The BBC reports that Israeli border strike ‘kills 28’, eliminating the threat to Israel posed by Syrian Kurdish warehouse workers putting vegetables fruit on trucks.

Within the report we learn:

In his televised speech Sheikh Nasrallah also said Hezbollah would end its rocket attacks if Israel stopped attacking what he called civilian areas in Lebanon.

Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman said that suggestion was “a sign of weakness” and that Hezbollah might be “looking for a way out”.

Dan, you are still an idiot and hanging around with Bolton doesn’t help. Hezbollah isn’t going anywhere; they’re home. Israel is the one who needs an exit strategy.

When Israel reduced its air raids, Hezbollah reduced its rocket attacks. When Israel went back to attacking Lebanon, Hezbollah redoubled its attacks. Hezbollah is the one that does what it says it will do: they have credibility.

A general note to Israeli spokeweasels: intelligent people have figured out that Hezbollah is spinning like crazy, but you have been outright lying. Back off and return to the highly distorted version of truth that is acceptable. Calling 14-year-olds “senior Hezbollah officials” isn’t going to cut it and you are on the verge of having killed more Hezbollah fighters than could exist.

With the exception of whatever they used against that Israeli ship, Hezbollah has been firing rockets at Israel. They have no guidance systems. They are aimed like artillery pieces with the direction they are pointed, the angle at which they are fired, and time their rocket engines last determining where they hit. They are affected by weather. They are not precision guided weapons.

Israel is using a variety of weapons, but most of them have guidance systems. Whether they are powered [missiles], or unpowered [smart bombs] almost all are hitting exactly what the individual who fired them intended.

The Israel aircraft may also be firing rockets, but those are used in “line of sight” attacks against a specific target.

Pierre has a post up on the problem in Iraq: Dude, Here’s Your Civil War. In it he points to his column, Bush’s Iraq war: Icarus on crack, that was published in the Daytona Beach News-Journal on March 26, 2003.

Another example disproving the “conventional wisdom” that everyone thought Iraq had WMDs, or that the war would be a good idea. I’m still waiting for someone to point me to a French or Russian official saying there were WMDs in Iraq in 2003.

Jo Fish came across a US offer to train the Lebanese military. After seeing what the Iraqi military looks like, I think Lebanon would probably not buy into the program.

If they accept US equipment, they get US strings, and I doubt the US would continue to supply Lebanon with materiel during a conflict in the same manner as Israel has been supplied. Lebanon should stay with their “homeboys”: Hezbollah seems to be winning its war.

With the French spearheading the UN effort to do something about the Lebanon crisis, the Israelis need to contemplate what life will be like next door to La Légion étrangère, the obvious choice for a non-peacekeeping, “you get to shoot people” mission along the border. These guys are rather well known for their loose “rules of engagement”, generally following the advice of Abbé Arnaud-Amaury of Citeaux.

It’s Nap Time

Just the right size!

[Editor: When you’re a kitten 4X6 is the perfect size.]

Friday Ark