The next step
A number of people have been complaining about the ambivalent conduct of the Israelis in their war against Hezbollah. They are losing, say these people, both on the battlefield and in public opinion. Maybe so....
But maybe not. Today, we saw the smiling face of Ehud Olmert after his meeting with Condi Rice. Ms. Rice agreed once again there could be no cease fire until the Israeli soldieers are freed (in other words, after Hezbollah is destroyed). We learned almost simultaneously that for the first time the Syrian border with Lebanon has been shut down by Israel missiles. Tonight we hear that more IDF tanks are crossing into Southern Lebanon. Where are they headed?
There are several possibilities. Earlier the Central Command left Bint Jbeil and Maroun Al Ras and headed toward Tyre and Sidon. Are these new tanks going to replace them or are they bound elsewhere? Like the Bekaa Valley? We shall soon see. My guess is that Hassam Nasrallah, who, from his hiding place, today called Israel a "temporary nation," is at the command of a very temporary movement.
rogerlsimon.com
Things are not quite as they appear to be
Israeli soldier (later Major General Yossi Ben Hanan) cools off in the Suez Canal in the Six Day War. Note captured AK-47 rifle. Israeli soldiers often traded their unreliable carbines and short-range Uzis for AK-47s taken from captured or killed Arab soldiers.
Look, I'm just a common every day schlub. I don't pretend to be a master expert in military strategy. My only military experience is about 4 years as a Civil Air Patrol Cadet in my teenage years during the 70's and that doesn't count for anything. I don't pretend for one second to be able to read minds. But I do know my history, I do know how to play a mean game of chess, and I can read a topographic map pretty damn good.
I've been watching the war from afar. I haven't been able to comment daily as I've been really busy with real revenue generating work instead of blogging. But I have come to one conclusion based on what I've seen and what we've heard.
It's all crap.
It's not the usual bias that I'm complaining about. It's not the usual "reporting news the way they want things to be" as news instead of commentary that is going on.
It's that I don't think what is happening – or what is being reported as happening is necessarily what is happening.
Relax for a just second loyal readers, I'm not the "black helicopter" type, that's not what I'm saying.
Here's what I'm talking about. When you see news coming from Israel, its censored. That's a good thing. I support that, its saving lives. When you see news from Beirut, its also censored. It's also mostly propaganda. It's a fact. I think were all over the age of 5 here, so I don't think anyone who reads this blog is going to slap themselves in the head and shout " Oh say it isn't so!"
But knowing this simple set of facts, knowing that both sides want to put the best shine on their version of the story at all times, then ask yourself this;
"Why is it that stories coming from Israel this week are so damn pessimistic"?
Israel has press organizations, agents and other people to spin the story. They can put the proper pressure to ensure on the media to ensure that the story is told as close to the way they want it told. Yet, the stories coming from Israel seem to me to be bleak and nasty and full of fear and dissention, almost to the exception of any sort of good news.
Today, my "spider senses" started to twitch when I watched a news story told from a hospital from Israeli troops who had just returned from inside Lebanon. They were talking about the Hezbollah troops like they were 20 feet tall, each of which had 6 popeye sized arms with a .50 caliber machine gun and a full belt of ammo in each oversized hand.
I thought to myself for just a second, this doesn't feel right. First, the only info that gets out is the info they want out, so why would Israeli government officials be so interested in letting this message get out? These are Israeli troops. These are not European conscripts. These guys know what defeat means. It means they will be feeding their families to the ovens of Hezbollah and the Iranians. They will fight to the death because failure means the end of everything. There is no line of retreat for Israelis. To Israelis there is no honor in losing, just death.
Israelis don't talk like this in battle…so why are they and more importantly, why are we seeing it?
Shouldn't the message being sent by the Israelis be " We're jubilant, we're winning, we're happy joyful fighters protecting our homeland, kicking the crap out of the Arabs again"? We've always seen that before haven't we? even when they faced attacks by big armies from all three sides at once, they were cheery and happy in the face of battle. Defeatism and doubt are not things that you hear from the Israeli army.
Why send or allow to be sent, the exact opposite of that message?
One possibility is that things really are bad. Ok, I can accept that. But are they? Work with me for a second. Let's ask ourselves the question again in a slightly different way;
"Why would any government be interested in sending a message of their own weakness at the beginning of a shooting war"?
Well, you do it because you want the enemy to commit. You want the enemy to be in the best place for you to deal with them, not in a place where they can defend or they can retreat from.
Many of the key important battles of history have been fought with this basic strategy in mind. You have a line of troops. You skirmish with your enemy for a while and then your lines begin to fall apart in the middle. Your troops in the center of your line begin to retreat. In the heat of battle, your opponent believes that the lines have broken and pours his troops into the now widening gap with the hope of splitting your forces in two.
Your opponent has now committed himself.
The only problem is, the gap in the lines didn't open because your opponent was beating your troops, the gap opened because your troops maintained the discipline to follow orders.
Your troops in the center fell back because they were ordered to.
What your opponent failed to see was that on each of the "horns of the bull" were reinforcements, horse calvary, heavy shock troops, and more men than he had counted on, hidden on the hills just behind the battlefield. What was once a gap in your line has suddenly turned into a complete envelopment of his troops. Now the troops who he thought were in retreat have stopped, turned and have started killing his army with a vengeance.
There is no way out.
Your opponent made the fatal mistake of seeing only what he wanted to see. He wanted to believe that your army was only as big as what he could see on the battlefield and the gap was exactly what he wanted to see and just the right time. It wasn't the cleverness of enemy that fooled him; he fooled himself into seeing just what his enemy wanted him to see.
From the moment your enemy committed himself to a reality that didn't really exist, the battle was over.
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