Who Cares?

Am utterly sick to death of Israel, of waiting, of waiting for Israel to fight. Does Israel have the right to exist? Who says? Not Israel, not from anything I've seen. I doubt any other nation on earth, any other nation in world history, would have suffered the onslaught she has suffered and have done nothing. Does Israel deserve to exist? Boy, that's a tough one.

Actually, I suspect much of Israeli society feels the same disgust at the non-action and unnecessary defeat as I feel. They'll stumble along, wait, have new elections... Oh boy, wow, that's something... But it doesn't matter. This war isn't going to end and it's quickly going to become big. At some point they'll fight or die and I think they'll fight and at some point I think they'll have a warrior for PM. Better happen fast, Tehran isn't going to wait.

Headache:

Woke up this morning with a thorn in my brain, something like a caffeine headache, not really painful but there, an irritant. In this case though an irritant of anger, and not going away. I did only have four-and-a-half hours sleep. I'll drink more coffee...

Which I did, and chatted a little with my Canary. --He's all puffed up now, sitting on the edge of the cage on his "chat-platform" I built for him so that in the morning we can have conversation, nose-to-nose, man-to-bird... So soberly and seriously he sits there now as I write, though he was all atwitter so see me when I first came in.

The first insubordination has been Marjayoun. Supposedly Amir Peretz was all a twitter on the phone yesterday trying to reach that most forward unit of the IDF to call off the offensive, saying "Let's give peace a chance" --or as otherwise expressed-- "We need to give the diplomatic process one last chance".

That of course is insane and Peretz and Olmert are insane and the commander of that forward unit whoever he was knows that and so somehow the message was not received and so now the IDF does have one significant salient and they're not going to leave.

This is the "discreet mutiny" I've been speaking of, the first insubordination. May there be many more.

Note this:

Always a little behind, I now see this at 11:40 AM, Minneapolis time:

IDF ordered to deepen incursion up to Litani

And from a "high ranking defense source: "We gave the diplomatic process a chance, it failed and now we will achieve our goals militarily."

It's said that Peretz and Olmert in the early morning hours of Friday reviewed various drafts of the proposed UN cease-fire and: "once it became clear that there would not be a resolution in the near future, the decision was made for the IDF to launch the operation."

I rather suspect the military had something to do with this "clear-sightedness" on the part of Olmert and Peretz but I don't know. I only know that if Israel doesn't engage in a real war they're in bad shape and anyone with a brain knows that too. I'm not willing to grant brain to Olmert and Peretz; I do suspect brain and "persuasion" on the part of the IDF.

Is this true?

From Breitbart.com

Israeli PM Accepts Cease-Fire Deal
Aug 11 5:11 PM US/Eastern

JERUSALEM

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted an emerging Mideastcease-fire deal and informed the United States of his decision, Israeli officials said Friday.

Is this true? Just this morning he rejected the resolution and gave the go-ahead to the ground invasion. The guy is nuts. I presume somebody so self-evidently nuts will just be ignored.

Speculation:

Went out for my run but was so distracted by depression that I couldn't keep my feet moving and so came home to make this speculation:

There will be an irruption in Israel. It's impossible to understand just now how bad this loss has been, but it will be understood. In the short term, absolutely the only thing that can save Israel's security and the deterrent power of her reputation is if there's a coup, and then a severe military incursion that ignores world opinion. Order --a mental and moral sense of the way things should be-- would then be restored. The coup could be declared a kind of martial law and Olmert and his cabinet could be declared criminal and incompetent. The intent would be to maintain the principle of civilian rule, and that principle might be maintained if it could be shown and accepted that those who ruled were unfit.

This would be a bit dicey for a modern democracy but I can see emotions that would make it possible, and it might be anyway that we're at a point where "Liberal" democracy just can't function...

This continues to strike me as an extreme thought but that's were my thought now points. It could be that democracies can't exist in close quarters with a constant and determined enemy; the voter is just worn down and votes for a fantasy of peace? But my thought is that, at least for a time, this government has got to go and I don't know that just how it goes can much more damage Israel than allowing it to continue.

Every democracy accepts the concept of martial law as appropriate in extremity. This is a time of extremity. The difference now though is that the danger is not the mob in the street but the government itself. Perhaps the military should bombard parliament?

There might be a better way: "military judgment" on the field driven by "exigency". This could at least allow the military to create a very large contestable area in Lebanon; and then as the negotiations and the skirmishes continued things nevertheless would stabilize and the smart of defeat would set in, and then there could be a new election and a new government and the war could start over but with some advantage yet held and with a determination to finish a good work. This could be a situation where discreet mutiny on the field might save democracy in the nation. (9:22 PM)