Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Someone's Been Listening to Ballard

New Israeli General in Charge of Lebanon!!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope it helps, but I still think there is a lot more to all this than picking the right general. I guess I have listened to so much second guessing in Iraq over the last couple of years that I have my doubts about how much difference this will make and how much a lot of people really know of what is going on.

I still think Israel is winning.

Rick Ballard said...

Peter,

Peace with Syria entails the return of the Golan heights. Olmert and Peretz would be justly fired for suggesting it.

I have no problem with the performance of the IDF and making a general a scapegoat isn't going to fix the problem. The Israeli's are still taking casualties in Bint Jbeil because of crappy ROE - there shouldn't be a building left there for a hezzie to hide in.

The relief of the general is political CYA that is going to be detrimental to IDF morale. If Olmert and Peretz have a cunning plan up their sleeve it's very well hidden.

Rick Ballard said...

Peter,

Based on today's news it may be that they finally "found their bottle". Spetsnatz trained snipers who had previously been dismissed from service because they were thought to be too "trigger happy" have been recalled and sent to places where they will be useful. Those are the guys who did well for the Russians in Chechnya. Also, Israeli KIA today was 11 - which indicates that they are actually fighting. Finally, the Israelis have called up sufficient numbers of troops to actually subjugate the area south of the Litani - maybe a bit north of it, too. Beyond that, there was a firm committment to a minimum of a 30 day effort.

Better late than never.