Elephantstrunk

War in the Lebanon

It could have gone on for 300 years and not been as bad as it is. (via J. B. Delong)

The IDF is much better funded than Hezbollah but apparently not as efficient. (via Marginal Revolution)

Making this man’s job easy is almost as bad as making it possible for Vladimir Putin to make jokes about democracy.

The Independent’s front page write’s itself:

Toll of a war that shames the world
It is 28 days since Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers, prompting a ground and air assault on Lebanon by the Israeli army. In that time, 932 people have been killed in Lebanon, with 75 missing, presumed dead.
Published: 08 August 2006

29 Lebanese Army soldiers have been killed. 3,293 Lebanese have been wounded. 45 per cent of the casualties have been children. 913,000 Lebanese have been displaced (300,000 of whom are children). 94 Israelis have been killed and 1,867 wounded.

10,000 Israeli soldiers are currently fighting Hizbollah in southern Lebanon. 3,000 rockets have been fired at Israel by Hizbollah. The average number of rockets fired daily by Hizbollah in the first week of the conflict was 90. Over the past five days, it has been 169.

Israel has flown 8,700 bombing sorties, destroying 146 bridges and 72 roads. Damage caused to Lebanon’s infrastructure is estimated at $2bn. Up to 30,000 tons of oil have spilled into the Mediterranean since an Israeli air strike on Jieh power station.

The international community (apart from Britain and the US) has called for an immediate ceasefire. As yet, the number of UN resolutions: 0

The man who said this:

FAREWELL, FRANCE: ENJOY THE LOSERS’ CLUB

and

Chirac, abetted by his sorcerer’s apprentice, Foreign Minister Dominque de Villepin, has done his country’s status nothing but harm through “l’affaire Iraq.”

now says:

All efforts to make war easy, cheap or bloodless fail. If Israel’s government - or our own - goes to war, our leaders must accept the price of winning. You can’t measure out military force by teaspoons. Such naive efforts led to the morass in Iraq - and to the corpses of Qana.

Despite one failure after another, the myth of antiseptic techno-war, of immaculate victories through airpower, persists. The defense industry fosters it for profit, and the notion is seductive to politicians: a quick win without friendly casualties.

The problem is that it never works. Never.

and

The Olmert government chose war but didn’t want to pay war’s price. The cost of fighting half-heartedly has been Hezbollah’s transformation from a middleweight sparring partner into the Middle East’s new heavyweight champion.

This woefully mismanaged war strengthened America’s enemies, too. Away from the microphones, you can bet that plenty of profanity has been aimed at Israel in the West Wing - and it wasn’t just Mel Gibson calling to chat. (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice probably ain’t too thrilled, either, after being blindsided by Qana - her multicountry diplomatic effort turned into a trip for brunch in Tel Aviv.)

That’s what happens when you let yourself be lulled into a “false sense of insecurity”. (via BoingBoing)