind of rocket it called the Khaibar-1 that it fired deeper inside Israel than the hundreds of others since the outbreak of fighting more than two weeks ago........
The guerrillas said they used the Khaibar-1 — named after the site of a historic battle between Islam's Prophet Muhammad and Jewish tribes in the Arabian peninsula — to strike the Israeli town of Afula.
"With this, the Islamic Resistance begins a new stage of fighting, challenge and confrontation with a strong determination and full belief in God's victory," Hezbollah said in a statement.
Five of the rockets crashed into empty fields outside Afula, causing no injuries. Still, Israel deployed a Patriot interceptor missile battery north of Tel Aviv, believing the area could be in range of Hezbollah's barrages.
Israel said the Khaibar-1 rockets were renamed, Iranian-made Fajr-5s. They have four times the power and range of Katyusha rockets, making them able to hit Tel Aviv's northern outskirts.
The United Nations decided to remove 50 observers from the Israeli-Lebanon border, locating them instead at better-protected posts with 2,000 lightly armed UN peacekeepers. The move comes days after Israeli bombs hit a UN observer station, killing three observers, while a fourth — Canadian Maj. Paeta Hess-von Kruedener — is missing and presumed dead.
About 12,500 Canadians have fled Lebanon, out of about 40,000 believed to be in the country, and Foreign Affairs officials said the evacuation effort is in its final phase. Ships ferrying Canadians out of Beirut yesterday and today were the last planned daily trips.
Grand Strategy or Lack Thereof: Beyond those battered few thousand meters of South Lebanon, there is the matter of Grand Strategy, the highest order of statecraft and international politics. The whole thing still looks like a Clean Break war. It's built on the same fanciful foundation as the war in Iraq. The true neo-conservatives launched the war in Iraq with a set of goals – among them was rebalancing the Middle East to make Israel and the United States the dominant or hegemonic powers. The major Neo-con strategy was to manipulate the balance of power between Sunnis and Shiites. Oddly, President Bush himself apparently didn't know the difference between Sunnis and Shiites when he invaded Iraq, according to some reports, so he didn't realize that his war would turn Iraq into an Iranian satellite state, and apparently his advisors didn't tell him. This is peculiar (video/source):
Oborne: I traveled to Boston to meet a former U.S. diplomat who had been a leading authority on Iraq for over a decade. A chance remark made just two months before the war, hinted at how the complexities of Iraq had bewildered Americans at the highest levels.
Peter Galbraith - former U.S. diplomat: January 2003 the President invited three members of the Iraqi opposition to join him to watch the Super Bowl. In the course of the conversation the Iraqis realized that the President was not aware that there was a difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. He looked at them and said, "You mean...they're not, you know, there, there's this difference. What is it about?"
....For the United States to launch a war where the president is not aware of this very fundamental difference between Sunni and Shiite Arabs is really stunning. It's a bit like the U.S. president intervening in Ireland and being unaware that there are two schools of Christianity - Catholics and Protestants.
Bush might have thought twice about invading, had he known that the majority religious Shiite parties are very, very much like Hezbollah. (the Neo-cons knew it: they thought it would be a great way to scare the hell out of Saudi Arabia).
Iraq's ruling Dawa Party: Hezbollah's Cousin: Right now, the Iraqi Dawa Party and Prime Minister Maliki support Hezbollah, infuriating Israel's supporters in Washington. It is obvious why they do. Dawa, one of the core Shiite parties now controlling (most of) Baghdad, and its government backed with so much American blood and treasure, well, those Dawa guys support Hezbollah over Israel. Dawa and Hezbollah are not "the same" but as political and religious movements, they are part of the same current, very close in their interests, and their work as Iranian allies. Dawa has a history of operating like a secret society, terrorist organization and mysterious influencer of events from the East, essentially. (the Hashshashin - the mythical Cult of the Assassins - were called al-da'wa al-jadīda - and seemed a bit similar) Dawa operated a secret connection to fellow Shiites through the worst of times in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere. They were tied right into the bloody 1991 Shiite rebellion in Iraq. Be sure to check out Juan Cole's background on Dawa here and here.
In 1980s Lebanon, branches of Dawa were part of the Shiite side of the civil war – and they wanted the West out of there. 200 million Americans are hearing every day that Hezbollah blew up the Marine Barracks. But the vast "Hezbollah" entity of today didn't exist at all then. Who blew up Western stuff all the time? Shiite "fanatics" linked to the Dawa Party. Hezbollah and Dawa are very hard groups of people, enmeshed deeply within the whole population.
As Juan Cole added:
February 11, 1984, Saturday: Trial Of Bomb Blast Defendants Opens
By ALY MAHMOUD (KUWAIT) - Associated Press
Twenty-one defendants accused of bombing the U.S. and French Embassies last December were formally arraigned today, as their trial began under extreme security.....
Five people were killed and 86 injured in the rash of bombings on Dec. 12. Besides the U.S. and French embassies, four Kuwaiti targets were bombed.
The prosecution has demanded the death penalty for 19 of the defendants. The others are believed to have played a lesser role in the bombings in and around the capital of this oil-rich Arab nation . . . Of the other defendants, 17 are Iraqis; two, Lebanese, three, Kuwaitis and two are stateless. Most of them said they belonged to Al-Dawa (Islamic Call) Party, an Iraqi movement of Shiite Moslem fanatics who are pro-Iranian, said court sources who asked not to be identified.
The Chinese are furious: The Israelis have bombed the hell out of UN positions in South Lebanon, killing 4 UN observers including a Chinese one, and the Chinese are furious about it, as well as America's actions in the UN to take the pressure off Israel. This was part of a strategy to get that pesky international community out of the way where it won't see Israeli atrocities. Fortunately for the Lebanese, their country isn't sealed off like the West Bank and Gaza, and even if American viewers don't see a lot of carnage, the rest of the world does.
It should be noted that China has many interests in Iran's oil and natural gas fields. If the crisis with Iran escalates, China will be directly involved, defending Iran.
Lebanese Refugee Tsunami: And of course, the Lebanese population is churning all over the place, tossed out of their homes, with results unknown. Chris Allbritton at Back-to-iraq.com is reporting on this situation, currently down in the battered Lebanese city of Tyre. This chaos will take a few more weeks to become fully realized by the world. These refugees will slosh around this hot, hot summer, and who knows where they'll end up? That alone is a huge, shocking problem that the Israelis have generated with an unreal, frightening vigor. I didn't expect this right now, especially from a dorky-looking non-general named Ehud Olmert.
Neo-cons expanding the war: For some of them (of course, Michael Ledeen type guys, obviously) goal was to spark a broader regional war, a great settling of scores, a Battle Royale from the Mediterranean, across the Levant, into Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia and Saudi Arabia. Whenever the crisis heightened, Ledeen said, "Faster Please," and there it went.
After the neo-conservatives' crappy war plan in Iraq shattered the country, I thought that would be the last massive war they'd be allowed to spark. I thought that the "realists" and experienced military people would sense that they were in too deep, and would reel things back. Clearly, I didn't give the neo-cons enough credit.
That's the spooky subtext to everything happening now. Israel has local interests in setting a deterrent on their northern border, while the United States has an interest in a stable Lebanon that isn't folded into some massive war. That's the reality, but to the Neo-cons and other lunatic hawks that yet again dominate our televisions, there's a vast illusion that Hezbollah can be made to evaporate like a saucer of water with a touch of strategic bombing, and HAMAS will topple after the U.S. sends a few letter bombs to Syria's president Assad. The Neo-cons still have a firm belief they have that demonstrations of force will make all these boisterous Arabs fold their cards. They see this as a golden opportunity to join Israel and American wars into one colossal mega-war... They always forget that Israel's enemies are not America's.
These guys don't understand fourth-generation warfare at all. They are trapped in a mindset of total war against enemy populations. They want to bomb away the enemy populations, rather than negotiate on shared interests. They view these enemies as an existential threat, rather than a threat to the interests of their state. And of course, these days all the hawks cannot even explain a difference between the interests of the United States and Israel.
The Prisoner's Dilemma: The jail is the heart of the state. (all this time we thought it was General Motors - but they're pretty much fucked)
Aside from the actual acts of the war, the presentation of this war to the Israeli and American publics is interesting. It revolves around the morality of negotiations, pure and simple. Is it moral to force Israel to negotiate with HAMAS and Hezbollah on the issue of their captured prisoners – and, as we never hear about, the thousands of Arab prisoners, including Lebanese, held by Israel. The morality of Israel's Arab prisoners is marked at "terrorist," and that is the end of an unspoken rule here in the United States.
Of course, the Bush Administration is facing its own prisoner crises, as their clever decision to quit the legal system altogether has produced a creepy shadow zone – of secret prisons that infuriate the Europeans, extraordinary renditions, torture: a vast, violent cancer in America's intelligence system.
Iraq's Abu Ghraib was a prisoner's dilemma as much as the Extremely Bloody Deal About Four Soldiers ripping up vast, unstable areas of the Middle East right now. In Iraq we have a matrix of private contractors who: develop "intelligence" by holding prisoners, interrogating them, running teams around, going out to on raids with U.S. troops. This kind of stuff is how those Blackwater mercenaries got hung from the bridge in Fallujah.
No less an authority than Janis Karpinski, the general blamed for Abu Ghraib, announced that Israelis had operated in Abu Ghraib, evidently as contractors. Regardless of how proper it is for "third-party nationals" to roam America's foreign (expanding!) military prisons, the matter of Iraqi prisoners is... salient, to say the least. It is obvious that the U.S. practice of rounding up lots of people and dumping them in places like Abu Ghraib is resonating with the Israeli prisoner issue.
Bomb your way out: And then there is the matter of tons upon tons of American bombs subtly being passed to Israel and blown up all over the place, pissing off British citizens. Subtle as... bombs all over the place, killing the "innocent" and the "guilty." It is eerie, to say the least, that the United States is propelling the conflict higher and higher, quite apart from Israel's actual interests.
Well, that's all for now. Check out this video of the ambassador to the Arab League on Lou Dobbs. He gives Lou the old-one-two, and Lou sucks. Glad I don't have CNN now.
