Israel struck Hezbollah’s Beirut Headquarters. Fox reported that Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, was inside the building when it was hit.
From Haaretz:
An Israel Air Force strike destroyed a main Hezbollah office in Beirut’s southern suburb on Friday, the group’s television station reported.
It gave no word on casualties in the latest of several raids on Hizbollah’s stronghold of Haret Hreik.
Shortly before the attack, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s security chiefs approved new targets on Friday against Hezbollah.
The Jerusalem Post says Nasrallah is still alive.
Update: Drudge has a headline on his site which says The Syrian UN Ambassador told Time Magazine that Hezbollah could spread radiation all over Israel if it struck Israel’s nuclear sites. Does anyone still not believe that Syria, along with Iran, is behind Hezbollah’s provocation?
Update II: Fox is reporting that Nasrallah has said that Hezbollah is declaring all out war against Israel. Let’s be honest here. Hezbollah has always been at war against Israel; it’s just that Israel is finally responding. Reuters has the report.
Update III: Read Charles Krauthammer‘s piece. In it he puts to rest the lies that the Arab aggression against Israel was only about “occupation” of Arab land. As Krauthammer points out, every time Israel pulled out of the occupied territories, Gaza in September of 2005 and South Lebanon in 2000, the terrorist organizations didn’t halt terrorist attacks, but they ramped them up. So if Israel’s pulling out of the occupied territories hasn’t satisfied the terrorists, then what do they want? Krauthammer explains plainly:
As the Palestinian excuses for continuing their war disappear one by one, the rhetoric is becoming more bold and honest. Just last Tuesday, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, writing in The Washington Post, referred to Israel as “a supposedly ‘legitimate’ state.”
He made clear what he wants done with this bastard entity. “Contrary to popular depictions of the crisis in the American media,” he writes, “the dispute is not only about Gaza and the West Bank.” It is about “a wider national conflict” that requires the vindication of “Palestinian national rights.”
That, of course, means the right to all of Palestine, with no Jewish state. In the end, the fighting is about “the core 1948 issues, rather than the secondary ones from 1967.”
In 1967, Israel acquired the “occupied territories.” In 1948, Israel acquired life. The fighting raging now in 2006 — between Israel and the “genocidal Islamism” (to quote the writer Yossi Klein Halevi) of Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran behind them — is about whether that life should and will continue to exist.
That’s the goal – the complete extermination of the Jewish state.
Update IV: Israel says that Hezbollah has rockets that are capable of reaching most of Israel. Hezbollah is threatening to use them.
Update V: Hezbullah attacked an Israeli navy ship. No one was injured, but the ship may be on fire.
Update VI: Israellycool is liveblogging the day’s events, and he has some very interesting updates. He links to Big Pharoah whose father offered his insights:
My dad was a general in the Egyptian army. His comments are always so informative especially if they were related to a war that broke out. He had this to say about Lebanon:
This idiot Nasrallah. He is so funny. He keeps on issuing threats, he has no idea what he is talking about. What Israel is doing to him now is just gentle padding on the shoulders. Abou Shakha dah didn’t see what we saw. Israel fought on 3 fronts in 1967 and it was hell. I was there, I saw it all. He has no tanks, no boats, he has nothing except a few toys he got from Iran and it seems abu shakha dah don’t know that Israel confronted 3 of the most powerful armies in the region at the same time. If Israel wanted to brutally crush him it can do so in 1 hour.
*Abu Shakha dah literally means “this guy with the piss”. We use this slang term to refer to a grown up whose capabilities is of a baby who wets himself.
Update VII: Greg at Outside the Beltway has the video and transcript of Ambassador John Bolton’s comments about Lebanon at the UN.
Update VIII: The Israeli UN Ambassador Gillerman exchanged words with the Palestinian Ambassador today. Hot Air has the video. The most memorable line comes at the very beginning: “You are so in love with occupation that you, you cling to it even when we leave every single inch.” I am struck by Ambassador Gellerman’s civility. At the end of their confrontation, Ambassador Gellerman was a gentleman and reached to shake the Palestinian Ambassador’s hand.
Update IV: Al Jazeera reports that Isreal is looking for four Israeli troops who went missing when a navy ship was attacked. Is it true? Who knows, but the Israeli army says that the ship sustained a lot of damage.
TM,
SO what is the plan from Obama and Hillary? Hitler can speak much better than Obama and Hillary. He had much more charm. You got my drift.
So please explain to me their plan and why you think their plan is better than Bush. So far all you have is words.
Sure Bush made mistake with Brownie and Tenet. He did try to clean up the CIA with Goss. So what? He is not perfect, but you don’t give me anyone better yet.
Still what is your plan to show that you are smarter than Bush?
I know what Bush ‘s plan is and I can explain it to you. What is your plan?
Bush had higher GPA than Kerry at Yale. So at least he is smarter than Kerry. Did you go to Yale and Harvard?
Since when did “smart” become any requirement for good leadership? If we really valued IQ so highly, Jeffrey Dahmer would be president. Liberals have a strange obsession with form over substance, which is why is why there has never been a great liberal leader.
McCain,
Hitler is a good leader according to liberals since he can talk and charm people into following him. That ‘s why the liberal MSM swoon over Clinton for how good he can lie to them.
What I want is plan from the liberals that I can pick at. That ‘s why the dems are so scared and dare not offer any plan or big ideas for the coming election.
C’mon, McCain. JFK and FDR were great leaders; I would also argue that Lincoln and Jefferson would have qualified as liberal in their day (not to say their opponents had much in common with conservativism).
I think any Democrat would withdraw most of the troops and leave as many there as is required to do what they should be trying to accomplish: maintain security around the government until the rule of law is established, and train the Iraqi forces required to do so. I would also give a timeframe as to what constitutes failure in the latter regard, but not disclose it outside of the Pentagon. I would hire someone more competent than Donald Rumsfeld has shown himself to be–perhaps a distinguished military officer, maybe, and not some ideological hack?–and deal with situations as they occur (which, I think, is what Pelosi means when she idiotically brags about not having a plan). Giving them a timeframe and withdrawing would benefit the terrorists, but so does telling them that we aren’t leaving until they stop training people to blow up Iraqis and Americans.
And yes, liberals just adore Hitler. I think that’s a poor attempt at a reductio of preferring an intelligent and articulate leader to an uninquisitive goof. If so, it’s a reductio of itself. Don’t imply that smart people are fascists. A smart person would know better than to do so.
The last time I checked, Harvard does *not* give away Masters degrees. Dammit! 😉
LAI,
That, and Hitler was a socialist. 😉
leave as many there as is required to do what they should be trying to accomplish: maintain security around the government until the rule of law is established, and train the Iraqi forces required to do so. I would also give a timeframe as to what constitutes failure in the latter regard, but not disclose it outside of the Pentagon.
Gee, that sounds alot like…. Bush’s plan.
“I think any Democrat would withdraw most of the troops and leave as many there as is required to do what they should be trying to accomplish: maintain security around the government until the rule of law is established, and train the Iraqi forces required to do so.”
That’s what’s happening now, and you can’t set a timeframe to pull troops out until the government and Iraqi forces can protect themselves.
Dammit SCSI! Stealing my thunder again! 😉
TM,
So what you said simply a rehash of exactly what Bush has been doing: training the Iraqui forces and turn over the security responsibilities to them. They even had plan to reduce the force there. Bush was smart enough to insist that we would stay ther until the Iraqui gov is strong enough to take care of themselves and didn’t set a timetable publicly. At least we agree that the Dems have been foolish in pushing for a date to withdraw and done that publicly.
Nothing new here. It just demonstrated that Bush is smarter than the Dems so far. He has a much broader strategy than some limited points you mentioned. Even then, Bush already accomplished that without giving encouragement to the terrorists as the Dems did. So Bush was definitely smarter. Thanks for confirming that for me.
Anything new or a comprehensive strategy to fight terrorism. If you run out of ideas, then I can explain the Bush ‘s strategy to you.
TM,
BTW you didn’t know that the leftists in England and Europe used to adore Hitler for keeping the trains on time.
Tom,
It is true that Hitler was a socialist. In fact, fascism and communism are the two faces of the same coin: secular statism.
This is how you win wars, and end up winning the peace: you kill ALL of those who want to murder you and your people. When enough are killed, the others figure they don’t want to be next. It’s why you fight wars.
Haven’t we been holding hands and singing kumbaya with these blood-thirsty killers since Jimmy Carter? And what’s been accomplished in 28 years since? Absolutely nothing.
So—we–have–to–kill–them–all. As Gen. Patton said, “make the other poor bastard die for his country.”
LI:
Ummm…OK. I didn’t comment on Hitler anywhere here…
Sorry Tom, that comment about Hitler was SCSI’s.
Yeah, I just noticed that, too. No problem. 😉
I thought Benito kept the trains on time.
TB,
Shouldn’t you be in bed? Get up early, and get your practice in on the greens? 😉
You have a good point, although I’m having a bout of I-N-S-O-M-N-I-A…
…and I don’t need practice on the greens…it’s my Greens-In-Regulation stat that has to get better. WAAAAY better.
Send
Hamas and
Hezbollah
to
their
70
virgins
immediately
TM,
JFK and FDR were not “liberals” in the modern sense. JFK was a tax-cutter and a hawk. FDR prosecuted a war in Europe that liberals would call an “unnecessary” war if it happened today, and he was far from a civil libertarian.
I repeat something that has never occurred to me before: there has never been a great liberal leader. The best they can muster is McGovern, Humphrey, Dukakis, and Kerry, presidential nominees for sure, but not great leaders. Interestingly, you would call all of these guys “smart,” but the rest of us would call them incompetent. No liberal has ever become president, and I expect that none will ever because liberals are so darn incompetent when it comes to decision making.
Justrand
Well, it can type, that’s functional. I never said it could form coherent thoughts!
Yes, a couple martinis will do that, my only excuse.
McCain, JFK isn’t a liberal because he didn’t raise taxes? Lberals aren’t objectively “pro-tax”, whatever that would mean; we have a different conception of what fair taxation is. It was too high before Kennedy, and he responded accordingly. It’s not like he tried to gut social security.
And being a hawk doesn’t make you a conservative. Conservatives weren’t happy that Clinton wanted to take on Milosevic; Trent Lott and Tom DeLay found the idea distasteful, and I think they’re conservative. (Argue about Clinton’s motives if you want, but I don’t know if I’ve ever defended the guy.) Hawkishness can occur in either a liberal or a conservative, although usually for different reasons.
WW II would never be perceived as unnecessary by anyone today except Pat Robertson and the patchouli crowd who wouldn’t have read the newspapers back then either. That’s a really shitty comparison that I resent, actually.
TM.
Looks like you don’t have any plan except a rehash of what Bush already accomplished already. I also show how Bush is much smarter than the Dems.
So in the end, we need to agree that Bush is a pretty smart fellow at least when compared to the current crop of pathetic liberal Dems and their foolish rhetoric/policies.
Again thanks for confirming my point.
JFK isn’t a liberal because he didn’t raise taxes? … It was too high before Kennedy, and he responded accordingly. It’s not like he tried to gut social security.
JFK isn’t a “liberal” in today’s sense, just the same as today’s “conservatives” are continually accused of abandoning the “classical” conservatism of Goldwater.
Times change, buckwheat; keep up.
And, if anyone was trying to “gut social security” it would be, first, the liberal’s liberal Daniel Moynihan, who drafted the plan, and second Bill Clinton who trumpeted it.
Pesky reality. Sorry.
Conservatives weren’t happy that Clinton wanted to take on Milosevic; Trent Lott and Tom DeLay found the idea distasteful, and I think they’re conservative.
What planet are you from? The major conservative quibble with the idealistic war in Kosovo was that clinton insisted on playing it “safe” — which is a violation of every tenet of the military tactics rulebook.
WW II would never be perceived as unnecessary by anyone today except Pat Robertson and the patchouli crowd who wouldn’t have read the newspapers back then either. That’s a really shitty comparison that I resent, actually.
Resent it all you want, bucko, but there were nazi apologists in the US explaining why, a la Ward Churchill, the Nazis were allowed to anschluss and take Poland and invade France. They were — boo hoo hoo — effed up the A by Versaille [which is true but irrelevant] and therefore …
Pretty much exactly like how the effete intellectuals today are rationalizing why the pan-islamists are justified in jihading whomever they want.
But, as you probably know, History is written by the winners, and, well, the nazi apologists were largely written out of “official” minutes.
Today we only know that Joseph Kennedy Sr and Chuckie Lindbergh were pro-nazi, and forget that they influenced a whole passel of twerps.
rwilymz,
Good lesson there. Thanks. I learned a few things myself.