Mission accomplished part II

After more than a month of destruction and fighting in Lebanon Israelis realized that, the military operation that worked for them for decades was now inept and costly in dealing with Hezbollah. Under the international pressure and outcry, the Israeli war machine was forced to stop and singe a ceasefire. Before the ink even dried President Bush the decider once again declared mission accomplished. “Hezbollah lost the war,” he assured everyone last night. At least this time he was wearing his civilian clothes. But what about this assurance from a president who does not confuse himself with facts - a president with the confidence of a complete ignoramus. On his first disastrous mission to the swamp of Iraq, he declared the mission accomplished and celebrated in the comfort of his neoconservative cheerleaders and the Fox News propaganda machine; almost five years later we are still asking for more troops to quell the full-fledged civil war in Iraq. Now President Bush is the only one who sees a clear victory for the Israelis. The Israeli Knesset is incidentally launching an investigation to find out what went wrong with this war, and the Israeli opposition leader Netanyahu is asking for the prime minister Olmert’s resignation, who himself is admitting the deficiencies of the whole military operation against Hezbollah. Only President Bush sees a clear victory for Israel. Since the Jewish state was formed, Israel fought and won half a dozen wars with the Arabs’ organized armies under corrupt leaders. This is the first war that Israel arguably lost, militarily and politically. Reuven Pedatzur wrote in column in the Israeli Harretz magazine titled The Day After / How we suffered a knockout. He stated “This is not a mere military defeat. This is a strategic failure whose far-reaching implications are still not clear. And like the boxer who took the blow, we are still lying dazed on the ground, trying to understand what happened to us”. This is also the first proxy war that the Israelis fought where their national security was not really threatened; Hezbollah never seriously threatened the security of Israel. Lebanon never asked for the destruction of the Jewish state, never occupied any Israeli land, never sent suicide bombers to kill Israeli civilians. With all the hoopla of the katyousha rockets’ threat to the security of Israel, only 25 Israeli civilians were killed from the month’s random launchings as opposed to more than 1000 Lebanese civilians killed due to the Israeli’s American-made smart bombs. This war was fought on behalf the Bush administration grand new Middle East fancy and not on behalf of the Israelis people. As SEYMOUR M. HERSH revealed in his investigative repot in the New Yorker, the Bush Administration, “was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks.” He went on to say that “a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preemptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations. The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel.” He added. After total destruction of the only democratic Arab country, including a million of displaced civilians, Israel is once again bugged in southern Lebanon liking their wounds and wiping their bloody noses. Moreover, Hezbollah is becoming the new model of the Arab nationalistic resistance movement, and their leader Hassan Nassralla is becoming the new Arab street Che Guevara … but with a turban. Mission accomplished take II.

Ahmed Tharwat/ Host of the Arab American TV show Belahdan