Lebanon (Superthread)

[Scoobie Newbie]

para are you serious about being unbiased?

 

[paracowboy]

para are you serious about being unbiased?

I'm very serious. Their only interest is in what is good for trade. And peace is good for trade. War disrupts commerce.

 

[a_majoor]

The Economist, like any magazine or newspaper, does indeed have "bias", as Paracowboy suggests they are pro business and in our terms "right of centre". On the other hand, it depends on where you stand, in the United States many people would say the Economist is "left of centre", reflecting the differences in British and American political culture. People who find Steven Harper "scary" would be hard pressed to discover very substancial differences between his domestic policies and American Democratic Party domestic policies (foreign affairs is a very different world, but the "scary" factor did not revolve around that in the past), even though the same people were probably hoping John Kerry would have been elected as POTUS.

Getting back to Lebanon, Hezbollah is busy on the 4GW front, this time attacking through the internet:

http://www.time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,1224273,00.html

How Hizballah Hijacks the Internet
The group pops up on unwitting Web sites around the world in order to communicate, recruit and fundraise
By HILARY HYLTON/AUSTIN

What do a small south Texas cable company, a suburban Virginia cable provider and Web-hosting servers in Delhi, Montreal, Brooklyn and New Jersey have in common? Since fighting broke out in Lebanon, they all have had their communications portals hijacked by Hizballah. Hackers from the militant Lebanese group are trolling the Internet for vulnerable sites to communicate with one another and to broadcast messages from Al-Manar television, which is banned in the U.S. In the cyberterrorism trade it is known as "whack-a-mole" — just like the old carnival game, Hizballah sites pop up, get whacked down and then pop up again somewhere else on the World Wide Web.

"As the Israelis tighten the noose on Hizballah in Lebanon, these communication nodes become critical," said Fred Burton, a former U.S. counterterrorism official and now vice president of Stratfor, a security consulting and forecasting company in Austin, Tex. In today's asymmetrical warfare, the Internet is vital to groups like Hizballah who use it to recruit, raise money, communicate and propagandize, Burton said, including transmissions from Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

The recent hijacking of a South Texas cable operator is a case study in how Hizballah moves in. The Texas cable company has an agreement with a New York-based satellite communications aggregator, which moves feeds to a variety of customers from throughout the world, including Lebanon. A technician in New York made an "improper connection," according to an official with the cable company's communications provider who detailed the hijack for TIME. That opening was detected by Hizballah.

Al-Manar, widely considered a mouthpiece for Hizballah and categorized as a terrorist group by the U.S., linked to the small cable company's IP (Internet Protocol) address, which can be thought of, in simple terms, as a telephone number. Hizballah essentially added an extension on that telephone line allowing their traffic to flow. Hizballah then gets the word out through e-mail and blogs that it can be found at that IP address and the hijack is complete. If the hijack is not detected, the IP address can be linked to a new domain name and that opens up the site to anyone who might search online for Al-Manar content. Hizballah uses these Web sites to run recruitment videos and post bank account numbers where supporters can donate funds.

Hijackings are normally quickly discovered by the Society for Internet Research, an informal consortium of self-described "freelance counterterrorists" who sit in home offices and dens tracking jihadist activity on the Internet. In turn, they alert the media or simply call the hijacked company. Alerted to the south Texas hijack, the cable company's communications provider reported the incident to U.S. authorities and the IP address was shut down.

Perhaps, the most famous player of the "whack-a-mole" game is Aaron Weisburd, 42, a computer programmer who operates one of the Society's projects from his home office in southern Illinois. His Web site, Internet Haganah — the name is an homage to Israeli paramilitary fighters — tracks Hizballah and other groups as they wander the Web. Weisburd's hijack logs go back for several years and include the latest Hizballah hijacks since fighting began. "Notice to the jihadis in the audience," he writes on his site. "You can't hide."

Burton said shutting the sites down is a "double-edged sword." As a former U.S. counterterrorism official, he sees the value of keeping the sites up so intelligence services can collect "forensic" evidence. "It's important to see what they are saying," he says, noting that Hizballah has resource bases in Indonesia and the tri-border area (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay) of South America. Given Hizballah's links to Iran, which offers its operatives diplomatic cover around the world, according to Burton, monitoring Hizballah's Internet presence is vital as part of the "cat and mouse" game with Western intelligence. But shutting them down also limits their fundraising, recruiting and propaganda efforts, Burton said.

In March, the whack-a-mole players gained a new weapon in their fight when the U.S. Treasury announced that any U.S. company found to be doing business with Al-Manar will be subject to sanctions and possible prosecution. The new rules mean that freelance counterterrorists can remind slow-moving, reluctant or even compliant Web hosters that they face financial sanctions if they do not act to shut down Al-Manar. The south Texas cable company's communications provider was quick to alert U.S. authorities and the portal closed, but Hizballah was just as quick to play the whack-a-mole game and a new site sprang up from an Indian Web-hosting company within hours. Said Burton: "As long as the war drags on, these communication portals will be critical as Hizballah tries to get its global message out across the world."

 

[Sask HCAO]

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Israel's Security Cabinet recommended Wednesday that the Israeli military expand its campaign against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Israeli ground forces are now authorized to push up to the Litani River, 18 miles (29 kilometers) inside Lebanon, in an attempt to eliminate Hezbollah threats. Cabinet Minister Eli Yishai told The Associated Press the proposed operation was expected to take 30 days, although a U.N. cease-fire resolution is expected before then. The plan will go into effect once it is formally approved by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz, according to a statement from Olmert's office.

The ministers are expected to sign off quickly on the plan, but the AP, citing an Israeli Security Cabinet minister, reported Israel's offensive would not begin for two or three days to allow time for further U.N. debate on a cease-fire resolution.It is unclear if the agreement allows Israel to call up more reservists. About 10,000 Israeli troops are on the ground in southern Lebanon, according to Israeli military analysts.

A dramatic troop deployment began early Wednesday along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Israeli tanks headed across the border as machine gun fire rattled the darkness. Heavy barrages of artillery, including rocket-propelled grenades and tank shells, fired from multiple Israeli locations. The Israel Defense Forces reported some casualties among its soldiers in heavy battles with Hezbollah fighters in the southern Lebanese towns of Aita Al-Shaab and Debel. Arabic-language networks are reporting the casualties include 11 deaths, but the IDF did not confirm that number. Meanwhile, diplomats still hoped for a vote Thursday on the U.N. resolution aimed at ending the conflict, but an Arab-backed proposal that calls for a full Israeli withdrawal threatened to tip "a very delicate balance" and set the process back again, a Bush administration official said.

Israeli helicopter gunships also took the fight to Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp Wednesday.The attack on Ain El-Helwe camp in the port city of Sidon killed at least one person and wounded at least six, said Sultan Abu Alaynen, the head of Fatah in Lebanon.
Earlier, Israel attacked Ghaziye, also near Sidon, killing eight civilians and wounding more than 30, according to Lebanon's security forces.

Rescuers also scrambled to pull at least five bodies from the rubble of a three-story building in Mashghara in the Bekaa Valley after an Israeli airstrike leveled it, a Lebanese relief worker said. Later Wednesday, the Israeli military struck Beirut's southern suburb of Haret Hreik. Lebanese TV showed heavy smoke rising from the area. An Associated Press photographer at the scene said the strike hit a largely abandoned Hezbollah stronghold about a mile from where mourners were burying the dead from an earlier attack. About 400 people were in a funeral procession, the AP report said, with marchers chanting, "Death to America! Death to Israel!" after the strike.

Diplomatic maneuvering
At the United Nations, the timetable for an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon continued to be a sticking point in negotiations to end the fighting. Diplomats said U.N. Security Council members need to get "back on the same page" by an early enough time Wednesday to see a vote on a cease-fire resolution the following day. At issue was the Lebanese government's proposal to send 15,000 troops into southern Lebanon -- provided all of Israel's forces withdraw -- and to move a U.N. force into the disputed Shebaa Farms region, a sliver of land occupied by Israel that Lebanon claims but the United Nations has ruled belongs to Syria.

A diplomatic source familiar with the negotiations said that the French are pushing new language in the resolution taking the Arab concerns into account -- including specific text on the Shebaa Farms region. The source said the French are trying to redraft many parts of the resolution -- a move that makes U.S. officials nervous.

A Bush administration official keeping track of the U.N. developments said the White House is "sympathetic" to the concerns raised by an Arab delegation. But the official said, "We want a final product that has a reasonable chance of success." The United States is concerned the Lebanese army will be not able or willing to stop the resupply of Hezbollah and is not convinced that a bolstered U.N. peacekeeping force could do the trick either. The official added that Israel has "even stronger" views on the matter.

As of Wednesday, Israeli casualties in the conflict stand at 105 dead, including 38 civilians, and more than 700 wounded, according to the IDF. Lebanese security forces said that 800 people have died, most of them civilians, and nearly 3,135 have been wounded.

 

[tomahawk6]

Fifteen Israeli soldiers killed today including 9 reserve paratroopers. Most were killed by anti-tank missiles.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525834576&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Nine reserve infantry soldiers from an elite unit were killed on Wednesday afternoon when an anti-tank missile was fired at the house they were stationed in during clashes with Hizbullah forces in the village of Dbil in the western sector of south Lebanon.

 

[aluc]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&pubid=968163964505&cid=1155161413976&col=968705899037&call_page=TS_News&call_pageid=968332188492&call_pagepath=News/News



Just thought I'd throw this in here ... it piqued my interest.  We don't share a moment of silence for our fallen servicemen/ women, be it police, firemen, military....yet we should do this for a family who rarely lived here, yet chose to live in a country that had a travel warning imposed on it by our government.  :'(

Borough bans moment of silence
Move angers Montreal's Lebanese community
8 members of one family killed in Israeli attack
Aug. 10, 2006. 01:00 AM
DENE MOORE
CANADIAN PRESS

MONTREAL—Some members of Canada's largest Lebanese community are outraged after a borough council refused requests for a moment of silence to recognize the deaths of a Montreal family killed in the Israeli bombardment of southern Lebanon.

The mayor and council in Côte-des-Neiges/Notre-Dame-de-Grâce rejected two requests from the public to recognize the tragedy during their meeting earlier this week.

"It was refused for political reasons," said Wissam Moussa, a member of the Lebanese Muslim Youth Association who made one of two requests for a moment of silence.

Senator Marcel Prud'homme, a former Liberal MP with a long-standing interest in the Middle East, called it hypocrisy.

"I think it's unbelievably sad that (the council) did not see fit to keep a minute of silence," Prud'homme said.

But Mayor Michael Applebaum said yesterday the tragic deaths have been hijacked by Hezbollah supporters who are bringing the war home to Canadian soil.

"It was clearly political," Applebaum said, adding that a simple recognition of the nine members of the Al-Akhrass family wasn't the objective.

"We all believe there should be peace in the Middle East but it wasn't proposed in that manner."

The neighbourhood was home to Ali Al-Akhrass, 36, his wife Amira, 23, and their four children, Salam 11 months, Saja, 8, Zeinab, 6, and Ahmad, 4, who were all killed in Lebanon on July 16.

Ali Al-Akhrass' uncles Ali El-Akras, 70, and Ahmed Al-Akhrass, and Ahmed's wife, Haniya, were also killed when their home collapsed during bombing of the village of Aitraroun, near the Israeli border.

The council has held only one moment of silence in the past, a motion brought by a council member after the death of Pope John Paul II.

Canadian Press

recognize the deaths of a Montreal family

  You mean a Lebonese family with a Canadian "get out of jail for free" passport.

 

[a_majoor]

From the Jerusalem Post:

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525841930&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Comment: Not too late to win


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BINYAMIN NETANYAHU, THE JERUSALEM POST  Aug. 10, 2006

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The government's decision comes late, very late, but not too late.

Destroying Hizbullah's fighting capacity and missile arsenal remains the objective that Israel must achieve. Clearly, air power alone cannot do so and a major ground offensive is necessary. While this should have been done considerably earlier, it nevertheless should be done today.

Firstly, on the military front, our goal should be victory over Hizbullah, a proxy military force for Iran.

Secondly, on the hasbara (public relations) front, we have to fend off the attacks and vilification of Israel in order to gain time for the military objective.

And thirdly, on the civilian front, the government must immediately declare a state of emergency. This is a war that, for the civilians, is worse than previous wars - longer and more costly in lives and property.

These are the objectives that I will support.

In war, you must achieve your objectives. It is painful, but it will be much more painful for the country - in lives lost, cities paralyzed and security imperiled - if we have to face future rounds because we did not win this one.

The writer is the leader of the opposition.

This article can also be read at http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525841930&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

 

[tomahawk6]

Looks like a deal may have been cobbled together. I have to say any ceasefire now makes Israel look weak and ineffectual,not good when you are in a fight for your very existence. Hopefully Hizbollah wont agree. The Israelis were almost at the Litani on one axis of their advance when they got the order to stop.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749019.html

"The breakthrough is based on the inclusion in the call for a cessation of hostilities for a progressive Israeli withdrawal from Lebanese territory to go simultaneously with the deployment of the Lebanese army backed by reinforced UN peacekeepers."

The source said the peacekeepers would mainly be reinforced by French soldiers. As part of the deal, Hezbollah would pull out from south of the Litani river.

 

[Infanteer]

I have to say any ceasefire now makes Israel look weak and ineffectual, not good when you are in a fight for your very existence. Hopefully Hizbollah wont agree. The Israelis were almost at the Litani on one axis of their advance when they got the order to stop.

I hardly think it is a literal "fight for their existence" - Hezbollah is not going to overwhelm Israel and the IDF any time soon.

In the end, it may be better for Israel; the last time they advanced into Lebanon for what Prime Minister Begin (a military lightweight like Olmert) said would be a short campaign ended in a 18-year guerrilla war that led to the creation Hezbollah (and subsequently Hamas) and probably caused irreparable harm to Israel's political (think Sabra/Shantila) and military reputation (the 2000 pull-out was seen as a victory by its foes).  Hopefully, with what amounts to a bloody draw, a bit of the legitimacy of the Lebanese government can be preserved and a regional conflagration can be averted.

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

I agree, maybe the locals might think that having Hezbollah hanging around isn't that great at all.........and if Hezbollah tries to re-arm, the trail should be easier to spot right now..............Iran anybody?

 

[paracowboy]

for all we know, they may have met their goals by bringing in a third party. We really don't know what the over-all strategic goal of Israel was. If they had one.

 

[tomahawk6]

If they launched attacks into Lebanon with no strategic goal then they made a serious mistake. You dont begin military operations without a clear mission statement.

 

[nowhere_man]

I just found this on CTV dunno if it was posed already but it shocked me. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060719/mideast_hezbollah_060719/20060721/
Now I'm not so shocked that there are people out there who are supporting them but the picture at the top suprises me. I'm pretty sure doing a heil is not acceptable from anyone especially a "legal militant group". It makes me mad that people stick up for a group of radicals that see nothing wrong with doing the Nazi salute.

 

[cplcaldwell]

It seems for this to end there must be a shake up in several places.

Since we are talking about the protagonists, here an article on Emile Lahoud, Lebanon's president from today's Globe and Mail.

Interesting that Shaikh Nasrullah seems to have more power than the President eh?

Oh and as final BTW, the G&M recently did a piece on Micheal Aoun. 

Some thoughts, if Hezbollah has to disarm, where does that leave Nasrullah? If Lebanon has to step up to the plate where does that leave Lahoud? And whither Aoun?

Coming soon, Nabih Beri!

<edit: removed references to wiki>

 

[paracowboy]

Wikipedia is not considered to be a valid source to cite 'round these parts.

 

[tomahawk6]

The Shia are a minority in Lebanon and many have simply moved into Syria, where the current government is a Shia minority as well. The movement of a million Shia into Syria may not be seen very favorably. One way to distablize Syria I suppose.

The Litani river will make a decent boundary that can be secured by Israel and later an international force.
The Lebanese Army is very heavily Shia and would not be a very effective force in keeping Hizbollah out. Of course all this will be moot if Hizbollah is rearmed with long range rockets from Iran.

 

[nowhere_man]

Note in the G&M article how he didn't think of using the 70,000 members of the army to try and stop Hezbollah. He only thought it would be dumb to go against the Israeli army.

 

[Infanteer]

A promising sign, but the proof will be in how the UNFIL force is stuctured.  Solid military forces with a robust Chapter VII mission will be required to ensure that Hezbollah is disarmed.  Israel and the IDF cannot afford to accept anything less.  Let us see how this pans out....

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/08/11/mideast-fighting.html

Israeli PM accepts UN ceasefire proposal
Last Updated Fri, 11 Aug 2006 18:10:35 EDT
CBC News
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted a UN ceasefire draft resolution that calls for the immediate and full cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah militants.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talks with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in Annan's office at UN headquarters on Friday. (Associated Press) Olmert will recommend that his government approve the deal in its meeting on Sunday, said Gideon Meir, a senior official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

But Meir said the military offensive, which expanded in Lebanon on Friday, would continue for the time being and it is unclear when hostilities would cease.

The UN Security Council was set to vote on the new resolution Friday night. The U.S. and France came to an agreement earlier Friday on the final wording of the text after days of negotiations.

The draft would authorize the deployment of up to 15,000 troops with UNIFIL — the acronym of the UN force deployed in the region since 1978. They would accompany and support the Lebanese armed forces in south Lebanon to gain control over Hezbollah-controlled areas.

As that deployment begins, Israel would have to withdraw its forces "in parallel."

The resolution calls for a new buffer zone in south Lebanon "free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and UNIFIL."

It also authorizes the UN force to "resist attempts by forceful means" against those who would prevent it from carrying out its mandate.

'A robust force'

Israel had been concerned that a UN force would be ineffective in controlling Hezbollah. Before agreeing to withdraw its troops from Lebanon, Israel had said it wanted the force deployed under the UN Charter's Chapter 7, which would give the UN troops more robust rules of engagement.

But the U.S., which had shared Israel's concerns, believes this larger UNIFIL force will be much stronger.

"It is, as we see it in this resolution, a robust force and one that's capable of meeting the job," State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

Earlier, Olmert had given the go-ahead to the expansion as a means of denying Hezbollah a base to launch missiles into northern Israel.

Olmert and Defence Minister Amir Peretz were reported to have met for several hours before the decision was made.

Earlier this week, Israeli leaders approved the push to Lebanon's Litani River, about 30 kilometres from the Israel-Lebanon border, but then decided to hold off while diplomats at the United Nations worked on reaching a negotiated ceasefire.

Fighting continues

In the latest attacks, Israeli jets killed at least 14 people across Lebanon, including at least a dozen in an attack on the Abboudiyeh border crossing in the northern part of the country.

The attack on the crossing into Syria left only one official border crossing from Lebanon to Syria open.

Explosions were also reported in Beirut's southern suburbs, as reports indicated Israel was targeting Hezbollah positions in the area.

Israeli warplanes also struck three vehicles in the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, killing at least one person. As well, one man died when his motorcycle was hit on a coastal highway between Sidon and Tyre.

For its part, Hezbollah responded by firing more than 150 rockets into northern Israel. No casualties were reported.

According to the Associated Press, more than 800 people have died since the fighting started. They include 727 in Lebanon and 122 in Israel. Other sources put the numbers higher in Lebanon.

 

[tomahawk6]

This article shows how screwed up the decision making process was/is.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525851147&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Something about the drama emanating from the Prime Minister's Office Wednesday afternoon, when the security cabinet debated sending ground troops north to the Litani River, didn't seem quite right.

Here we were, fully four weeks after the start of the war against the Hizbullah, following an initial period of unprecedented domestic support and a long diplomatic rope the US gave Israel to deliver the Hizbullah a stinging stripe, and only now was the security cabinet dealing with Defense Ministry and IDF plans to take the ground operation to the Litani River and beyond.

The drama seemed somewhat artificial, misplaced, more the product of a flawed decision-making apparatus than any critical resolution that needed to be reached precisely at that time.

Everyone, but everyone, knew that the 12-person security cabinet would ultimately approve the plans.

For 28 days, according to former National Security Council head Maj.-Gen. (res) Giora Eiland, the army was operating against secondary targets - in Beirut and just north of the border - when the bulk of the Katyusha launchers that were raining havoc on the North were positioned south of the Litani, well beyond where the IDF had already reached.

The army obviously also realized this, and indeed, two weeks ago, when it first discussed widening the ground operation - after realizing air power alone was not going to do the job - the security cabinet brought two proposals for a wider operation to the government.

The first proposal was more modest - clearing out an area six to eight kilometers from the border (itself no cake walk). The second alternative was for an operation to the Litani. Both Olmert and Peretz favored the first, and it was accepted. Only National Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer (Labor) and Pensioner Minister Rafi Eitan (Gil) supported the wider operation.

But as the rockets continued to fall, Peretz gave instructions to the IDF senior staff last Thursday night to prepare plans for a Litani operation - and it's reasonable to assume these plans had been readied long in advance and sitting in someone's drawer (if not, then why not?)

By Monday morning, following the attack on Kfar Giladi that killed 12 reservists, and the rocket barrage on Haifa that killed three civilians, Peretz threatened to launch the wider operation if the diplomatic process leading to a UN Security Council cease-fire did not bear any fruit.

WHICH RAISES the following questions: Why, if the Litani idea was first raised two weeks ago, and Peretz told the army to prepare for it last Thursday, did it take an additional six days for the proper forum to be convened and the decision formally made? Why wait? Especially if the security cabinet decision that was passed contained a clause giving Olmert and Peretz authority to determine - obviously with an eye on how the diplomatic situation was shaping up - when to actually start the operation.

Indeed, when the guns fall silent, and the country begins seriously taking stock of the management of the war and the decision-making process, how and when the decision to expand the operation to the Litani was made, and how it was acted upon, will surely be brought under close scrutiny.

Indeed, one of the criticisms that so angered Peretz inside Wednesday's security cabinet meeting was when his predecessor, Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz, asked why a plan to go to the Litani was not presented during the first days of the war.

Inside the Prime Minister's Office, a feeble reason for delaying the security cabinet meeting until Wednesday was proffered: It takes time to draw up plans.

Outside the loop, however, there was simply bewilderment. "I don't know," Eiland replied when asked why the government waited so long to approve a wider operation.

And then Eiland, a sharp critic of how key decisions are made at the government's top levels, added an observation that called into question the whole decision-making process. "The wrong way to solve problems or to manage conflicts in the 21st century is to say, 'OK, we are the political echelon, and we will wait to see whether the army has new proposals and plans that they want us to approve. We are waiting until they come to present them to us.'"

And, indeed, that is what seemed to have happened. Olmert, at a press conference Monday following a meeting with President Moshe Katsav, was asked about criticism leveled by OC Command Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam to the effect that the political echelon was holding the military back. (Adam was effectively sidelined later that day.)

Olmert's reply was telling, and seemed a perfect illustration of exactly what Eiland was talking about.

"Regarding the military operation, up until yesterday morning (Sunday), no operative plan was brought to me to widen the picture beyond the lines where the IDF is today," Olmert said, his words coming across as a bit defensive. "I have heard all kinds of things, and read all types of articles in the press: I repeat my statement, I met yesterday, together with the defense minister, with the northern commander and with all the top army officers, and told them what I am telling you now. There has not been one case along the way that a proposal for military operations was brought for our approval and was not approved. Yesterday was the first time, I stress the first time, that a proposal was brought to us to deviate from the lines beyond where the army is today. I approved bringing that proposal to the security cabinet, and the security cabinet will deal with it tomorrow. We will deal with it and at the end of the day there will be a decision."

According to Eiland, this model of decision-making - of sitting back and waiting for the IDF to come with proposals and suggestions - is fundamentally flawed.

"This is not the way to do things," he said, adding that the military and political echelons needed to work closely together, not one waiting for the other to provide a proposal or solution.

Eiland, who has had a ring-side seat and provided policy options to the country's top decision-makers for years, said that 90 percent of the problems they face are neither purely military nor purely political. "Everything has a direct influence on everything else," he said. "Every political problem has a military dimension, and vice versa."

In a thinly veiled criticism of the current decision-making process, Eiland said, "the real group of the right people need to meet every day to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the situation."

What should not be done, he said, was for the cabinet to wait until the army felt the time had come to present something. "That is not the way things should operate," he said.

Yet, by Olmert's own admission, that is exactly how they are operating - which may be one of the factors explaining why matters look as inconclusive today as they do.

 

[couchcommander]

The resolution itself:

http://us.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/11/un.draft/index.html

Something I found interesting:

OP12. Acting in support of a request from the government of Lebanon to deploy an international force to assist it to exercise its authority throughout the territory, authorizes UNIFIL to take all necessary action in areas of deployment of its forces and as it deems within its capabilities, to ensure that its area of operations is not utilized for hostile activities of any kind, to resist attempts by forceful means to prevent it from discharging its duties under the mandate of the Security Council, and to protect United Nations personnel, facilities, installations and equipment, ensure the security and freedom of movement of United Nations personnel, humanitarian workers, and, without prejudice to the responsibility of the government of Lebanon, to protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence;

What are your opinions as to whether or not this would actually result in the UN force being able to keep hezballah from firing rockets and/or launching raids on the Israeli border?