Cross-posted at Mein Blogovault.

If you are subscribing to the conventional wisdom (which doesn't seem all too wise these days), then Hezbullah won simply by virtue of its existence.

Cardinalpark over at Tigerhawk has a great post up reminding us that the reason Hezbullah is claiming "victory" is because the bar is set so pitifully low for them and so impossibly high for Israel that it makes it easy for Western dupes to fall into the ass-backwards "tortured calculus" of Arab "victory" :

This "war" is about a month old. Hezbollah is reputed to be the toughest Islamist militia on the planet. The IDF is reputed to be a very tough fighting force in its own right. Hezbollah is committed to the destruction of Israel. Near as I can tell, Hezbollah has killed a small fraction of Israel's 8 million people (as compared to Lebanon's total population of around 2 million people). Nobody in Israel seems prepared to come out with a white flag and their hands up. In fact, most statistics aficionados would likely admit that in the bodycount category, Hezbollah and Lebanon have faired poorly. Hence the malarkey about an absence of proportion. Israel's fighting capability is simply more effective.

Now, let's talk real estate. Near as I can make out, the IDF is parked in Southern Lebanon. About a month ago, that was Hezbollah's real estate; no IDF. They left in 2000, right? Now they're back. Cease fire or no cease fire, the IDF and its hardware are all over Southern Lebanon.

Northern Israel, however, hasn't a trace of Hezbollah personnel on it, just poorly aimed rocketry. No significant infrastructure damage, no military damage, no strategic damage. If Hezbollah is serious about taking out 8 million Israelis, they've got a ways to go. Nice allies they've got in Syria and Iran too. Nice that they weighed in with all of the firepower they had to offer -- not much, hmmm? Do we even need to catalog the infrastructure losses in Lebanon?

Last bit to evaluate - politics. The Israeli cabinet voted 24 - 0 with one abstention to accept the cease fire. For Lebanon's part, they said they would march the Lebanese army into the south and disarm, er, blend together with Hezbollah. Nasrallah already told the Lebanese PM to pound sand. So, we have the makings of a potential standoff between the Lebanese Army, whose job it is to march into Southern Lebanon, and Hezbollah. So much like the stand off which plagues Hamas and Fatah in the Palestinian territories, we now have a similar and related standoff in Lebanon.

I have to admit, I am having a hard time seeing how Israel lost here -- as if anyone can actually win a war in 4 weeks. The tortured calculus of the Hezbollah victory evades me. Everybody acknowledges that Israel defeated Egypt and Jordan in 1967 and again in 1973. Why? Well all Israel really had to do was survive. That's what everybody has forgotten. That's all Israel needs to do to win. Survive. It's the other guys who are trying to destroy Israel, not the other way around.

It is incomprehensibly pathetic, but has been the Arab world's standard of "victory" for centuries. Hence, the current state of affairs in the Middle East.

The IDF has expressed dissatisfaction with Olmert's dove-ish approach to the Lebanon conflict, and rightly so. Israeli stated objectives of rescuing the kidnapped soldiers and completely wiping out Hezbullah were not accomplished. The IDF was prepared to strike hard and fast, and had a plan to root out the infestation within two weeks. Olmert scrapped that well-laid plan for this current one. Blame for this can be laid squarely at the feet of the Israeli politicians that cut military funding over the past few years and scrapped the original IDF plan. Figures - wars fought by politicians instead of generals and soldiers are never as effective as they need to be. Yes - Iraq could be chugging along at a more favorable clip if our political class in this country were united, but they aren't. That's the new reality of postmodernism.

While the political fallout takes its usual blame-the-Western-power course, keep this in mind. By any objective or traditional military or logistical standard of measurement, Hezbullah got its collective butt pounded into the hills of South Lebanon and into the concrete of select Beruit neighborhoods. The only "loss" for Israel is that they didn't exterminate each and every last cockroach that there was.

Don't buy "conventional wisdom" that you hear from any media organization or television talking head. The same 'tortured calculus of Arab victory' could be applied to the apprehension of murderers in our own country. We've "lost" the war on crime since we haven't apprehended every criminal or murderer out there. Might as well give up, eh?

That same "conventional wisdom" and the apathy towards aggressive fact finding almost allowed a slew of propaganda pieces manufactured for Reuters and the wire services by Hezbullah media operatives into the narrative of this conflict - we found that the "conventional wisdom" in that case was fabricated and exaggerated BS.

There are far too many otherwise intelligent folks that buy "conventional wisdom" already, and look how gullible and unable to assimilate new facts they are. Don't fall into the trap.

Posted by: Good Lt. at 09:27 AM | Comments (36) | Add Comment
Post contains 1005 words, total size 6 kb.

1 There is one basic flaw in your premise Lt., and that is that you have not taken into consideration that Hezballah is fighting a guerilla war. Guerilla war is not a war of military conquest, but of political conquest, and like the Communists in Vietnam, their victories do not hang on military victory, but on the propaganda value of the campaign itself. The Vietnamese lost almost every engagement with US forces, but turned their losses into propaganda victories by always representing them as such, and the Western media did their part to help; remember Walter Cronkite's misrepresentation of the Battle of Hue? We won Hue handily, but it was touted as a Communist victory, and our political will was crushed. Ho Chi Minh, warning the French in 1946, said: "You can kill 10 of my men for every one I kill of yours, yet even at those odds, you will lose and I will win." Why was he so confident? Because he had learned to turn every engagement into a propaganda vicotry, and thus build and maintain the political will to win. That lesson has not been lost on the muslims. Remember Somalia? We lost 19 but killed around 1000, but it's still represented as an American loss, because we couldn't achieve our goal. Hezballah's goal is not to win battles, but to survive them, and garner propaganda from them. This is a war of a thousand small victories for them, but our standards are much higher, and thus much more difficult to obtain.
Hezballah won because they got the world's nations to step forward and show their allegience, and even the US sided against Israel by demanding that they stop fighting Hezballah. Let me reiterate: We ensured the survival of our enemy by restraining our ally. Who's side are we on anyway? The muslims won this battle, and they will win every one subsequent by virtue of the fact that our will to win is absent, but their resolve to win is absolute. It will take a political revolution in this country, with an almost complete replacement of elected representatives with those who have the will to win, before we can begin to see real victories on the battlefield. Our leaders and people do not currently have the will to win. Their leaders and people do. Wanna lay odds on who gains ground and who loses before things change?

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 09:56 AM (v3I+x)

2 We ensured the survival of our enemy by restraining our ally. Who's side are we on anyway?
 
IM -
 
Israel's side, hard as it is to swallow. Fair criticism, and I tried to slip a little of it into the post to balance it out.
 
I think you are leaving out a few critical details. Olmert (and by proxy, Bush, but not the other way round) is going to take it on the chin politically for not being aggressive enough (not using the IDF plan instead of the Olmert-gov't plan), and you are also holding Israel to the impossible standard that Cardinalpark illuminated in his post - either they destroy ALL Hezbos, or it is a loss.
 
The IDF was prepared to do just that, and was kneecapped by Olmert and the centrism of the Israeli politicos calling the shots. I can't say I'm impressed with the Bush Admin's handling either, but I still want to see how the next few weeks pans out before coming to a more definitive judgement. Until then, I'm sticking with the "not as bad as it seems, not as good as it seems for Israel" view.
 
As it stands right now, the Hezbos are the ones scrambling around trying to secretly rearm and lick their wounds and whose infastructure and armament was crippled - the Israeli army is simply on standby waiting for Round 2 (shoud it materialize).
 
I know these are "propaganda" victories, but what isn't? The nature of propaganda is to spin any loss into a victory. Well, then it spins both ways.
 
The problem, as you correctly note, is that Westen and Arab media won't note any of this in any significant way. That doesn't change the cold hard facts of the logistical or military blows that the IDF has inflicted on Hez. (however few you think they may be), but these propaganda sideshows affect the perceptions of those blows rather than the blows themselves.
 
I will stick with the military and logistical assesment, since in the end, this is what realistically matters in terms of Israel's self defense.
 
 

Posted by: Good Lt at August 15, 2006 10:11 AM (yT+NK)

3 I'm with IM on this one. The fact that Hizb'Allah's leadership and resolve survived, nay, flourished, in this war is a clear indicator of not only political victory, but to some extent a military victory as well. You must remember that Arab armies such as Syria and Egypt folded up under attacks by the IDF, yet Hizb'Allah not only stood and fought, but inflicted loses on Israel. The fact that Hizb'Allah was still firing rockets at Israel even as the cease fire went into effect is telling. Yes, Hizb'Allah sustained damage in this fight, no doubt, but this is damage they were prepared for, and I think the damage was much less than they had expected. IMHO.

Posted by: jesusland joe at August 15, 2006 10:20 AM (rUyw4)

4 Any losses the Hezzies suffered are already being made up by Iran and other muslim nations, so that is a moot point. The real goal of this whole operation was to make Israel look bad, to garner worldwide criticism of Israel, and to shake the US-Isarel alliance. Mission accomplished, thanks to the help of our cowardly administration. Bush is good at starting things, but he lacks the balls to finish. In this, as in so many other things, Bush has shown that he is nothing but a liberal.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 10:22 AM (v3I+x)

5 Tough crowd here. :-)

I still feel it is far too premature to wrap-it-up and to go home sulking/blaming/hand-wringing.

I don't think Bush lacks the will to win - I think he lacks the will to win decisively and quickly. He's gun shy.
And in all fairness, he didn't "start" the Israeli-Hezbo conflict - Hezbullah did, so I don't see how Bush failed to "follow through" with that one, other than in a purely diplomatic sense (and we all know how valuable diplomacy is to the so-called "peace process...").

This is bacause there will invariably and inevitably be a very high civilian body count from such an approach. I'm OK with that if it means security of our allies and respect from our foes, but I'm not in charge.

I will certainly concede that we are fighting far too timidly and inconsistently to instill real fear in the types of governments that oppose our actions (of which there are many, and the Hezbos, basically a division of the Iranian army that Israel just spanked, don't count as a soverign nation).

I would caution about being too "chicken-little" about this whole thing, since negativity and pessimism both have a way of feeding off of themselves and spiraling out of control.

Keep hope. This isn't over.

:-)

Posted by: Good Lt at August 15, 2006 10:33 AM (yT+NK)

6 You're nuts if you ever think you'd convince Hezbollah to think it has lost. Down to the last man they will claim victory, and even then their fellow Muslims would claim victory for them in that they went down fighting.

And that's exactly what needs to be done.

Posted by: Ernie Oporto at August 15, 2006 10:43 AM (WvUov)

7 "You're nuts if you ever think you'd convince Hezbollah to think it has lost. Down to the last man they will claim victory, and even then their fellow Muslims would claim victory for them in that they went down fighting."

Youre exactly right.

That's why I indicated in the post that there is an intrinsic difficulty engaging Hezbos and Arabs that support them in a rhetorical war, since these animals think that suicide is a victory, as is remaining alive. There is no way to "win" in a rhetorical sense against those who feel their own deaths are victories.

Except when you actually kill them and they cease to be.

I am in agreement with your sentiments, but I don't think this UN ceasefire (already teetering) is the end of this chapter of the war. Or maybe I'm just hoping against hope that it isn't.

Posted by: Good Lt at August 15, 2006 11:00 AM (yT+NK)

8 From a military point of view it was basically a draw, but only because Israel let that happen.

From a polical point of view it was a terrorist win.

But, the above are only tactical outcomes.

A much bigger, much more decisive war is looming.

W will not allow Iran to have nukes. Period.

Posted by: eman at August 15, 2006 11:30 AM (SD4ZE)

9 The only possible good that can come of this is that the Israelis will hold an election soon and boot out all the milquetoast liberals with whom they've saddled themselves. Every election cycle for the last few decades their government has gotten more and more liberal, and things have gotten progressively worse for the Israelis, (maybe this is what's meant when liberals call themselves "progressives"), but now, I think - no, I hope - the Israelis, and American Jews, will get smart.

Posted by: Impobulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 12:51 PM (v3I+x)

10 I can't type my own freaking name today. I'm ready for fall.

Posted by: IM at August 15, 2006 12:56 PM (v3I+x)

11 My name and email is already auto-filled before I post. But then again my name is Last gasp Larry...

Posted by: Last gasp Larry at August 15, 2006 01:56 PM (gLMre)

12 It seems to me the Israeli government is poised at the edge of a political crisis and is ready to fall. If that is the case, it will be encumbant upon the members of the Israeli (Knesset?) to make any transition a smooth one. Also, I hope we catch Iran and Syria with their hands on the weapons as they attempt to resupply Hazbollah.
 
It is frustrating to be forced to the sidelines as these events unfold. We need to turn Baghdad over to the Iraqi's and move our troops to the Syrian and Iranian borders.

Posted by: SeeMonk at August 15, 2006 02:21 PM (7teJ9)

13 Israel could not have it's northern border so strong with the enemy when Iran is sent back 50 years. Perhaps, late this year, or early next year, the political process will be over.

It will take a long time to rearm the moon god worshippers. Israel is ready to go now, and has learned a great deal.

I think I.M. is correct on every point he made, but the real deal is when Iran gets the shit kicked out of them.

Posted by: Leatherneck at August 15, 2006 04:19 PM (D2g/j)

14 I know what happened; I filled it in wrong the first time, and wasn't awake enough to catch it. I picked the wrong day to quit horse tranquilizers.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 05:02 PM (v3I+x)

15 There is only one kind of victory and it is in the field! Everything else is BS and spin. BS & spin (intended for an outside audience) works only if that audience allows it. BS & spin for the home crowd don't mean jackshit.

I will never compare arab muslims with the Vietnamese. I begrudingly respect the Vietnamese to much, and have absolutely no respect for these arab F-troopers. They want respect as fighters - then freakin' earn it for real in the field.

Say what you want about Charlie, but he really fought balls to the wall. When these 3rd rate camel jockeys over-run one Israeli outpost or settlement - and are willing to spend hundreds of lives to achieve it - just to hold it for a few days or even hours - then I will take notice. Until then, they are an inept joke fighting (stupidly) for an inept people, and a stupid cause.

Maxie - I am shocked! Shocked I tell ya!

Posted by: hondo at August 15, 2006 05:13 PM (XrexX)

16 Who won? Whose country has been leveled and reduced to rubble? Maxie - I am shocked! Shocked I tells ya! I'm going to have to give that a try... giving up the horse tranquilizers that is. %>

Posted by: Last gasp Larry at August 15, 2006 05:27 PM (gLMre)

17 Hondo, I wasn't making moral equivocations, but merely pointing out similarities in strategy. The 'slamoturds are using the same strategy as the Vietnamese, which is no coincidence, since that was the only war we ever lost, and not due to military means, but political. I'm somewhat of an amateur expert on guerilla warfare, and I believe without a doubt that our enemies have the winning strategy, but mainly because we are trying to fight another limited engagement while they wage total war.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 05:29 PM (v3I+x)

18 But there are no real similarities in strategies - though I don't doubt the muslims would wishfully think so. Trust me - even the Vietnamese (albeit quietly) think they are a joke and laugh at them.

Maxie - you give our enemies far too much credit - far more than they deserve. A putz is a putz, and will always be a putz. Granted they are crazy which makes them dangerous - but still putz's.

You have become too much of a pessimist particularly about our abilities and commitment in dealing with putz's. Sure - elements of the West (and some here) have no stomach or balls for dealing with them - but other elements do and I firmly believe there are more than enough of them to deal with muslim putz's. Say I'm being overly optimistic - say I have faith - Yes! I do.

Posted by: hondo at August 15, 2006 05:50 PM (XrexX)

19 This war will end when we have killed so many of their people, that the despair will so totally overwhelm them. We can break their will. When all of the men are gone, and their children are starving, when all that is left are the feeble old men who have been hiding, and manipulating their people, they will fall. That is why you bomb civilian areas. That is why we bombed Berlin, and Dresden, and Tokyo and Osaka. That is why we bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. To hell with their hearts and minds. They are just so much dust in the rubble. We must roll over them like a cat 5 hurricane of death and destruction. Isolate them, and pound them into submission. We don't need nukes. We can do everything we need with Napalm and HE. They don't know the meaning of terror. But they will. When the gloves finally come off, and the B-52's roll again, they will know fear.

Posted by: SeeMonk at August 15, 2006 07:26 PM (n4VvM)

20 Behaving like bombastically arrogant loud-mouth arseholes is inseparable from the Arabo-Islamic character.
F&*k them!
Nuke Mecca and Medina NOW.

Posted by: Garduneh Mehr at August 15, 2006 07:28 PM (Bp6wV)

21 Can I finish my falafel and yogurt sandwich first? ;>

Posted by: Last gasp Larry at August 15, 2006 08:41 PM (gLMre)

22 Go ahead Larry. That last one, well, a lil' over the top.

Posted by: hondo at August 15, 2006 09:12 PM (XrexX)

23 Hondo, we limited our options in Vietnam - the Vietnamese didn't. They won, and we lost. We are limiting our options in this war - our enemies aren't. They grow stronger while we grow weaker. We won't carry the war to the enemy's hiding places because of our fear of offending muslims - they carry the war to us by every means at their disposal, without regard for who they kill. We try to avoid civilian casualties - they try to create civilian casualties.
Our "leaders" lack the resolve to win, which is evinced by the fact that they don't want to do what every sane person knows what must be done, which SeeMonk so perfectly explained. We have to wage total, unlimited warfare, and stop pussyfooting around. We have to round them up and deport them from our countries, and turn their cities into rubble. We have to let millions of them taste our wrath, because brute, overwhelming violence is the only thing they understand. They are not civilized people, and cannot be dealt with as such.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 09:44 PM (v3I+x)

24 maxie

I really don't think it's lack of resolve - for the lib/left maybe but they got a lot of personal issues.

Its like - a mob of midgets (spastic no less) kicking you in the shins and insulting you. Yeah, it hurts.

But their still midgets! In body and mind!

We want to be civilized people - we want to do the right thing (as often as possible). We look back on history and say we want to do better, find better ways of dealing with things. We try (not always successful).

We smack one back and 10 topple over - we hope they'd get the hint - we say to ourselves "Hey midgets! Look in the freakin' mirror for Christ's sake!"

A lot of us are really hoping that these muslim idiots may one day come to their senses. Maxie - neither I nor you really want to get medievil on their freakin' lil' asses - not because we care about them - but we care about ourselves.

Come on maxie - beatin' them down like you say is like beating up the kids on the Special Bus. I really don't want to do that.

However - if the time does come - can't we find a way to simply euthanise them in a civilized fashion?

PS - I used the term "midgets". I mean no disrepect to lil' people, the really vertically challenged or circus folk.

Posted by: hondo at August 15, 2006 10:22 PM (XrexX)

25 Hondo, I admire your refusal to give up that which makes you a civilized human being, and thus better than our enemies, but they neither understand nor respect civility or restraint. Nothing less than heads on pikes and piles of skulls gets the point across to uncivilized barbarians like muslims. When they have a boot on their neck, then they can behave, but not until then.

Posted by: Improbulus Maximus at August 15, 2006 10:42 PM (v3I+x)

26 I wonder if dozens of innocent people dieing everyday at the hands of the terrorists are concerned with our morality, civility and restraint? Morality is a good thing, while there is still a choice. Before long it may be a moot point when we have to pull out all the stops and fight for our lives tooth and nail!

Posted by: Last gasp Larry at August 16, 2006 10:37 AM (gLMre)

27 The Jews got a good hiding, Hezbollah won, so just please stop the excuses.
I love reading about how many Hezbollah soldiers were killed, accepting Israeli facts without proof, laughable.
Hezbollah has no airforce, no navy, no armour, just a few thousand fighters and it came not only survived but fought back !
Saying that Israel won is like saying that the US won the Vietnam war.
Also as for Somalia the US 20 of it's best fighters, and the Somalis lost about 150, mostly from airpower. The claims that the US killed 1000 is nonsene. It actually killed 3000 innocent civilians by the indescriminate use of airpower, something the US is famous for.
Please don't just rely on Hollywood and propaganda fom CNN for your facts, try to use your brains now again.

Posted by: Bob at August 16, 2006 10:51 AM (xk7zE)

28 The news reports say that Hezbollah won. In the eyes of the entire muslim world they won. Israel says they would never negotiate a prisoner exchange for their kidnapped soldiers. Now they say exchange is possible. Israel is pulling back to the original border. Labanese (pro hezbollah) are replacing them. Israel said they would not stop until hezbollah was destroyed and the danger to their border was secure. Not. Hezbollah is re-arming and moving back to their orginal positions. The United Nations demanded a cease fire knowing that this would hurt the Israeli cause.
Every muslim nation is celebrating in the streets. Lebanese muslims, Christians and others moving back to their homes to find the Israelis destroyed them. The highway system, power systems and airports have been destroyed by Israel.
Hezbollah is assuring citizens of Lebanon that they will replace or repair their homes destroyed by Israeli bombing. Hezbollah is supplying food and water to those without it. Iran and Syria says they will continue to aid Hezbollah as long as America aids Israel. Groups of muslims from Egypt to Indonesia begging their governments to allow them to go to Lebanon and fight the Israeli aggressors.
I don't know who is advising Israel these days. Probably American Academics with the ostrich syndrome.
Who won?
Are we talking about hearts and minds or the kill count?

WHO WON?
SHIT!

Posted by: greyrooster at August 16, 2006 10:57 AM (vCjBd)

29 Good Lt.s Iranian nut licker continues to take the attention away from the sponser of all this shit. American worst enemy. Iran.

Posted by: greyrooster at August 16, 2006 11:12 AM (vCjBd)

30 So Hezbaby won? Er, OOOOKKKKKKK ...

Well then, will somebody please tell me what exactly is it that they won.

Oh, and please don't say respect - I fell on the floor already laughing about that possiblitiy.

Posted by: hondo at August 16, 2006 11:50 AM (XrexX)

31 They lived thought it. They never surrendered and the muslim world takes that as a victory. They are still there, waiting to kill again. The queston could be asked what has Israel won? Again, nothing. This action was poorly ran. Don't know why. Hezbollah and their supporters needed a true ass kicking. Not the slap on the wrist they received. They will be back with longer reaching rockets and perhaps even worse.
Hondo think of the Muslime mind. Hezbollah fought against a country with fighter jets, tanks and every modern weapon available. And they are still standing in defiance. How does this look to religious fanatics. Surly, God must be on their side as they had no fighter jets, tanks, etc:
This is bad. Far worse than anyone wishes to admit.

Posted by: greyrooster at August 16, 2006 01:40 PM (vCjBd)

32 Greyrooster, I really hate to agree with you, but you're damn right.

Having gone in to this folly, they should have finished it. I'd have much rather it was sorted out over the diplomatic table - but as soon as the first shot was fired, Israel *needed* to make a very strong point.

You're right. Opting out half-way through just encourages the militants. I'd rather have no conflict than any conflict - but if conflict happens, we need to go for the uncompromising win.

They're like Obi-Wan, in this respect. Killing a few just makes them stronger. If we opt for killing, we need to kill the lot.

Posted by: Your very own mother at August 16, 2006 07:24 PM (BV7IP)

33 Perhaps they are following the Bush way. Stir 'em up and then let them finish themselves off, like Iraq....

Posted by: Last gasp Larry at August 17, 2006 12:25 AM (gLMre)

34 There might be something to that.

Posted by: greyrooster at August 17, 2006 08:22 AM (W1CgA)

35 Your very own mother: You must be a teacher by profession. Academic types are the only ones with their heads buried deep enough to believe in the diplomatic table.

Diplomatic table: Bullshit. To the western mind the diplomatic table is something you go to in an effort to avoid bloodshed. To the Islamic mind the diplomatic table is something you go to when you are weak. If the Islamotards were winning they would not seek the diplomatic table. They would just continue killing.

Posted by: greyrooster at August 17, 2006 08:29 AM (W1CgA)

36 I'm not saying that the diplomatic table is the be-all and end-all... just a first port of call. Nine times out of ten, it won't work, but it's worth pursuing for that one time out of ten that it might.

And then, if the shit hits the fan, we must go in *hard*. I'm not a great fan of war, but it's necessary sometimes - and if it happens, it needs to be absolute. No messing around.

Posted by: Your very own mother at August 17, 2006 06:55 PM (BV7IP)

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