Chris At Home

• My theory that Israeli indecision is actually psy-ops? I am doubting myself after reading this article by Right Wing Nuthouse. Olmert is just an idiot who is willing to throw soldiers into a slow-motion frontal offensive instead of listening to his generals. Or the military and political classes have exceptional discipline to stay on message and send blistering attacks at each other in the newspapers. You make the call.
  

  Those plans called for airborne landings south of the Litani River, bypassing the deeply dug in Hizbullah positions near the border as well as seaborne landings of troops north of the river. In effect, the IDF would then have put Hizbullah in a giant pincers, hammering them from the north with the paratroopers in their rear while holding them in place with forces from northern command on the border. The result:
  
  This would have surprised Hezbollah, which would have had to come out of its fortifications and confront the IDF in the open, in order to avoid being isolated, hunted down and eventually starved into a humiliating submission.
  
  This was exactly what the IDF senior command wanted, as Israeli military doctrine, based on the Wehrmacht’s blitzkrieg doctrine, has traditionally been one of rapid mobile warfare, designed to surprise and outflank an enemy.

  
  Instead, we have Israelis sitting in front of prepared positions. I may have overestimated the Israelis. In his discussion of Olmert and Peretz, Saus makes me yearn for Netanyahu.
  
  See Haaretz for an optimistic view: Hezbullah did everything right, Israel did everything wrong, but the Middle East is so scared of Hezbullah that Israel has a free hand.
  
  
• Saudi (and the Sunnis) try to buy Turkey's support as a buffer against Iran.
  

  This Ottoman Option is a wise strategy, in the short run. But in the long run, the Arabs will have to find a solution to a very Arab problem. Relying on Turkey, or any other country, for political action and power will only make the region’s powers that be even less willing to react to Arab demands, because dependency shows powerlessness in its most naked form. The Ottoman Option risks returning to the days of the Ottoman Empire, when the Arabs say in the shade of the ruins and Turks managed difficult political affairs. It should be noted that Alhomyed’s notion that America’s withdrawl from Iraq would do anything but hurt Arab interests is preposterous. The American presence is the only thing holding Iran back from unleshing a full out political offensive in Iraq, by way of militias or propaganda. If one thinks that the situation in Iraq is bad now with the Americans, Iraq without the Americans will be much more bloody, much more Iranian and much less stable.

  
  
• OpinionJournal says "I told you so" to those who oppose terrorist surveillance programs.
  

  And almost on political cue yesterday, Members of the Congressional Democratic leadership were using the occasion to suggest that the U.S. is actually more vulnerable today despite this antiterror success. Harry Reid, who's bidding to run the Senate as Majority Leader, saw it as one more opportunity to insist that "the Iraq war has diverted our focus and more than $300 billion in resources from the war on terrorism and has created a rallying cry for international terrorists."
  Ted Kennedy chimed in that "it is clear that our misguided policies are making America more hated in the world and making the war on terrorism harder to win." . . . And if the Iraq war is a diversion and provocation, just what policies would Senators Reid and Kennedy have us "focus" on?
  Surveillance? Hmmm. Democrats and their media allies screamed bloody murder last year when it was leaked that the government was monitoring some communications outside the context of a law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA wasn't designed for, nor does it forbid, the timely exploitation of what are often anonymous phone numbers, and the calls monitored had at least one overseas connection. But Mr. Reid labeled such surveillance "illegal" and an "NSA domestic spying program." Other Democrats are still saying they will censure, or even impeach, Mr. Bush over the FISA program if they win control of Congress. . . .
  The real lesson of yesterday's antiterror success in Britain is that the threat remains potent, and that the U.S. government needs to be using every legal tool to defeat it. At home, that includes intelligence and surveillance and data-mining, and abroad it means all of those as well as an aggressive military plan to disrupt and kill terrorists where they live so they are constantly on defense rather than plotting to blow up U.S.-bound airliners.

  
  CQ piles on, too, noting that the Brits relied on US communications intercepts.
  
  
• After France caves to Arab demands for an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, Lebanon announces they don't want any French troops in the peacekeeping force. Live and learn, Chirac.
  
  
• The Wapo mentions that the British airline plot involved calls to the US.
  

  A law enforcement bulletin issued Thursday by the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI described the conspiracy as "international in scope" but said there was no evidence that the plotters or any accomplices had set foot in the United States. "This plot appears to have been well planned and well advanced and in the final stages of preparation," the bulletin stated.
  
  One U.S. intelligence source, however, said some of the British suspects arrested had made calls to the United States.

  
  
• Iran says it won't suspend nuke activities, instead will expand them. We will use the oil weapon (which can be translate as "we will sanction ourselves if you threaten to sanction us"), blah, blah, blah.
  
  
• Court rules US can prosecute reporters who receive and transmit confidential information. Patterico says the decision is huge.
  

  In particular, newspapers might be prosecuted for disclosing the Swift counterterror operation, where the First Amendment argument is weak (because the public interest in disclosure was low, due to the program’s legality and strong safeguards) and the government’s interest in maintaining secrecy was high (due to the program’s effectiveness).
  ...
  The statute requires that the disclosure of classified information be accomplished “willfully” and with “reason to believe it could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any
  foreign nation.”

  
  
• VDH worries about the West's soul:
  

  There is a depressing pattern here. The sources for Western erroneous reports and faked pictures always seem to exaggerate the damage to Lebanon -- but never to Israel.
  
  Likewise, Western news agencies rarely list a precise number of Hezbollah losses, instead lumping them in with civilian fatalities. Does that mean that someone who launches a missile in Levis and sneakers is not a combatant?
  
  In addition, the history and nature of Hezbollah do not matter to many in the West.
  
  Knowingly or not, news outlets continue to spread Hezbollah's propaganda. One wonders if Westerners remember or know that, until Sept. 11, Hezbollah had killed more Americans than had any other terrorist organization.
  
  Most ignore as well that Hezbollah precipitated the present crisis by kidnapping and killing Israeli soldiers, and launching missiles against Israel's cities.
  ...
  The Western press -- usually so careful to condemn hate speech -- is utterly silent about Arab racism. But a European paper recently published a cartoon portraying Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as a Nazi, secure that no rabbi would issue threats that could cost the editors their heads.

  
  
• The US Embassy warns India of terror attacks as India's independence day approaches..
  
  
• Castro turned 80 today, still not seen in public. Raul is 75 and also hasn't been seen since assuming power.
  

Still, if Olmert had come to his senses as Golda Meir did during the Yom Kippur War, if he had become a leader, established a war cabinet and called the nation to a supreme effort that would change the face of the battle, a penetrating discussion of his failures could be postponed. But in blinking first over the past 24 hours, he has become an incorrigible political personality. Therefore, the day Nasrallah comes out of his bunker and declares victory to the whole world, Olmert must not be in the prime minister's office. Post-war battered and bleeding Israel needs a new start and a new leader. It needs a real prime minister.

This wishy-washy decision-making process cost the IDF lives, according to one senior officer. "A military force always needs to be on the offensive, pushing forward and keeping the enemy on its toes," he said. "When you sit still for too long, you turn into a target and you begin to get hit again and again."

Hizbullah did not wait for the official UN Security Council announcement on a ceasefire and launched its own media campaign declaring it had 'won the war against Israel.'

In the latest video aired on Al-Manar TV the terror group says it “defeated the invincible army” and “July-August 2006: Legend shattered.”