Israel's plan to bomb Lebanon was in the works for at least a year...

[thisficklemob]

... and no one told Shrub.

According to the L.A. Times, Israel set war plan more than a year ago.

"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli

Comments

[photosinensis]

About being an expert: verd. Anyone claiming to be an expert in anything is either almost impossibly well-studied or incredibly naive. I know that back in high school, I suffered from the former condition. I mean, I might have some minor expertise in making computers my bitch, or on how to take a good picture, but I hardly know everything about those fields. And while I can embarass a n00b or two on biology issues, again, I am not an expert on the topic. I'm still very easily pwned

[thisficklemob]

See, I think some of the people in with the leather patches on their tweed jackets, or the badge of ribbons up over their shoulders, or the decades of reporting in the region, are actually experts... and not just experts, but ones whose insights are relevant and valuable. The problem is, a lot of people with the same resumes can be totally 100% wrong in their takes. (See above re: Neocons.)

Some wrongheads are easier to spot than others... the clearly agenda-driven, the bought and paid for, the warmongers and empire-builders, the... Ted Stevenses. I was just saying, at the least, set your expert bar a little higher than a former English major whose "expertise" consists almost entirely of having been reading Juan Cole recently. ;-)

[xiaomi]

I guess I found myself largely unsurprised by this one... I'm sure we've got a plan to invade Canada somewhere in a bottom drawer ;p. I suspect Israel has plans to deal with most every contingency, up to and including probably a plan for a ground invasion of Iraq and Iran (the latter of which would most likely be the end of the State

[thisficklemob]

I'm sure we've got a plan to invade Canada somewhere in a bottom drawer

Good point. But, do we go around showing all these plans in detailed Power Point presentations to our allies? There may be a plan in some dark file drawer somewhere in the Pentagon to get those Lichtenstein bastards, but I don't think Downing Street has been briefed on it. That seems more like the kind of discussion Bush had with Blair about Iraq -- i.e., the sort of plans that are definitely going to happen, and they're just shoring up support/giving a heads-up.

I hadn't seen that, about even Hezbollah casualties being called "civilians" in Lebanon, it does complicate matters somewhat. Even so, it's hard to excuse the apparent disregard Israel has for civilian lives, or in some cases, what seems to be the targeting of civilians. (And yes, of course Hezbollah's rocket attacks are reprehensible as well, but a) they're far smaller in impact, and b) we call Hezbollah terrorists, and we call Israel ally.)

But when the Israelis said to evacuate to above the

[wiser_9]

You rock.

[thisficklemob]

Uh... thanks, I think.

[wiser_9]

Heh, I'd imagine it being a good thing.

I just found it admirable that you’d proclaim your un-authoritative position to the masses, y’know, and in the while, warn them against insubstantial experts.

[thisficklemob]

Oh, ok. I wasn't entirely sure that wasn't sarcasm, that's all. *g* Thanks!

[luna_k]

You're not an expert, but you're well-read and much better informed than myself.

I don't think there are too many experts on the Middle East on the internets in general, besides the Juan Coles of the blogosphere.

[thisficklemob]

True. But hey, at least I admit it. :)

I think Billmon has some expertise too. I don't always agree with him, and he's not at the Cole level, but he did a sum-up of who's fighting/hating who in the Middle East at the moment, and it included several groups I've never even heard about, so at the very least, he's been following events pretty closely.

Attack or Defense

[mustbecrazy]

I read the excerpt you've quoted and compared it to the title of your post. I don't agree with your interpretation. Being prepared for an attack or being prepared to retaliate in the face of an attack is different than planning to attack. I think you've taken it out of context.

I agree with xiaomi's point about a country, any country's, defense plans must include a wide array of strategies in cases of multiple defense scenarios. This is one.

Re: Attack or Defense

[thisficklemob]

I don't see my title as much of an interpretation. If the report is to be believed, the plan was in the works for over a year. It was simply a paraphrase of the L.A. Times article's title, which I used as the link. I didn't say it was a plan to "attack", I said it was a plan to "bomb", which it was.

Now, the text of both my post and the subtext of the article may have been that Israel had goals in this bombing unrelated to the specific provocation, and on that, YMMV. If you can make sense of what and where they've chosen to bomb based purely on the goal of destroying Hamas, (which goal has now been downgraded to "downgrading their capability"), more power to you. I can't.