Gyroscope

For a more considered take on the Israeli-Hezbollah War then you will receive in the mass media, consider the document produced by Anthony Cordesman for the Center for Strategic and international Studies. He has good contacts, it appears, within the Israeli military. Some highlights

It was never clear from discussions with Israeli officials exactly what the real original battle plan was. (p. 14)

One key point that should be mentioned more in passing than as a lesson, although it may be a warning about conspiracy theories, is that no serving Israeli official, intelligence officer, or other military officer felt that the Hezbollah acted under the direction of Iran or Syria. (p.15) [He argues they each used each other.]

… Iranian 747s routinely offloaded arms in Syrian airports … (p.15) [for shipment to Hezbollah]

Israeli intelligence officials also stated that they knew some 100 Iranian advisors were working with the Hezbollah (p.16)

He makes an interesting point about stealth technology applying to low signature weapons like the small rockets Hezbollah used not just to high technology platforms. He indicates he was shown video of rocket launches coming from houses where the entire time Hezbollah was in the house was no more than a minute. (p.19)

He also observes that while there was an agreed massive buildup of Hezbollah by Iran and Syria this cost the two nations perhaps no more than $100 – 150 million – something they can easily afford and easily afford to do again. (p. 20)

Posted by John Nordin at 06:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

How is the cease fire holding? Well so far, Hezbollah has shot some rockets, but since they landed in Lebanon, Israel didn’t reply. There’s a report Israel did a commando raid into Lebanon, but most seem to be ignoring that. Oh, and one more thing: Israel is still blockading Lebanon by land and sea and still occupying southern Lebanon. And the oil slick that is tearing up the Mediterranean coast, caused by Israel bombing of oil facilities (Does Hezbollah hide its fighters next to gas stations? That would explain it, I suppose.) And apparently 1 million people – one fourth of the Lebanese population were displaced.

And those two soldiers whose capture started it all? Long forgotten by everyone, apparently. Almost like the war wasn’t really about them.

Posted by John Nordin at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Why are drug prices so high? Why, to support all that R&D they do, or so we are told. Thus patents have to be defended so they can recover their costs. The Financial Times (8/18/06, p.15) reports another aspect however. Drug companies faced with a rival who is about to introduce a generic equivalent to their patented drug will cut a deal with the rival. The rival agrees to hold off on the generic, the patent owning company agrees not to sue for patent infringement. It happened recently with a generic substitute for Adderall XR, a ADHD drug. Shire got Barr Laboratories to withhold their drug for some years. And this will give Shire time to figure out how to move their patents to a modified form of their current drug.

The Federal Trade Commission has prevented money from changing hands, at least openly, in these deals, but clearly the deals are motivated by calculations of opportunity cost and deferred costs.

Posted by John Nordin at 11:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A claustrophobic airline passenger looses control, goes berserk and has to be subdued. Her personal effects are examined. And, reports the New York Times (8/17/06, p.A17)

The authorities said the woman had lotion and matches with her. They said the lotion, but not the matches, was prohibited on the plane.

Posted by John Nordin at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
-- George Orwell

Posted by John Nordin at 05:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Der Spiegel On-Line reports how well the Bush administration is doing at isolating Syria as a rouge regime. (excerpted)

The yellow Hezbollah flag has been raised all over Damascus -- flying from cars, draped over balconies and plastered on the sides of buildings all over the city. Images of Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah are likewise omnipresent: tens of thousands of posters and placards depicting the Hezbollah leader have flooded the city.

Young men download Nasrallah's sermons as ring tones for their cell phones, and even Christians light candles for the Shiite leader in church.

an expert close to the Syrian Foreign Ministry who asked not to be identified. "Why should we help?" he asks. "Let the West head for its own doom thanks to its policies -- that's exactly what's happening now."

it looks right now as if the regime in Damascus could emerge from the current crisis as a winner. Syria has already established itself as an influential regional power. And for the first time since the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005, an official representative of a European government has travelled to Damascus. Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos met with President Assad.
Syria could once more increase its influence in Lebanon too, following the forced withdrawal of its troops in the aftermath of Hariri's death. The anti-Syrian government in Beirut has been weakened and Syria's ally Hezbollah has been strengthened massively, at least ideologically.

Ha’aretz points out the stunning success of noble forces in degrading the slimy terrorists in Lebanon (excerpted)

The large number and the location of the casualties that the Israel Defense Forces sustained Wednesday indicate that the army does not yet control the narrow strip along the border, although this stage of the ground operation was supposed to have been completed already.

Although the army had conquered the town, Hezbollah men were hiding in underground bunkers well camouflaged from the outside. The bunkers had been stocked with large quantities of food, enough to last for weeks, and ammunition, including antitank missiles and, in several cases, short-range rockets.

The bunkers are connected to electricity and, according to one report, are air conditioned. When the fighting dies down, Hezbollah fighters emerge from the bunkers and set up ambushes for IDF soldiers and armored vehicles.

The Council on Foreign Relations (weekly email newsletter) points out what is happening elsewhere while Bush is reforming the Middle East

This summer, fighters loyal to a group of Islamic courts rolled into Mogadishu, routing the warlords who had served as power brokers in the capital since Somalia's last stable government collapsed in 1991. The emerging fundamentalist leadership in the violence-plagued African nation has raised U.S. fears that Somalia could become a haven for terrorists much like Afghanistan was.

And, Billmon alerts us to the news that all Americans are totally united and determined, focused intently ever since 9/11 to sign up for whatever the Dear Leader wishes us to do.

Some 30 percent of Americans cannot say in what year the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington took place, according to a poll published in the Washington Post newspaper.

And then of course, there was the stunning domestic endorsement of Bush in Connecticut as reported by Daily Kos

In one corner, you had a bunch of unpaid volunteers, Internet rabble-rousers, and an inexperienced politician whose highest post had been County Selectman.

In the other, you had the three-time Senator, former vice-presidential candidate, visible party statesman, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, the other popular CT senator Dodd, most of Organized Labor, the women's groups and the environmental groups, most of traditional Democratic party support, paid lobbyist support, paid armies of GOTV staff, the slick ad money, the top DLC consultants, and a 3 to 1 budget gap.
I'm sorry. That's not David vs. Goliath. This isn't even the NBA champions versus a rec league team.That's more like an ant vs. my shoe.

And the shoe lost.

Yes, its just so fitting that the supporters of Bush label their opponents as the defeat-o-crats; while Bush goes from success to success.

Posted by John Nordin at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From CNN, confirming the ban on vehicle movement

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The city of Tyre is effectively cut off from the rest of Lebanon and under a curfew. That, after Israel dropped leaflets on this southern Lebanese city banning vehicle traffic.

People are still allowed to walk around by foot. The leaflet said that any vehicle on the roads of southern Lebanon will be considered a legitimate target for Israeli airstrikes.

Now, this, of course, is causing extreme problems for international relief organizations. The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Jacob Kellenberger, came to Tyre today, but he didn't come all the way by car. He had to stop at the Litani River, where Israel has blown out the bridge and other temporary crossings several times. He had to cross on a log, which is now the only way over the river.

When he came to Tyre, he gave a press conference and he expressed extreme concern about the humanitarian situation in southern Lebanon. He said that the Red Cross now has its second largest operation in the world here in Lebanon. That, the second one after Sudan.

He said that they're very concerned about the approximately 100,000 civilians left in southern Lebanon here in Tyre, and in towns and villages throughout the south. That, of course -- the population before was 400,000. He said the population that's still here is suffering from a lack of food, a lack of clean water, a lack of medicine. He also referred to the Israeli leaflets banning vehicle traffic, saying just because those leaflets have been dropped, it does not absolve Israel of its responsibility to respect international humanitarian law.

Meanwhile, the bombardment of southern Lebanon, from the air, from the sea, from land, from artillery continues. There's no end in sight for this conflict here on the ground.

Posted by John Nordin at 07:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The readers of Angry Arab have translated one of those flyers that Israel is dropping on the Lebanese. The Arabic is pretty bad, they report, but here is their best effort:

To the Lebanese citizens (or settlers?) who are found south of the Litani River:

Read this decree with scrutiny and do according to its directives.

The IDF will escalate its operations and will hit with overstated (or sexually mature?) force the terroristic elements that use you as a human shield and fire rockets from inside your homes in the direction of the state of Israel.

Every car and of whatever kind that it was moving south of the Litani River will be shelled because it is suspected of carrying the rockets and the military materiel and the terrorists.

It behooves you to know that anyone who moves in any car that be is exposing his life to danger.

The State of Israel.

You will have noticed in the media the common claim that since Israel told Lebanese citizens to leave, that it is their own fault if they now get bombed. Aside from the absurdity that one nation can have the authority to order the citizens of another nation to leave their homes and then transfer all moral responsibility to them for failing to obey, note carefully here the statement that all moving vehicles are considered fair game to shoot at. So – how are people supposed to get out? Walk? Take a camel? But can’t the hump of a camel be used to transport terroristic water, a known resource of the enemies of Israel?

Posted by John Nordin at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Assessments

The Belgravia Dispatch points us to this quote by Prince Faisal on the “New Middle East”

“We would like to return to the old Middle East as we did not see anything in the new Middle East apart from more problems,” he said. “The Middle East is not an uninhabited area, it has people, governments and our destiny is determined after God’s will by its people.”

.. to which, let us add this remarkable statement by King Abdullah of Jordan, all the more remarkable because he is often considered to be one of “our” Arabs, a calming influence, etc., etc. Thanks to Jordan Watch for the quote

Wearing his military uniform, the king stated the following series of strong remarks that represent his views on the current issues: 1- "The USA must realize that war will bring nothing but more attrocities, violence and extremism. There is no military solution for the conflict". 2- "I said to the Jordanian military go to Lebanon even with the possibility of the planes being hit with missiles". 3- "The root cause is the Israeli occupation of Arab lands. As long as there is occupation, there will be resistance". 4- "I understand that the voice of moderates has been lowered with the feelings of anger, especially that moderate positions were not fruitful, due to factors outside of our control". 5- "The priority now is for ceasefire and then everything can be negotiated". 6- "In the begenning of my contacts with Prisidents Bush and Chirac the reactions were not encouraging in putting pressure on Israel, but now the picture is different". 7- "The marginalization of the Arabic decision and leaving it at the hands of regional and international forces will never be in the best interest of Arabs". 8- "The absence of a unified Arab position is a betrayel to our people and we will regret the state of chaos"." 9- "Israeli policies have resulted in the increase of extremism stream in the Arab World at the expense of moderates". 10- "Moderation must provide results, otherwise people will have no option but to refuse moderation and seek other ways to defend their rights". 11- "If you destroy Hizbullah now and no solution is provided for Palestine, Lebanon and Syria a new Hizbullah will emerge".

Jimmy Carter makes the obvious point, courtesy of Beirut Live:

A major impediment to progress is Washington's strange policy that dialogue on controversial issues will be extended only as a reward for subservient behavior and will be withheld from those who reject U.S. assertions.

And Am Johal puts it all in one compelling question, as quoted on Electronic Lebanon

Is Israel any safer?

Posted by John Nordin at 11:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s bad enough that the Democrats are so often missing in action. Now, when it comes to Lebanon, a good chunk of the noisy progressive left is also missing.

I thank BillMon for the courage to talk about this. I've noticed the blanket of silent approval for Israel on Air America and Josh Marshall to name two. Josh in particular is hard to figure out because he recently posted approvingly a message about Iraq in the "to deal with terrorists with popular support you can't just bomb them" mode and then endorsed exactly that policy in regard to Lebanon. And listening to Al Franken desperately try to get Juan Cole to say something good about Israel’s policy was hilarious. It was as if Al just couldn’t grasp the concept that a government policy could be wrong when it came to Israel.

There is a big blind spot among liberals on Israel. The recent unanimous endorsement of the senate resolution that took Israel’s self-delusion at face value was depressing. So was the tone-deaf reaction from one of Washington’s senators when I wrote to complain about her vote.

To place pressure on Hamas and the Palestinian government to return the kidnapped soldier, Israel launched a military incursion into Gaza.

And how well did that work? Did anyone think that blowing up the electric plant was going to work?

This unprovoked attack by Hezbollah has resulted in a wave of continual artillery fire and air strikes on both sides of the border in northern Israel and southern Lebanon .

Notice the rhetorical move to invoke implicity the “caught in the crossfire” defense: implying that all that death in Lebanon was the result of some cosmic force, unidentifiable, and not Israel’s doing. And then, there is this most hilarious statement:

In addition, Hezbollah continues to ignore and fails to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559, which calls for disarming Hezbollah and for the Lebanese Army to take control throughout the entire country.

Oh, my, yes, why compliance with UN resolutions are just the thing Israel does, right? Talk about the black paint factory calling the kettle black.

Lebanon: Israel’s Vietnam. Or is it Israel’s Iraq? If Afghanistan was Russia’s Vietnam, then is Iraq America’s Russia? I get them all mixed up: it’s pretty amazing how a policy with exactly zero success over 40 years is still considered the “tough minded, manly, cold-eyed realistic” approach.

Billmon suspects, I think rightly, that having been totally silent in opposition to the Iraq war, that the Democrats will be totally silent again should we invade Iran.

Posted by John Nordin at 10:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Supply and demand. We demand more gas, but supply doesn't go up; no refineries built in the US for decades (and, no, that's not because of environmental regs, oil companies themselves used $25/barrell as the assumed price to calculate profitability) and so gas is scarce.

While neither oil companies nor OPEC run as a charity to benefit our SUV drivers, on this issue, I doubt they are as much to blame for $3 gas as simple supply and demand. OPEC is producing at pretty much capacity, tanker fleets are being used pretty close to 100%, and then there is political instability not only in Mid East but in Latin America as well to add a speculative bonus to the prices.

And, as long as increasing efficiency is regarded as girly-man, we'll be in this mess. I've never quite got why so many think that efficiency improvements are so un-manly and unworthy of engineering effort.

And as for the taxes on gas. Go back to your first macro-economics class and remember that discussion about externalities. Pollution is an external cost – I can pollute the general atmosphere and I don’t have to breath my own pollution. Putting a tax on something to simulate the social cost of pollution actually increases the efficiency of the market because it makes producers bear the full costs of what they do.

So the proposal most discussed among the Gore/global warming/enviro crowd is an energy tax – a revenue-neutral tax. Add taxes on the consumption of energy and lower other taxes enough to offset the overall effect. So if we added $0.30/gallon to the gas tax but cut everyone’s income taxes by whatever would balance that out, then we’d have added a market incentive for private industry to produce more efficient cars and trucks. No 9,000 pages of regulations, no fussing over if an SUV is a truck, a light truck, or whatever. Phase it in over a few years to give everyone time to adjust. You want to drive a big SUV, you pay for its real cost to the environment, and then it’s your choice. Because it’s revenue-neutral, it’s not a drag on overall economic activity, it just shifts the incentives.

I know that idea is despised greatly by many and it’s called ‘communist’ or ‘socialist’, but I just don’t get the ferocity of the opposition. It’s making the market work and keeping government out of technological decisions like what type of engine to use or if you can have a car longer than x number of feet.

Posted by John Nordin at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)