Myth Versus Reality

David Ignatius of the Washington Post makes a few good points and more than a few that are questionable.

The challenge for the Bush administration as the Lebanon war explodes into its second week is just that — to keep faith with Siniora and his Cedar Revolution, even as it stands by its close ally Israel. This isn't simply a question of appearances and public diplomacy. Unless Siniora's government can be strengthened, there is little hope for achieving the U.S. and Israeli goal of bringing Hezbollah's guerrillas under lasting control.

"America's role is to energize a political outcome that helps to satisfy Israeli military objectives by other means," says one administration official. The problem is that the American diplomatic timetable is so slow that by the time a cease-fire is reached — more than a week off, by U.S. estimates — Lebanon may be too broken to be put back together anytime soon.

Administration officials rightly insist that returning to the status quo in Lebanon would be a mistake. After last year's triumph of forcing a withdrawal of Syrian troops, Siniora's government was struggling (and largely failing) to establish a viable nation. This nation-building effort was hamstrung by Hezbollah's insistence that it maintain what amounted to a state within a state.

Quite right. Hezbollah completely controls Southern Lebanon and that area is off limits for the Lebanese Army. There are whole sections of Beirut where Lebanese police or soldiers are not allowed. The status quo in Lebanon is not a recipe for success.

The administration's strategy is to let Israel do the dirty work of breaking Hezbollah and then move in a foreign "stabilization force" to bolster the Lebanese army. Once Israel has pushed the guerrillas north, this international force would help the Lebanese army deploy to the southern border with Israel and the eastern border with Syria. The plan is for a beefed-up successor to the existing United Nations force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL.

The administration's informal deadline for getting a U.N. mandate for this new international force is July 31, when UNIFIL's current mandate expires. The French now command that force, and the United States hopes they can remain in that role, with new troops coming from such robust military powers as Italy, Turkey and Canada.

UNAFIL is, quite frankly, a joke. They can, as they have demonstrated repeatedly, do nothing to stop the Hezbollah from doing whatever they pleased in Lebanon. So to count on them is wishful thinking at best.

Siniora has privately warned the Bush administration that by bombing so many targets in Lebanon, Israel is undermining its own strategic goals. Lebanese are angry with Hezbollah for starting the war by kidnapping Israeli soldiers, and most want to see the militia under government control. But Siniora has asked why the Israelis are hitting Lebanese airports, ports, roads, villages and other targets that primarily affect civilians. And he has criticized attacks on the Lebanese army, which even the Israelis say is the key to long-run stability and security.

I do not understand Israel's targeting, nor do I think I know enough to judge whether it is right or wrong, despite the opinions of people like Mr. Ignatius. Example: We hear a lot that Israel is "targeting civilian" areas/homes/sectors, etc. But are they? Are the areas being hit under the control of Lebanon? Or are they areas where Hezbollah holds sway? Because the picture changes depending on the answer.

Supporting Israel and Lebanon at the same time is a tricky task — especially at a moment when the bombs are flying between one nation and the other. Unless the administration moves quickly to demonstrate that it supports the Siniora government, and not just Israel, its larger strategy for defusing the conflict may begin to unravel. Administration officials recognize that a stable Lebanon cannot be achieved by military action alone. But for now, all the world sees is Hezbollah rockets and Israeli bombs.

Do I think Lebanon should be free? Yes, I do. Do I think Hezbollah Should be ejected from Lebanon. Yes I do. Do I think opinion pieces like Mr. Ignatius' help?

No.

Please Mister Postman

Oh yes, wait a minute Mister Postman
(Wait)
Wait Mister Postman

Please Mister Postman, look and see
(Oh yeah)
If there's a letter in your bag for me
(Please, Please Mister Postman)
Why's it takin' such a long time
(Oh yeah)
For me to hear from that boy of mine

There must be some word today
From my boyfriend so far away
Pleas Mister Postman, look and see
If there's a letter, a letter for me

Apparently, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been writing to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, asking for help with Zionism and the Palestinian problem. A German official who has seen the letter describes it as, "Rather weird". (Which pretty well sums up Ahmadinejad, don't you think?)

“It’s all related to Germany and how we have to find a solution to the Palestinian problems and Zionism and so on. It’s rather weird,” The official, who has seen the letter, said.

Iranian students news agency said on Wednesday that Ahmadinejad had written to Merkel, but until Thursday officials had not spoken about the contents.

Zionism is a political movement that supports a homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, now the state of Israel. The fate of Palestinian Arab refugees is one of the world’s largest and most long-lasting refugee problems.

Berlin’s relations with Ahmadinejad have been complicated by his denial of the Holocaust, in which Germany’s Nazi regime killed six million Jews, and his call for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany punishable with up to five years in prison.

“It’s extremely touchy (for the German government),” said the official, adding that the government did not yet know if or how it would respond. “There are a lot of propaganda phrases about Israel and the Jews inside.”

'He is not criticizing Germany'

In May Ahmadinejad wrote US President George W. Bush an 18-page letter discussing religious values, history and international relations.

In it, he took swipes at Israel and at the United States.

He sharply criticized Bush on many fronts, implying that the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, abuses of detainees in US prisons in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib—and his staunch support for Israel—were somehow inconsistent with Bush’s Christian beliefs.

But the letter to Merkel was different and was not confrontational in tone, the official said.

“It’s not negative like Ahmadinejad’s letter to Bush. He is not criticizing Germany,” he said. “It’s basically about how we have to work together and solve the problems of the world together.”

One can but assume that the psychopathic, deranged nutjob president of Iran is assuming the Germans will support his version of a final solution.

Time is running out to stand up to this madman. Better wake up people.

Swirl

Anthills

Ha'aretz reports that IDF forces are advancing into Lebanon looking specifically for tunnels, often hidden under "civilian" homes. The Hezbollah terrorists are hiding in the tunnels, emerging occasionally to launch rockets at civilian targets in Israel. The problem with hiding the rockets in tunnels under houses and using the occupants of the houses as human shields is that that behavior would be a war crime under the Geneva conventions. As would the intentional rocketing of civilians. The "brave" Hezbollah fighters hide like ants. And hide behind civilians, then pop out of their anthills to launch a rocket at civilians before running back under cover to hide. Like cowards.

Major-General Benny Gantz, who serves as the head of the Ground Forces Command, said on Thursday that ground fighting in limited areas in Lebanon would continue despite the IDF's causalties.

Hezbollah bunkers are well-hidden and discernible only from a close distance, said Gantz. "The operation is challenging, difficult and complex. Unfortunately, there is the price of casualties, but the other side, unlike us, doesn't report their casualties," he added.

Thousands of Israeli troops are operating in south Lebanon where they are targetting Hezbollah positions. Among their activities, they are searching for tunnels dug by Hezbollah militants. According to the army, Hezbollah fighters have taken refuge inside these tunnels - often dug under homes in villages - along with their rockets, and that they occasionally emerge to fire one into Israel.

Now, since the organization that Hassan Nasrallah leads, Hezbollah, is committing war crimes, he is subject to prosecution for those war crimes. We look forward to the Hague issuing warrants.

Don’t Blame Bush

Jacob Weisberg, writing in Slate, explains why the situation in Lebanon cannot be blamed on Bush, despite all the attempts to do so. He's right, those pointing the fingers neglect all the past failures. They neglect that this situation has continued down it's same, sad path for longer than I have been alive. Nothing has worked, nothing has solved the problems.

We don't really know why Hezbollah chose the moment it did to end this fragile truce by launching a raid that killed three Israeli soldiers and resulted in the kidnapping of two others. Was it acting out of rivalry or solidarity with Hamas' preceding attack from Gaza? Did Iran, which is Hezbollah's chief sponsor, order the attack or merely enable and encourage it? We don't know whether Syria, which is the chief backer of Hamas, was a planner or merely a conduit for Hezbollah's Iranian weapons. Nor can we say with much assurance whether the Lebanese government, which includes significant Hezbollah representation, allowed terrorists to rule the south because of weakness or sympathy.

We do know enough, however, to divide responsibility for the current war among these players: Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon. This has not stopped many analysts in Europe and the United States from laying blame for the violence squarely at a less obvious doorstep—that of the Bush administration.

The real fault here lies with the ones who have provoked this war, not those who responded to the provocation. You really need to read all this piece. Weisberg does a good job of dismantling the attempts to lay blame at Bush's feet point by point.

101st Blog Of The Day

Today my ongoing mission to visit one member of the Fighting 101st each day led me over to Technicalities. Theresa has an excellent post up detailing some of the difficulties in evacuating a large number of people from a war zone. She provides a nice little smackdown to the reporters/politicians/lefties who are performing much wailing and gnashing of teeth over the "slowness" of the US evacuation.

Is It Live?

Or is it Memorex? As the old commercial used to say was it an older recording or a new one recorded after the Israeli strike on the Beirut bunker last night? Hassan Nasrallah appeared in an interview on Al-Jazeera and said the entire Hezbollah leadership was intact. It's really impossible to say if he actually mentioned the specific raid from last night or was speaking in generalities.

Hizbullah leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, spoke for the first Thursday since the beginning of the week, saying Hizbullah's entire infrastructure and leadership hierarchy were still intact and functional.

"I can confirm without exaggerating or using psychological warfare, that we have not been harmed," he said, referring to the strike.

Al-Jazeera, which aired only excerpts of the interview, said it was taped earlier Thursday. The interviewer said the interview took place amid tight security precautions but did not say where.

Nasrallah has been in hiding since Israel's onslaught began July 12, though he gave a speech on Hizbullah television on Sunday.

"Hizbullah has so far stood fast, absorbed the strike and has retaken the initiative and made the surprises that it had promised, and there are more surprises," he said, warning that a Hizbullah defeat would be "a defeat for the entire Islamic nation."

Nasrallah added that, "All of Israel's talk about 50 percent of our infrastructure being damaged is nonsense."

Nasrallah said that, "even if the entire world will demand it," the kidnapped Israeli soldiers would only be released for Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails through negotiations.

He did not offer any information regarding the condition of the soldiers.

It's interesting that al-Jazeera only showed portions, isn't it? Makes you wonder what was left unsaid.

37 Years Ago Today

Man stepped onto the surface of the moon. It has been too long since man last stood there. To mark the anniversary of the first landing, Buzz Aldrin and Rick Tumlinson have written an article for Space.com that is worth reading.

These men, and the 18 others that followed, and the thousands who worked for years to put them there were removed from the intrigues of international brinksmanship and bravado. To them this was a quest, a good thing to do, the right thing to do.

Anointed as those with the "right stuff," they were just normal people who worked through their fields to find themselves in the right place and time to be given a chance to change history. They were heroes because they did what they did not for money or personal power, but to fulfill a dream, to do the impossible simply because it was "impossible."

They were heroes because we made them heroes, because we needed heroes, just as we do today.

Real heroes, not made up, marketed, managed, media meat heroes, but people who put it all on the line, as part of a team, to do the right thing and do it as well as it can be done. No marketing deals, no personal hype, no agents bickering over million dollar deals, no walk-outs over damaged egos or who got top billing, they just did their job, did it to the maximum of their abilities, and when it was over, went on with their lives.

Unified under the banner of the quest, their fellowship took them, and us, to a place unknown, and opened up for us a new idea, that this tiny world of ours is not the only one upon which we can stand, and that we, as humans, can do incredible things in the name of a dream.

Read the whole thing. It's worth taking the time to do so. To remember. And hope.

Read the whole thing. It's worth taking the time to do so. To remember. And hope.

Loss Of Patience

Victor Davis Hanson has a piece up over at Real Clear Politics that points out that Western patience is wearing thin for the Islamists. Nothing we have tried for the last 50-odd years has worked especially well. Negotiations and concessions lead nowhere, but only provide a brief respite before the next outbreak on violence from one group or another.

But despite that sound conventional wisdom, an exasperated West is running out of choices in the Middle East.

For years, the Arab world clamored for the Israel "problem" to be solved. Then peace and security would at last supposedly reshape the Middle East. The Western nations understood the "problem" as being Israeli retention of lands it had captured in Sinai, the West Bank, Gaza, Syria and Lebanon after defeating a series of Arab forces bent on destroying the Jewish state.

But after the Israeli departure from Sinai, Gaza and Lebanon, and billions of dollars in American aid to Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians, there is still not much progress toward peace. Past Israeli magnanimity was seen as weakness. Now Israel's reasoned diplomacy has earned it another round of kidnapping, ransom and rocket attacks.

Finally, the world is accepting that the Middle East problem was never about so-called occupied land — but only about the existence of Israel itself. Hezbollah and Hamas, and those in their midst who tolerate them (or vote for them), didn't so much want Israel out of Lebanon and Gaza as pushed into the Mediterranean altogether. And since there will be no second Holocaust, the Israelis may well soon transform a perennial terrorist war that they can't easily win into a conventional aerial one against a terrorist-sponsoring Syria that they can.

Hanson goes on to detail more of the outrages that meet concessions and appeasement. In the end it comes down to this:

Yet for all their threats, what the Islamists — from Hezbollah in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley to the Iranian government in Tehran to the jihadists in Iraq's Sunni Triangle — don't understand is that they are slowly pushing tired Westerners into a corner. If diplomacy, or aid, or support for democracy, or multiculturalism, or withdrawal from contested lands, does not satisfy radical Islamists, what would?

Perhaps nothing.

What then would be the new Western approach to terrorism? Hard and quick retaliation — but without our past concern for nation-building, or offering a democratic alternative to theocracy and autocracy, or even worrying about whether other Muslims are unfairly lumped in with Islamists who operate freely in their midst.

Any new policy of retaliation — in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and the West Bank — would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.

This, then may be the end result of wearing out the West's patience. You could see the beginnings of that at the G-8. Despite the almost mandatory complaints of "disproportional response" on Israel's fault, the group laid blame squarely at the feet of Hezbollah. Russia concurred. Even Saudi Arabia has reached a point where it is willing to break ranks with other Arab counties.

Let's hope the world pulls this together real fast. Read the whole thing. Hanson at his best.

Woodpecker Weward

Apropos this story, the Corps of Engineers has decided to solicit proof of any ivory billed woodpeckers from the Arkansas public.

This shouldn't take long.

Big Dig - Bigger Pain

Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts has ordered the immediate shutdown of the Eastbound lanes of the Ted Williams tunnel after defective bolts were spotted during inspections.

Romney said state engineers had found two bolts in the Ted Williams Tunnel that appeared to have slipped 1/2 inch and 1 inch in one ceiling panel.

"It is perhaps an overreaction but we want to err on the side of public safety," Romney said at a news conference in which he said he was overruling an earlier finding by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority that the tunnel was safe.

State inspections of Boston's Big Dig tunnels began after 12 tons of cement ceiling panels fell on a car inside a connector tunnel on the night of July 10, killing 38-year-old Milena Del Valle.

The connector tunnel, a stretch of Interstate 90 that leads to the Ted Williams Tunnel, was shut down immediately, and inspections found hundreds of problem with bolts holding its ceiling panels in place.

The eastbound Ted Williams Tunnel, operating only since 1995, was also closed to the general public but it had been open to buses going to the airport. An initial assessment from the Turnpike Authority found no potential problems that rose to the level of a public safety threat, said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom.

"We've gone back and looked at those areas, and based on what we've seen Gov. Romney is overruling that assessment and shutting down the eastbound section," Fehrnstrom said Thursday.

After the deadly collapse, engineers conducted "pull tests" on the ceiling panels in the connector tunnel and found hundreds of bolts secured with epoxy that were unreliable. A second tunnel ramp was closed for safety concerns, and crews began removing all the ceiling panels in the two.

The ceiling panels in the Ted Williams Tunnel are secured with a different system, and they weigh much less, about 800 pounds each compared to 3 tons. (Emphasis added)

Attorney General Tom Reilly has launched a criminal investigation and is considering whether involuntary manslaughter charges are warranted. His inspectors are focusing on how the concrete panels were designed, whether they were secured properly for their weight and if they were tested properly.

This is ugly and I predict that it will get uglier before it is all finished. The new flaws prompting the shutdown of the tunnel are in a completely different support system than the one that caused the original collapse. It's going to keep expanding for a while as these new types of concerns emerge. Inspectors are going to be going crazy right about now.

Side Effects

The Anchoress has a post up about some side effects that have occurred in patients who have received embryonic stem cell implants that proponents have failed to mention. It is not pretty. It seems the media forgets to cover little nightmares like these when they are hyping an issue. You might want to keep information like this in mind when you start hearing the distortions.

Iranians Witnessed North Korean Missile Tests

The State Department confirmed that North Korea's recent flurry of missile launches was observed by "one or more" Iranians.

Asked at a U.S. Senate hearing about reports that Iranians witnessed the July 4 tests, Assistant Secretary of State Chris Hill, the chief U.S. negotiator with Pyongyang, replied: "Yes, that is my understanding" and it is "absolutely correct" that the relationship is worrisome.

Hill's comments are believed to be the first public U.S. confirmation that Iranian representatives observed the seven tests, which involved one launch of a long-range ballistic missile, which failed soon after being fired, and six tests of short and medium-range missiles.

Hill said the six succeeded in hitting their target range.

At this point the level of coordination between these two rogue regimes should be apparent to all but the Clueproof™. There is, of course, no way of getting that through to that particular group.

Descent Into Madness

In what can only be described as a complete descent into madness, a Federal judge has stopped construction of a $320 million irrigation project because of concerns about an imaginary bird. The Ivory Billed Woodpecker has not been credibly sighted since 1948 and has been believed to be extinct. Suddenly a kayaker reports seeing one just exactly in the spot that will block a project. Nobody has been able to find any sign whatsoever that the reported bird actually exists.

Scientists had thought the ivory-billed woodpecker was extinct until a kayaker reported spotting one in 2004 near the White River in eastern Arkansas. Ornithologists flocked to the area but were unable to prove conclusively that the woodpecker exists.

U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson said that, for purposes of the lawsuit, he had to presume the woodpecker exists in that area. He said federal agencies may have violated the Endangered Species Act by not studying the habitat fully.

"When an endangered species is allegedly jeopardized, the balance of hardships and public interest tips in favor of the protected species," Wilson wrote. "Here there is evidence the IBW may be jeopardized."

At the same time, aquifers beneath eastern Arkansas soybean, cotton and rice fields have become less reliable water sources. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last year began construction on the Grand Prairie Irrigation Project, 14 miles from where the bird was spotted.

I wish to go on record as stating unequivocally that I have seen a dodo bird in my back yard. I demand lots of Federal dollars to study the habitat immediately (small bills, no consecutive serial numbers, please). Then I can make my neighbor take down that big new shed he built that blocks my view!

Iran To UN: Yeah, Sure

Iran continues to stall and announced it will not respond to the package of incentives agreed to by Western powers until August 22nd. They also warned that any sanctions would cause Iran to "revise it's policy".

In a statement read on state television Thursday, nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani also said Iran would take until August 22 to reply to an international offer of incentives in exchange for a halt of uranium enrichment.

But he also accused the United States, which has lumped Iran into an "axis of evil", of trying to derail diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis.

"According to the adopted plan to generate 20,000 megawatts of atomic energy over the next 20 years, the Islamic republic has decided to make some of its own nuclear fuel inside Iran," said the statement from Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.

He said Tehran was "ready to find a diplomatic solution with a suitable calendar for both parties" but issued a warning to the Security Council — currently discussing ways to pressure Iran into freezing enrichment.

"If the path of confrontation is chosen instead of the path of dialogue, and if there is any action to limit the absolute rights of the Iranian people, the Islamic republic will have no choice but to revise its policy," the statement warned.

Iran says it only wants to enrich to the low levels needed to make reactor fuel and that this is a right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The technology can, however, be extended to make weapons. Iran's failure to disclose its programme for nearly two decades aroused suspicions that it wants weapons and thus brought demands for a suspension.

Even though Russia is also indicating it is running out of patience with Tehran, the Mullahs continue there complete disdain for real negotiation. It should be obvious to the West that this is simply not going to work. A united front backed by the threat of force might still avert a crisis, but time is running out rapidly. The old model will not work on Iran, something different is required.