Current Chaos Manor mail (original) (raw)
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Subject: What are the Israelis Thinking?
http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/
2009/01/what-are-isaelis-thinking.html
A long and thoughtful post dissecting the planning and what might be the strategy behind the operation so far.I'm not a good editor so the following is just a bet snatched out of the middle - there are a lot of excellent thoughts, as are other recent posts at his site.
"Israel's leadership had no choice, that has been clear for a while, but how would they create the means? Being right doesn't mean you can act upon it; waging a just war with unjust methods undermines the original justification.
Where there's a need there has to be a way, especially in situations where throwing up your hands in despair will result in innocents getting killed and entire communities being terrorized. The way that seems to have been devised was what I'll call accelerated inching attrition.
First, you think a lot. You probably start with defining your goal: what is it you wish to achieve; perhaps you list various possible goals. Then you look at every possible component of the problem, you try to imagine every possible thing that can go wrong, and you ask yourself what it would take to overcome the problems and avoid the pitfalls. I have no doubt the IDF and its civilian surroundings have articulated every single objection currently being screeched by the Guardian and everyone else, and gone looking for a response. (The arrogance of the pundits who are so cock-sure they've got anything novel to say is comic, but not my subject at the moment).
The more you think (an activity that never ends), the more you can begin making preparations. You train your troops for the tasks they'll need to face, as well as for all the things you can think of that might go wrong. And then you train them some more. Reserve units, too, of course.
You collect information. Mountains of it, and sift it through, and organize it in ways that will be useful. You then use the emerging picture to calibrate your plans, hone them, and also figure out what parts of the picture need more details, and you go get them. This is all a self-enriching cycle.
You prepare the civilian formations: municipalities, water companies, medical systems and organizations, communications, etc etc. Whenever you think you've exhausted the list of preparations, you go looking for more. There's no such thing as completing all preparations, as Achikam told me an hour before they went in, after yet another day of completing all the preparations.
Finally, the time came, ten days ago."
David Smith
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Joel Rosenberg comments:
It's a good analysis. Right? I dunno. What seems to be clearly right is that any kind of centralized Hamas command -- and I'm not talking command and control, either, just central authority -- is gone, at least for the time being. How far down are the commanders dead or hidden and out of commission? Very, apparently.
Joel
The question becomes, is there anyone able to surrender? Is a ceasefire possible? If Israel were to broadcast terms under which it would withdraw, could anyone in Gaza enforce them? There are always going to be idiots with access to a rocket who think it's a good idea to shoot it. The question is, what will the people nearby do when they see the rocket being set up? And what will the local Hamas precinct captain do?
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The Perils of Zero-Gravity Videography.
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/12
/the-perils-of-zero-gravity-videography/
--- Roland Dobbins
=============
HuffPo reverts to form
Here follows a long paste from Planet Gore on NRO. I found it a little hard to follow, but it seems that the gist is that Mr. Ambler is now getting roundly (and personally) trashed on the HuffPo for his apostasy
http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/
An Inconvenient HuffPo Item [Chris Horner <http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/
author/?q=NDE2OA==> ]
A reader writes to note that, after yesterday�s outrage of a voice of reason � er, �rambling . . . denial� � gracing its pages, the Huffington Post �could NOT allow Mr. Ambler to go on so
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/harold-ambler
/mr-gore-apology-accepted_b_154982.html>
(so, they had to denigrate HIM),� citing this
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-grandia
/on-global-warming-is-it-h_b_155379.html>
example of HuffPo siccing someone else to go after the gent, and quite personally.
The author naturally reaches immediately for the alarmist�s oxygen, argumentum ad hominem: Ambler�s piece was the �ramblings of a rowing musician� (yet somehow the very poor science student Al Gore, and any other pol or celeb who agrees, apparently spouts Gospel). They reach, too, for the fallacious and equally typical appeal to authority
<http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/
appeal-to-authority.html> :
�NASA,� by which he actually means James Hansen, to whom he ascribes NASA�s scientific authority.
Yet, turning the mirror a bit, we see the amusing truth that, despite this approach, the author is not a scientist <http://www.desmogblog.com/kevin_grandia> but a blogger for the tantrum-throwing PR outlet DeSmogBlog
<http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?
q=NDc2MmEwNWUwYmY5Yjg0ZTgzN2E
5ZmUwY2Q3MWYzMzg=> .
The alert reader directs us to the DeSmogblog scribbler�s HuffPo bio
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
kevin-grandia/%2523blogger_bio> noting:
He�s an editor and a �social media� guy/guru. Now, how far above �musician� is that?
But, what I find most interesting is the chastisement of Mr. Ambler by other blogs because of a point made by Ms. Huffington HERSELF in one of her books.
He refers us to this post
<http://getenergysmartnow.com
/2009/01/05/huffpost-scores-a-
10-on-the-inhofe-scale/> , which complains:
What is, perhaps, especially frustrated [sic] is that Huffington Post chose to give voice to this deception as if they are redefining �fair and balanced� back to the Faux News version. As Arianna wrote in her book:
Without the enabling of the traditional media � with their obsession with �balance� and their pathological devotion to the idea that truth is always found in the middle � the radical Right would never have been able to have its ideas taken seriously.
By publishing such misleading tripe, Huffington Post is contributing to defining some form of middle when it comes to science, between those who actually believe that the scientific method has value those who seem to think that they can shape reality through loudly repeating falsehoods while holding their hands over their ears. Huffington Post has done its founder, its readership, and the larger society a disservice by giving voice to dishonesty.�
So above we see how once again the objection is to allowing others to speak, or be published, and have their thoughts judged on their merits by others. And the response is, once again, not to address the merits but to take out after the speaker, personally. Humorously, however, in their pique they�re now turning on themselves.
But note that last, desperate stab of �dishonesty,� not unsurprising from an author who also went on with �It is tiring and rarely fruitful� to counter those who disagree with their prophesying, �especially because so many so-called �skeptics� are not open to factual and thoughtful discussion. Data and analyses at odds with their misguided weltaunschauung [sic] will not be allowed to penetrate their thinking.� More amusing is that I received this on the heels of receiving the following from the producer of a nationally syndicated radio show, canceling a hit planned for this morning:
Unfortunately we are still unable to secure a guest to support the Global Warming Is a Reality side of the coin. Most have said that they have moved past the debate issue and are focusing on solutions to the problem. They stand behind their facts and say there is no longer a debate over this issue.
[As I address in my new book, that�s clever: refuse to debate and say, �See, there�s no debate.� Respond to every skeptic scientist or, more recently, to a petition by hundreds or even tens of thousands by saying either �oh, those same old names� or, �never heard of them.� Like calling global cooling �global warming� then �climate change.� Cover all the bases.]
As the e- mailer cited above noted, what we have here seems to be a whopper of a case of �projection.�
I met Arianna briefly one at an opera function. She was very pleasant. Otherwise I know nothing about the her that I didn't hear from commentors; I've never visited the Huffington Post. You've told me more about it than I ever expected to know. It's a pity that science is the victim here.
Democracies seldom vote for or adopt policies favorable to democracy; history shows this over and over and over. Eventually egalite trumps liberte, (fraternite long having been forgotten) and class warfare prevails. Since there will always be social classes -- the reappeared pretty fast in the USSR and again after its dissolution if you want modern examples -- the result is the end of democracy. The usual result is some form of dictatorship. Rhodesia/Zimbabwe is a moden example, but Aristotle described the process well enough.
For those interested in just what happens when democracies decay, C. Northcote Parkinson's Evolution of Political Thought is not only readable but one of the 100 or so books I would have all educated people read sometime in their lifetimes. (Alas, the book assumes some general knowledge of history and social order that was not an unreasonable assumption for its intended readership at the time it was written, but the times have changed. A lot. It's still something you ought to read.)
One of these days I'll have to write my list of essential books. That, like some of the other things I ought to do, is going to require more platinum and patron subscribers. Meanwhile I need to catch up on deadlines. Ah well.
For platinum subscription:
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Huge areas of Britain have become foreign colonies. That could be tomorrow's Ireland, too
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/
columnists/kevin-myers/huge-areas-
of-britain-have-become-foreign-colonies
-that-could-be-tomorrows-ireland-too-1589227.htmlBy Kevin Myers 9.1.2
People in Britain and Ireland have taken a secret, Self-Denying Ordinance not to discuss immigration or race in any meaningful way
What most struck me while watching BBC television news reports of the Christmas sales in the West End of London, was firstly obvious, and secondly, it was something that no-one with the BBC would ever have remarked on. It was this. The shoppers -- and there were thousands of them -- were overwhelmingly of Asian or African origin. In the vast throngs of faces, there was barely a Caucasian face to be seen; and when there was, of course, that was no guarantee that it was British.
Actually, I didn't need to see those TV pictures of the London Boxing Day sales to be aware that London has undergone a demographic transplant unlike that experienced by any European capital since the Fall of Constantinople in 1483. A couple of years ago, while on a trip to London, I bought a rover-ticket, which gave me unlimited travel on the public transport system. I wandered for miles upon miles through the east end, which bore the blitz in 1940-41, which is the heart of Cockney culture, with the Pearly Kings and Queens and which is, of course, the setting for the television soap.
But in Whitechapel or Stepney, to judge from the shops and the faces and the clothes and the people around me, I could have been in a Middle Eastern city. What does "England" mean to these people? Do they know about the months that an earlier generation spent in the air-raid shelters? Do they know about the 40,000 Londoners who perished in the winter of 1940-41? Do they know anything about the history of the streets they now occupy, and could they ever be prevailed upon to care about it?
These areas were once home to the large Jewish population of London, who have since moved on, as did the Huguenots before them, and the Flemings before them. Like all great cities, London had always attracted immigrants, who have generally become assimilated into the population around them.
The immigration policies of recent British governments -- though "non-policies" would be a more accurate description of that mixture of cowardice, political timidity, abject conformism and flatulent piety that has underlain the British approach to this matter -- have now inverted the pyramid. Huge areas of Britain have become foreign colonies, which demographically and culturally dominate the native populations. This is not the much-cherished melting-pot of liberal ideologists: it is more like the race movements into Australia and the Americas from Europe, with the Aboriginals nearly as helpless as the wretched natives of those former colonies.
This time, it's a voluntary helplessness. People in Britain (and now Ireland) apparently have taken a secret, Self-Denying Ordinance not to discuss immigration or race in any meaningful way. The silence surrounding one most obvious transformation, that of Britain's Premier League, is one symptom of this. Perhaps a majority of players in any good English team will be of at least part-African origin. This is surely worth commenting on, for many reasons, not the least of them being the rapid disappearance of role models for white working-class boys; but around this issue, there is nothing but a prickly silence. So that when Michel Platini wondered about the relationship between: (a) some hypothetical Liverpool team of the future consisting entirely of Africans, and managed by a Brazilian, and (b) the traditional Merseyside community, he was roundly denounced by the soccer correspondent of 'The Daily Telegraph' -- no less -- for his implicit racism.
So is it better to say absolutely nothing when rapid racial changes occur in a society, in the hope that harmony will result? For maybe, simple discretion is better than noisy dissension, and a dutiful and prudent media silence on this topic actually furthers the process of peaceful assimilation. Well, firstly, that begs the question about whether a peaceful assimilation is either possible, or is even being sought, by many of the immigrants to Britain. And secondly, what damage is meanwhile being done to the credibility of the media? If journalists can tacitly agree to stay mute in the face of such clearly visible phenomena, who can then believe them on other, less obvious issues?
Is this of any interest to Ireland? Well, yes, not least because what happens in Britain today is what will usually happen in Ireland tomorrow; and of course, the two islands share a common-travel area, in which lawful residence in one jurisdiction conveys an equal right to dwell in the other. Now, I have long since lost any belief in the courage of the Irish media to tackle the issue of immigration, other than by showing cheery pictures of Nigerian children in hurling helmets (usually captioned, "The New Irish"), and by intoning the usual ritualistic pieties from within the comfort zone of the left-liberal consensus created by our journalism schools.
Listen: it is easier and cheaper to get from London to Dublin than to get to Liverpool or Newcastle. The shots on the BBC news from Boxing Day 2008 are just possibly merely a foretaste of RTE News on St Stephen's Day in 2018. So when the change comes, it'll be so fast, that you won't even know that it's happening: and then, it becomes then an irreversible fact. Just don't say no-one warned you: because, I did.
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I wondered aloud whether, given the near annihilation of Hamas leadership, where was any way to order a secession of rocket launches and accept a ceasefire. Joel Rosenberg comments:
Business as Usual in Gaza
To answer your question: probably. The missile launches could be stopped, easily. Haniyeh's envoys to Egypt have already indicated that they want to, sorta, but what they almost certainly don't have is the infrastructure on the ground to pass the word down quietly from Haniyeh to the gunmen.
A radio broadcast from Damascus, say, by Khaled Meshaal would do it.
He could even dress it up with "having achieved our objections into terrifying the craven Zionist entity into begging for peace, we now sheath our mighty Qassam daggers" (these guys really do talk like that, you know; I don't make this stuff up).
It would have to be explicit, and open, though. Which is kind of a problem.
The launches can't be stopped quietly, not with the surviving local leadership understandably afraid to go on the air. Even if Haniyeh does pass the word down, how do they do it? Turn on their cell phones again? Or, for that matter, have a lot of foot traffic in and out of their fuhrerbunkers? How close are the drones watching? I dunno, and neither do they.
So, yes, it could be done. Quietly or within a couple of days: they get to pick one, but only one. And the facts on the ground are changing hour by hour.
About the only amusing moment out of Gaza today is this --
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles
/0,7340,L-3651845,00.html
-- AFP photo of an "IAF jet." Photo of bizarre jet (it has one of those spinny propeller things on top) attached.
The key symbolic event for today out of Gaza probably happened at 4:38, local time: Grad rockets hit Beersheba, near a school. Which pretty much says it all: the rockets were put on their launchers during the three-hour humanitarian ceasefire Israel declared to let humanitarian aid pass into Gaza.
Not news to me -- nor, I trust, to you -- that no Israeli restraint goes unpunished.
Which isn't news in Israel, either, which helps to explain why the reserves callup is batting better than .1000; see http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/
2009/01/standing-forward-to-serve.html ; that isn't unusual.
Meanwhile, it's sure looking like there is a Step Three to the operation, and that it's moving forward; see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/
2009/jan/07/martin-van-creveld-on-israel-in-gaza .
Step one -- air campaign: the military component to hit high-value targets and break Hamas command, control and communication; the political component to humiliate Hamas, just a little.
Step two, after the battlefield prep, was to move in the tanks and infantry, and cut Gaza in half to prevent resupply of the north from the south; politically, to do so with minimum IDF and Gaza civilian casualties, and be able to blame the latter on Hamas.
That was tricky, and it looked for a moment, yesterday, as if the strike on the UN school was going to be turned into the Qana of the Hamas War . . . but, amazingly, the AP actually got reports out from Palestinians in Gaza that, yes, Hamas were firing at the troops from the school. (I haven't been able to verify the reports that there were secondary explosions.) And that pretty much went away.
And now to Step three: for once, I'm not wrong; I was sure that what went on in the Philadelphi corridor was going to be the big deal, and that's where the interesting part of this comes from: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHNk6eBw3ME ; that's from today.
And just as the IDF prepares to do whatever it's going to do there, this:
http://www.ynetnews.com/
articles/0,7340,L-3652514,00.html .
Hamas needs to get the IDF to stop before the tunnels all get shut down; I don't think they're going to get it. For domestic reasons, they need to not admit defeat, even while they're begging for a ceasefire. As some wise man pointed out, they didn't get the burning tanks that they want, and they haven't gotten the kidnapped soldiers or dead Israeli schoolchildren that they're hungry for, and while the locals are surely used to quite a lot of thuggery from Hamas, having relief supplies snatched away and having to buy them has got to sting a little more than usual. And with even Mubarak saying that they can't be allowed to win -- http://www.haaretz.com/
hasen/spages/1052974.html . . . .
The Philadelphi corridor is the center of mass of the Hamas war, and the release of it was one of the two major strategic flaws of Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza, and the hardest to fix. If Israel is serious about a zero tolerance policy for missile attacks, that'll have fixed the first one -- at a minimum, the destruction of tons of explosive and ammunition, and the closing down of the tunnels, will make a huge difference.
And, yeah, the IDF is earning its reputation, again. If there really are folks in the PA who are looking toward something longterm, that's good news for lots of folks.
But not for Hamas.
-- Joel Rosenberg
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