WB: Kabuki Offensive – Moon of Alabama

August 12, 2006

WB: Kabuki Offensive

Billmon:

There will be hell to pay for this fiasco — coming as it does on top of Uncle Sam’s own murder suicide pact in Iraq. When and where that payment wil be demanded isn’t clear yet, but if the past is any guide it will be paid in the blood of the innocent and not the guilty. Condi better swap her forceps for a shovel, because it looks like there’s going to be a lot of graves to dig in the "new" Middle East.

Kabuki Offensive

Posted by b on August 12, 2006 at 04:50 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Even more worrisome is the enmity of the world toward Israel, that I can’t imagine abating anytime soon. They, unlike the Am. NeoFascists, have to live over in that hellhole of a neighborhood, in which they just destroyed the only decent country.
But Congrats to the French for the Diplomatic Coup they pulled off.
As reasonable as it may seem to get Israel to agree to pull out in exchange for Hezb- pulling back to the other side of the Litani, or thereabouts, this could be another Nightmare step along the path to the NeoFascist dreamed off assault on Iran. Was Mission Accomplished? Is Israel now out of danger of Hezb- rockets, if Goons assault Iran?

Posted by: jj | Aug 12 2006 5:10 utc | 1

Israel whether it was forced by the US or decided on its own certainly knew before this that it would not win a global popularity contest. That was why its only strategy had to be, I believe, to be completely and overpoweringly successful in this war. Ya know, if ya can’t be loved, you must be feared type of thing. Very unfortunately for Israel however, Israel and now by extension, the US — lost this war and there is a psychological inclusion of the Iraq mess with this that is just devastating.
It is amazing to me that Israel which prides itself on having some pretty aware realists in its leadership could not see that anything suggested by this US government related to military action would largely result in shit. My goodness, one of the most continually amazing thing to me about the Bush regime is its unbelievable and consistent incompetence/I> in all important matters. Across the board in every category — scarily always surpassing its last incompetence with something even worse the next time. The other amazement is the incredibly high treshold that the media and Europeans seem to have for this — no one has just popped a cork inside their head and said, ‘enough’ and let fly the reality of it. Amazing.

Posted by: Elie | Aug 12 2006 5:35 utc | 2

It is a Kabuki offensive and, I fear, a Kabuki peace. These are not tea leaves we’re reading, they’re entrails and the bloody mess is beyond my powers to even try to decipher. Kudos to Billmon for his efforts.
It’s especially difficult because of the ‘cone of silence’ that hovers over the US administration.
“‘Splain to me please, Lucy, what the fuck is going on?”
“Nothing dear, it’s just that the time is right for palace revolution.”
“Oh, where’s Little Dickey?”

Posted by: Dick Durata | Aug 12 2006 5:42 utc | 3

Three possible reasons for European reticence:
1. The USA is destroying itself as a world power. China is not yet ready for more than regional power, and (neocon blathering aside) neither is Iran or anyone else. If the US goes tits-up, western Europe becomes the new hegemon by default.
2. The US economy is still 28% of the world total (using hard currency reckoning). Sending it into a tailspin will damage economies of the rest of the world badly. That’s something to avoid unless necessary, and America’s incompetence means it’s not necessary.
3. There is still a feeble hope of sanity from the US. We displayed some in the 1970s. We might do it again once the Bushes are excised. If not, then more active measures will be implemented.
As for the media, that one’s easy. They’re the shrub’s coconspirators. If he goes down hard, so do they.

Posted by: Brian J. | Aug 12 2006 5:53 utc | 4

@Elie:

The other amazement is the incredibly high treshold that the media and Europeans seem to have for this — no one has just popped a cork inside their head and said, ‘enough’ and let fly the reality of it. Amazing.

I think if you could get people to give you honest answers — sodium pentathol or something — you would find that nearly everyone consciously realizes that the Bush regime is a disaster. (The exceptions being the religious right and the very rich, both of which combined are still a minority.) The lack of outcry is for three reasons.

The first is, of course, that the right wing controls the media, so anyone who complains is instantly categorized as wrong in some way. Most commonly as being soft on terrorism, but there are other charges which can be made, too. Lieberman went through the catalog a while back.

The second reason only applies to Bush supporters: denouncing Bush is actually quite difficult to do from a right-wing perspective. Bush has given the right (for the most part) what they want: he has championed “faith” over competency, militance over negotiation, instant gratification over long-term planning, appearance over substance, rich over poor, white over black… any small-minded, short-term, stupid goal of the right you can name has been championed at one time or another by Bush, although since some of them are contradictory (or would involve giving less money to his cronies, which may not contradict a principle he has publicly championed but certainly contradicts his main purpose — if Bush did not reward his cronies, he would not have been the Republican candidate in the first place) not all of them have been carried out. Still, he’s made the effort. A Republican turning against him now would not only have to face the smear machine, but would also have to face up to the fact that “everything going wrong” actually turns out to be the result of the policies they’ve been working on for years. Politics is much less about rational thought than some may believe; mostly it’s about emotion, and nobody wants to admit to themselves — let alone everyone else — that they are a fool, and have been exactly wrong every time.

The third reason is that everyone is hoping for a soft landing. “Maybe,” they say to themselves, “if we can just tough it out until 2008, then we can vote in somebody decent, fix the critical mistakes, and pretend all of this never happened.” It’s a very seductive idea — most of us first-worlders, after all, were pretty comfortable before Bush came along, and although if pressed we have to admit to the knowledge at the time that Everyone Else wasn’t too happy, well, It Ain’t Hard To Get Along With Somebody Else’s Troubles. So maybe, says the whisper in our collective ears, we can somehow get back to that, and everything will be okay after all.

If you hear that saying in your ear, it’s a lot easier to argue with the practical side than the moral. If you’re hearing it, it means that the 1990s were a good time for you; if you weren’t worried about the Palestinians then, for example, it wouldn’t bother you much now if Israel kept the boots stamping on human faces forever. Besides, says the little voice, wouldn’t it be easier to work for positive change if at least some of the world has peace and prosperity? How wrong can it be to accept continued safety and warmth and food, instead of fighting for changes which may end up giving you none of the above?

But the little voice is wrong. The good times are not going to come again. The financial rug is about to be pulled out from under the U.S. — India, China, Brazil, Russia and, well, just about everyone else are busy getting a good grip on the edges, so they can pull more effectively. It’s nothing personal, mostly, although that may be a bit hard to believe. It’s a trick the U.S. has used, itself, many and many a time. But while the rug is about to be pulled out from another room, the ceiling is also starting to cave in; over the last several decades, conservatives (with the compliance of a media willing to portray them as centrists) have metaphorically replaced steel with wood, then wood with plastic, then plastic with cardboard. Now the rafters are buckling, there are creaks and groans from behind panels, and the ceiling gets suspiciously damp when it rains. And we’re stuck with an educational system that mostly still can’t bring itself to talk about sex and denounces evolution as fraud, a popular culture that would make Nero blush and make a Nazi yearn for something more wholesome, a dismantled healthcare system in the name of corporate profits, and a manufacturing base so shrunken that for all practical purposes it might as well not exist at all.

When the finances go, in other words, everything will go, and the finances are about to go. The little voice trying to keep us from protesting doesn’t mention that, but then, the little voice spent the last few decades helping talk the world into making those decisions in the first place, so perhaps we shouldn’t trust it.

Posted by: The Truth Gets Vicious When You Corner It | Aug 12 2006 6:35 utc | 5

Billmon, thanks for your consistently good reading.
But there’s one little sentence here that nags me a bit:
If Washington’s Middle Eastern Rottweiler wants to keep getting its kennel ration, it’s going to have to put a little more teeth into its work next time.

I mean, when we start to speak as if AIPAC (and all of the assorted other little PACs that, for example, gave money to McKinney’s opponent) didn’t exist, then it’s like there’s a hole in the middle of our vision. How really seriously can anyone expect that Israel will be dropped? What would that mean exactly?

Posted by: 2nd anon | Aug 12 2006 7:03 utc | 6

oh sorry me again…
I mean it just seems to me that the article by Rivkin & Casey in Ha’aretz that “Israel Must Win” seemed to me to be strictly hardline neocon propaganda for internal Israeli consumption, so they don’t abandon the war in Lebanon because they were being whipped.

Posted by: 2nd anon | Aug 12 2006 7:07 utc | 7

This isn´t Kabuki

Israel Air Force strikes killed up to 19 people on Saturday. Relief officials said Israel was still denying access for aid convoys to distressed civilians despite the resolution.
Early Saturday morning, IAF jets struck several targets in north, east and south Lebanon, killing at least two people and wounding several others. An air raid that targeted a vehicle killed two people and wounded a third in the village of Kharayeb in the Zahrani region – about halfway between Beirut and Lebanon’s border with Israel, security officials said.
A separate raid destroyed a bridge linking the southern cities of Tyre and Nabatiyeh with Sidon. The officials said the IAF also fired at least three missiles that caused a fire and destroyed power transformers on the eastern edge of Sidon. No casualties were reported.
George Makhoul, an official at the power station, said the air strike cut off electricity in Sidon, which could take up to 10 days to repair.
Security officials reported several air strikes in Akkar province, located about 97 kilometers (60 miles) north of Beirut, and raids on targets in the southern port city of Tyre. There was no immediate word of casualties.
IAF warplanes also struck apartment buildings that house a Hezbollah charity organization in the heart of the eastern Lebanese city of Baalbek, wounding three people. Another four people were injured in an airstrike on a house west of Baalbek.
On Friday night, an IAF drone fired missiles into a convoy of refugees fleeing attacks in the southern town of Marjayoun, killing at least seven people and wounding 22 others, an Associated Press photographer traveling with the convoy said.
The IDF confirmed it had carried out an air strike on the convoy, saying it had acted on the mistaken suspicion Hezbollah guerrillas were smuggling weapons in the vehicles. “The attack was carried out based on a suspicion. It was found to be incorrect,” an IDF spokeswoman said. The IDF said the convoy had been denied a request for permission to move but that it had set out anyway.
The convoy, consisting of more than 100 civilian vehicles and those carrying a detachment of 350 Lebanese soldiers and police from the area around Marjayoun, was hit near Chtaura on the west side of the Bekaa Valley.
Israeli aircraft also bombed two electricity transformers in south Lebanon on Friday, plunging the port city of Tyre into darkness, security sources said.

Posted by: b | Aug 12 2006 9:16 utc | 8

Its one thing to walk around capitol hill asking senators and congressman to support a western democracy that can look after itsef.
Its quite another to ask them to bail out a little country that can’t march two miles across the border without getting its ass kicked.
AIPAC is strong by itself, but much stronger for the fact that Israel is asking for help, not NEEDING it. I don’t doubt America will support Israel no matter what, but the perceptions of the power in the relationship may change alot. Up to this point the US has backed Israel unquestionably because it assumes whatever Israel does won’t go wrong, so there are few risks. With that assumption damaged parts of the US are going to want a say in what Israel does, as America is going to have to deal with the consequences of Israel screwing up again. And Israel may agree to give America a greater role to ensure its support because of a lack of confidence in its own ability to defend itself.
Americans do not like a loser.

Posted by: still working it out | Aug 12 2006 9:21 utc | 9

From Billmons post:
Senior Israel Defense Forces officers said that the IDF is “continuing forward at full power. . . ”
…………………………………
Then I saw this in the global guerrillas comments:
Khiam, 2 miles from the Israeli border has now fallen (the Israelis were on the outskirts last night). That means it took a month to move 2 miles to the old IDF prison torture / facility – now the Lebenese Museum of National Remembrance.
Even so the advance is hardly impressive. Now lets look at garden snails. Don’t worry its relevant…
http://hypertextbook.com/facts/AngieYee.shtml
Taking the top figure. At 0.013 m per second garden snails go 0.78m a minute, 46.8m in an hour, 1123.2m a day. If we assume 2 miles is 3km then the Israeli army, in one month, has travelled the same distance as a snail in 3 days.
The new IDF – ten times slower than a snail.

Posted by: anna missed | Aug 12 2006 9:24 utc | 10

Gallimaufry
I’m interested in reading Sy Hersh’s next column to find out if the Iranian operation has now been rescheduled until after the election, or even next year.
I think the war planners are up to their ears in work, regaming the old attack plans. They will not be able swoop in from Israel, through Syria, Kurdistan to Tehran, as expected, but will have to mount a bloodier southern offensive up through the gulf.
What lesson will the US war planners learn from this? You guessed it. Use more air power! Duh!
Heads are spinning so fast that I predict they may even attempt to bring the morbid Iraq experiment back from the dead. Let’s see when the first sighting of a new “six month window of opportunity” arrives.
This will further stress the fragile Israel/Turkish relationship, as Turkey, like the other “moderate” puppets must continually work against the overweaning will of its people. The only way to breathe some life back there would be to sell out the Kurds who haven’t had their requisite share of violence the past few years.
Again, as I mentioned yesterday, there have been many forces we don’t see working against the Iraqi resistance, keeping them from mounting the kind of effort that Hezbollah did. The equations in Iraq must now be rejiggered. To my mind, it is still in Iran’s interest to drag this conflict out, keeping the beast fully engaged there.
It seems about the right time to keep one’s eyes open to the possibility of an unexpected coup in Egypt. Now that would screw the pooch even worse than the past month. Like Fidel, Hosni isn’t getting any younger.
In any event, lots of new conflicts should start sprouting up around the world as the ramifications of this useless war start sinking in. India/Pakistan is only the first.
And chances of a new New Pearl Harbor have increased beyond the fifty percent mark in the next six month window, I fear.
All of this calls for a very diligent reading of the tea leaves in the coming months.
And there is still the possibility that the bell could sound for round two before we expect it.
I fully expected Arik (Sharon) to kick the bucket in the midst of this conflict, and his death be used as a rallying cry. Perhaps they have him on an intravenous feed of Red Bull. Alive or not, his morbid ghost hovers over this whole sad affair. The thrill is gone, babe.
If a sort of truce takes hold, expect the oil spill to be the gift that keeps on giving. In the US media, it will be the maudlin “battle for the shorebirds,” or some such tripe; in the arab press, it will be “look what Israel has done.” Which is about right in my book.
Hey, how about dem Red Sox?

Posted by: Malooga | Aug 12 2006 10:14 utc | 11

Comment over at SST by an old Yankee reinforces Billmon’s post.

Why won’t people take Nasrallah and the danger that this a trap leading to a great land battle seriously? Why is Israeli superiority a given? Unblooded boys up against battle hardened men who may have buried their whole family a few years ago. Any member of a group called Hisb’Allah (The Party of God) led by a man,Nasrallah (God’s Victory) is a lot more prepared to die for their cause than I am. I should be ashamed, but I’m as delicate as those Israeli boy soldiers and I don’t want to die for nuthin’.
Israel must take the best cease fire it can get soon. HA may allow them to disengage. The international community may require them to. Or is it too late? I was a grunt. I don’t know when a battle has been joined and when you can seperate without running. I’ll be watching your site closely. I hope I’m dead ass wrong. Hal Carpenter

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 12 2006 10:29 utc | 12

I am still puzzled by the assertions being made in some quarters that Hassan Nasrallah is going to accept a UN “deal” that implies that he lost the war.
pat lang, from cloned poster’s link

Posted by: annie | Aug 12 2006 13:07 utc | 13

Israelis ‘triple Lebanon force'”

Israel says it has tripled the number of its troops in southern Lebanon in an expanded offensive, despite a United Nations vote backing a ceasefire.
The soldiers are moving towards the strategically significant Litani River, the military said.
Hezbollah’s leader has said the group will abide by the UN Security Council resolution, which calls for a “full cessation of hostilities”.
Israel’s Cabinet will discuss the issue on Sunday.
It says it will only halt military action after taking a vote.
Lebanese ministers will discuss the UN plan on Saturday. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora indicated he would back the truce call, saying: “This resolution shows that the whole world stood by Lebanon.”
Hezbollah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, said on the group’s al-Manar TV channel on Saturday that it would abide by the plan.
But referring to Israel’s insistence it has the right to continue military operations in Lebanon in self-defence, Sheikh Nasrallah said: “As long as there is Israeli aggression, it is our right to fight them and defend our land.”

Posted by: annie | Aug 12 2006 16:20 utc | 14

Hezbollah ‘will observe UN truce'”
However, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah said on TV that Hezbollah would continue fighting as long as Israeli soldiers remained in Lebanon…On Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel on Saturday, Sheikh Nasrallah said the UN resolution was “unfair” in holding his group responsible for the fighting……“As long as there is Israeli aggression, it is our right to fight them and defend our land.”….
Gen Halutz did not give a figure for the new number of Israeli troops currently in Lebanon, but Israeli sources put it at about 30,000.
Israel radio said the troops had been ordered to seize ground as far as the Litani River, up to 30km (18 miles) from the Israeli border.
30,000 sounds like an occupation to me.

Posted by: annie | Aug 12 2006 16:30 utc | 15

One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that resolution 1701 will make Iran into a security council resolution violator if it resupplies Hizbullah, adding another argument to the arsenal for “war with Iran” supporters.

Posted by: Tom Scudder | Aug 12 2006 16:39 utc | 16

30,000 sounds like an occupation to me.
A while back I wrote that 9 brigades (each some 3,500) would be needed to get to the Litani. So now it is serious. They will need some two weeks in my estimate and Olmert may try to delay any vote on the resolution up to then.
But why does Israel have to have a cabinet vote on this at all?

Posted by: b | Aug 12 2006 17:03 utc | 17

Hi “still working…”
Its one thing to walk around capitol hill asking senators and congressman to support a western democracy that can look after itsef.
Its quite another to ask them to bail out a little country that can’t march two miles across the border without getting its ass kicked.
AIPAC is strong by itself, but much stronger for the fact that Israel is asking for help, not NEEDING it.

Honestly, Israel’s power and triumph have nothing to do with it. That’s just a spin line to get the Israelis to support the hardline.
It’s just money that has everything to do with it.
The greatest line the AIPAC et al have used in this country to get funding is the opposite, in fact. “Israel is a tiny country surrounded by enemies…” this excuses just about everything and is used to ask and ask and ask.
Of course the real weapon is money and clout in the first place. Ask McKinney or Gen. Zinni or Hollings or anybody else in the Beltway who will actually tell the truth. It has nothing to do with winning or losing or tugging at heartstrings. Ask Ned Lamont.
It’s just politics and hardball.

Posted by: 2nd anon | Aug 12 2006 17:38 utc | 18

Hello,
This is regarding the fresh new post from Billmon, “Once More into the Breach”. The one thing that I remember from the previous Israeli wars in Lebanon is that they routinely used a cease-fire to stop the shooting, but they would continue moving and reorganizing their positions, eventually their enemy would fire at them, and the cease-fire would be over.
Am thinking that the cease fire will only be used to advance the positions that Israel holds.

Posted by: axxy | Aug 12 2006 22:36 utc | 19

Even IDF stenographer Amos Harel is wondering WTF with this last minute push.
Shorter Amos: Lotsa pain; no discernable gain.

Posted by: ran | Aug 13 2006 0:04 utc | 20

Well…it’s (Cease-fire) is officially (it’s under Chapter VI) non-binding.

Posted by: jj | Aug 13 2006 3:22 utc | 21

Billmon wrote:

It contains the same asymetrical language as the first draft on the nature of the ceasefire — that is, Hizbullah is told to halt “all attacks” while Israel is expected to stop all “offensive actions.” Some have seen this as cover for a continued IDF onslaught, under the Israeli logic that all its actions are defensive. But I continue to see it as a meaningless distinction designed to avoid the appearance that Hizbullah and Israel are being placed on an equal footing.

Well, not quite:

Israeli officials said Israel believed it would be entitled to use force to prevent Hizbollah from rearming and to clear guerrilla positions out of southern Lebanon after the truce took effect. They said such “defensive” operations were permissible under the U.N. resolution to end the fighting.
Western diplomats and U.N. officials said they feared Israel’s broad definition of “defensive” actions could lead to a resurgence in large-scale fighting and prevent the swift deployment of international troops meant to monitor a cease-fire. [Reuters]

Posted by: DoDo | Aug 13 2006 19:30 utc | 22

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