Deception
I have to admit that that there was a huge deception plan involved in the Lebanon Battle. However, it was not the one I described in Tactics, Strategy, Grand Strategy and Syria Has a Problem.
The deception involved was self deception. I was decieved by the initial agressive response to the abduction of the two soldiers by Hizballah and the statements of Olmert promising a strategic victory.
It also appears that the deception on the part of the Israeli General Staff was self deception. The confusion was real not faked. Had me fooled. I couldn't believe a competent military could be so inept. Well I was right. No competent military could be so inept. They were incompetent.
I believe the cause is systemic. I outline my reasons in Socialism Kills
Update: 25 Aug '06 0051z
Here are some thoughts I posted at Winds of Change. Revised and extended.
If the attack was to spoil Iran's plans for 22 Aug and gather intel (with a side of creating economic and logistical difficulties for Hizbollah) then a missing wider strategic goal is explainable.
However, that is not how Olmert sold the war to the Israelis. So then he got caught by public expectations with a plan that was not the one the public expected. He promised a strategic victory and may have actually deliverd one. It was not the strategic victory the Israeli people expected. To lay this all out might compromise intel sources. So Olmert is stuck.
Thus - confusion in the political echelon causes confusion on the ground. All driven by public perception.
It was a strategic defeat for Iran because 22 August passed without a bang or a whimper. Based on the Turkish grounding of an Iranian resupply mission - my guess is that a conventional rocket attack with large rockets shot off from Lebanon was the Iran plan.
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3 comments:
You're a mensch, M. Simon.
You take risks. Without the willingness to do that there would be no learning. There’s also nothing wrong with looking for the positive side and trying to see things in a constructive light.
But I am disappointed that so few analysts have made a serious effort to unravel the new diplomatic environment that is emerging.
I am still, more than anything else, peeved by the fact that there was a moment in this war when the whole world was united in calling Nasrallah a war criminal, and that moment was wasted.
This war could have been a diplomatic victory for Israel, with the PR game shaping up in new and unexpected ways, but the flexibility was just not there.
These are victories that Israel desperately needs. Unfortunately, the possibility of doing well on this front has been so far discounted and for so long that there is not even the faintest discussion of it.
FROM CAROL HERMAN
Heck, M. Simon, even Patton, arriving first in Africa, had some problems getting his troops working to their top proficiency. (And, afterward, because Patton was under British Command, he was always working his way around stupid orders.)
In one brilliant manuever, when the stupid British plans to engage in Italy, after Sicily, had Patton mis-cast; he FLEW TO HIS AMERICAN SUPERIOR, and got an inked order "that he could take every available troop he had and try THIS: PALERMO.)
BRILLIANT. Frontal assault, grabbing off the first big Italian City. Sure. If he had failed his career would have been KAPUT.)
But the Three Weeks War in Lebanon met with UNPLANNED quirks.
ONE: Bush pushing for Assad to be taken out. (Because this is what the Saudis wanted. ANd, this is what the American "community" wanted.)
Some day, OLMERT WILL BE KNOWN AS EFFICIENT AS PATTON, when he had to deal with the British twerps.
But Israel is not meeting the MSM 'fashtinkenehs' on the soap box terrain. You can slip and fall and break your head. And, no one will report the truth, anyway.
WHILE IN ISRAEL, the real battle is so phoney. BIBI DOES NOT HAVE 61 votes. And, for some reason what the religious right is doing is using this summer "excursion." Where we now KNOW all the troops killed, if it wasn't friendly fire, died because of new, souped up RUSSIAN ANTI TANK MISSILES. Got only two Merkevas. But when shot at infantry, killed more than 50 men.
Then, you have the reality that the communications for nasrallah were never punched out.
So what Israel has been doing (and is still doing), is mapping out what's going on 20 km up in the Bekakta Valley. By the syrian border. Special Op stuff.
While Condi WENT ON VACATION.
Bush doesn't talk.
It's his MAJOR defect. Because he can't lie, well. And, he doesn't want to give away any secrets.
But if you think Bibi would get more than a few more chairs in the next election, how come "Mr. Famous" doesn't get 61 signatures?
Yes, the stakes are now higher. For the SAUDIS! Since Assad is an unfriendly Allawite SHI'A. And, that sucks, when you see iran is still a playa. And, russian stuff is the killer sold to Assad.
Fix this? Without America being a better broker? WHY? NOt to fix it is to condemn the stupid europeans to the problems anti-Semitism has brought to their shores. While Mubarak keeps calling Assad a girl. And, Assad calls Mubarak a half-wit.
How will these problems solve themselves? Not by spewing MSM kaka. But my money is on the Secret Police. All the arab states have this. Things get planted and they explode. Then leaders are buh bye.
Olmert's not any different today than yesterday. Or March 28th. When most voters weren't too enthused. But then they gave Bibi only a dozen seats. And, they sat the Pensioners in the Knesset with 8.
While it seems Mazuz is trying to get everyone to focus on the derangement of spit exchange.
Headlines? These won't survive to Rosh Hashanah. And, with all the hand ringing, there will be something from #1701 that keeps Israel's nose clean. And, lebanon's nose dirty. (15% of the lebanese shi'a have hightailed it back again, into syria. THEY ARE AFRAID OF THEIR OWN COMPETITORS, Druze, Christians, etc. With their own axes to grind on nasrallah's minions.
Don't expect to read any reports. Or see anything that resembles military tactics. It's just mafia goons. Different playbook.
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