Israel was not provoked into the war with Lebanon when the 2 Israeli soldiers were captured. Israel planned the attack months in advance and then waited for something which would give them an excuse to bomb the country.
Apart from successfully devastating the infrastructure in Lebanon, killing over a 1000 with bombs dropped from the sky, destabalising the democratic government, and increasing support for Hizbullah, all the objectives failed, and the war went wrong because "the Israeli army had become accustomed to fighting the ill-equipped Palestinians and was not prepared for Hizbullah 's expertise."
Olmert/Bush, which leader is the most incompetent?
quote:
Israel planned for Lebanon war months in advance, PM says
· Olmert's leaked testimony contradicts earlier remarks
· Criticism from inquiry may force resignation
Conal Urquhart in Tel Aviv
Friday March 9, 2007
The Guardian
Preparations for Israel's war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at least four months before two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hizbullah in July, Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, has admitted.
His submission to a commission of inquiry, leaked yesterday, contradicted the impression at the time that Israel was provoked into a battle for which it was ill-prepared. Mr Olmert told the Winograd commission, a panel of judges charged with investigating Israel's perceived defeat in the 34-day war, that he first discussed the possibility of war in January and asked to see military plans in March.
I doubt it was a pre concevied plan to attack Lebanon. Obvioulsy we are dealing with the Guardian here so we have to be skeptical to say the least they have set out thier stall on the US, Middle East, China and the Iraq situation a long time ago. What I think is that Israel had a contingency plan drawn up in case they were attacked from Lebanon and of course the reaoin it failed so spectacualry was they they used a plan to fight the Lebanese army.
Most countries have these kind of plans do you think that the British government don't have contingency plans for another attack on the Falklands or a Spanish attack on Gibralter? of course they do but it does not mean that Tony Blair is looking for war with Argentina or Spain and when or if Gordon Brown come to power he will review the plans with his defence sec and pick one again does not mean he is planning war just beiung ready. I think Olmert was doing that when he wanted to see plans in March.
I take your point about government's contingency plans but that doesn't change the point of the story: did Olmert want to attack Lebanon anyway and he merely used the Hizbulllah incident as a convenient justification to bomb the country. These tit-for-tat kidnappings, and cross-border incidents are nothing new.
As the Guardian story says, the leak could well be just a way of helping to get rid of Olmert because it shows he had a plan and still screwed up badly. If there was no plan and it was retaliation for the Hizbullah incident (as he claimed at the time) he could possilby have been forgiven for the failure of the war.
03-10-2007 11:44 AM
