Hello Gregg, I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with you regarding the lacking shred of evidence about the plan to invade Lebanon. We’ve had plans to invade many places, but we don’t give power point presentations on them to our allies while they’re just sitting on the shelf. That’s something one does for one’s ally or allies in the runup to attack, particularly when they are providing you with billions in military funding and weaponry. Getting one’s ducks lined up in a row, as it were. There is no argument that I’ve heard so far that the senior Israeli army officer wasn’t traipsing around Washington doing just that since several Iraelis quoted in the article were very open about it. There had been a general plan in place since 2000, but in the last year it has been a serious focus of the Israeli army. Serious as in, we *are* going to do this very soon. This was not a surprise war and with an expedited shipment of missiles and aviation fuel already enroute to Israel, I’d suggest that the Defense Department was not surprised, in fact, they were ready and waiting. And I would further suggest that since the US has thrown a roadblock in front of every effort to initiate a ceasefire, there was whole-hearted approval of the plan and there is nothing or no one who is going to stop it until it is finished.
As for the rest of Professor Cole’s claims, I make no judgement on them yet nor was I remarking on them. Time will tell.
Posted by Kate on 07/23/06 at 05:18 PM
Next entry: Walking plague
Previous entry: Sniffle and honk
Let me preface this by saying that I am no fan of what Israel is doing right now; killing hundreds of civilians and bombing Lebanon back 20 years will do nothing to disarm Hizballah or secure Israel. Their bombing campaign has gone far beyond the point of legitimate military action; it needs to end. Soon.
That said, I had a real issue with Cole’s post. He claims that Israel will use their war in Lebanon as a precursor to attack Iran; that their real goal is to take control over southern Lebanon, specifically the Litani River; and that the war was cooked up in collusion with Donald Rumsfeld. But he fails to produce a single fact to support any of those conclusions.
Of course Israel had a plan to invade Lebanon; they’ve been at war for decades. America has had a plan to invade Canada on the shelf since 1930. That doesn’t mean we’re actually planning to annex Quebec.
Cole made a lot of frightening conspiratorial points, but - despite his claims to be a scholar of the Middle East - he failed to back up a single argument with a shred of evidence.