I’m supposed to be asleep right now, but there’s a decent chance that MSNBC has just caught the Pentagon testing unit with its pants down over body armor testing.

I’d have blown right past it, except that this sort of thing has been seen before.  In fact, the parallels are downright eerie.

(and by abuse, I mean Madrassas being used to crank out fighters, rather than “Madrassas cranking out intolerant badly-educated perma-unemployables, which seems to be all they’re good for).

Is the Pakistani government serious about terrorism?  How ’bout using attack helicopters on a madrassa?  Holy crap…

Stung by rampant criticism, Olmert’s acting fast in order to try to stay in office.

Some of the reading between the lines here… not that this will be any big surprise:

Israel to:

1. Supply and train their reserves
2. Rebuild their banged-up Merkavas
3. Build T-HEL (!!!)

That’s right:  T-HEL.  This has been talked about here and there, but this would seem to suggest it’s official:

 Officials said the money would also launch major projects, including an anti-rocket defense system and electronic MBT protection system. They said the funding would also renew reservist training, suspended for much of the last three years.

Israel backed off the laser defense system a little bit ago because of the costs, but if this is approved and said money is getting spent within the next two years, Israel would effectively become immune to Hezbollah’s randomish rocket barrages.  IDF will effectively have spent its way to victory by utterly redefining the battlefield.

Meaning that Hezbollah loses its raison d’etre unless and until they can forcefully sustain an invasion.  At which point, why bother funding them except as a devalued lever in Lebanese politics?

War by Self-Criticism, War by Industry, War by Problem-Solving.  Score one for Victor Davis Hanson.

It’s not often that I link CNN.  I’m still pissed about Kristian Amanpour lying through her teeth on-air during the Balkan War.  You know, when they shot down the F-117, and picked up the Serbian broadcast… “We’re not allowed to tell you where this is,” was the word coming out of my t.v., as if they were somehow sneaking around like news-ninjas.  In actuality, the words “Novi Sad” were clearly written in Cyrillic at the bottom of the screen.  The supposed hush-hush was simply their sad way of trying to conceal the staggeringly poor quality of their coverage.

But this is a good link.  It shows something that you also saw during the Balkan Wars.  I remember a cease-fire being described to me, between some Croats and Serbs… on the sly, because the weather was just bad enough that they had an excuse not to be fighting.  This was important, because that kept the Chetniks (Serb extremists) from shelling their own people for cowardice, etc.  So they exchanged booze and cigarettes (which became the source of several jokes, as the cigarettes were “Croatia” brand.)

And lest any of my readers start to go off on the Serbs — don’t.  The Serbs *invented* what we now call the “color revolutions.”  They figured out how to chuck a dictator out on his ass without the benefit of having any bullets.  (Pity, the tyrants have figured out how to counter that move, but it was nice while it lasted, and there are literally millions around the world in historical debt to the Serbians for coming up with it.) Yes, the Chetniks suck.  But even they had a historical case to make, and had Milosevic not been playing them like a fiddle, they could have made a much more successful version of it peacefully.

Similarly for WWI, any military historian can tell you about “tea time artillery,” and the steps that the sane contingents of the French and Germans – plunged into a war each side theoretically wanted to win, but about which the average German or Frenchman had no say and little stake — took to make sure nobody got hurt while looking they were fighting each other.  You had to put up a convincing show so that some starry-eyed officer or bloodthirsty former university student didn’t wind up getting you hanged.

The troops at Marjeyoun had no skin in the game.  They don’t want to be there, any more than the sane contingents of the Serbs did.  Any more than the green-grocer from Marseilles had anything against the machinist from Rostock.

The pendulum is now swinging away from the 19th and 20th-century total war invented by General “leave them nothing but the tears in their eyes” Sherman, and honed afterwards.  Now increasingly, it’s becoming a game of specialists and cadres.  Hezbollah believes. IDF believes.  They’ve got skin in the game, and they want the prize.  The Taliban guys want it.  Our guys hunting them are hungry, too.

The typical dude in Beirut?  No skin in the game.  It’s only his fight if it’s forced upon him.  The typical conscript?  Even less, on a battlefield in which he knows for a fact that he’s meat for the professionals, especially in the middle east, where the brass as often as not treats its conscripts as mobile windbreaks with rifles.  My college paintball team did small-unit tactics, and we had some older gents who were veterans advising us in the process, and teaching us small-unit movement and tactics.  So I have way more training than the average civilian.  And in spite of the fact that we were paid what we considered the ultimate compliment in passing… “not bad.  You guys move like you’re coming out of A school,” me and mine had no illusions about how long we’d last against the real deal.

If we knew we weren’t going to make spec… what about some poor schmuck whose “training” consists of some badly-designed PT, a few days of “point your weapon that way when you pull the trigger,” and getting yelled at a lot in the heat, plus something like half a lesson’s worth of “this is how you keep your weapon clean?”  Well, hell no he’s not going to engage unless he’s got a damned good reason.  He’s a half-assed holding attack at best, like the Yugoslav guys in the late 80s who were manning worn-out T34c’s on the Italian border, expected to survive for fifteen minutes before NATO went over them like a speed bump.

So if the Lebanese government continually says “this ain’t my fight,” then there’s no way they should expect their poorly-equipped, leadership-deprived troops to do anything but salute, agree with them, and serve tea to guys nobody wants to be fighting in the first place.

Humanitarian supplies are getting through during the cease-fire… somewhat, due to the infrastructure damage… but is IDF allowing the men in Hezbollah fighting positions to receive food and water? 

If *not,* then I have to officially apologize for ever thinking that Olmert isn’t the Strategy King August 2006.  Because that would be slicker than greased owl shit… a siege in which the besieged aren’t allowed to break out.

Haaretz reports: Heavy fighting at Dibel, Ayta al-Shaab (southern Lebanese villages, but haven’t managed to get time to topo it).  They also report that the IAF rubbled a Hezbollah operative’s house in the Bekaa, killing him and a half-dozen family members.  Frankly, I’m surprised that this hasn’t been done more often.  It’s tragic for the civilians in the family, but the Hezbollistas are making that call — the wartime Israelis are under no compulsion to commit suicide by trying to ferret them out the way a police officer would have to.

Casualty reports are iffy, with something like 5 killed 14 wounded, to 30 Hezbollah killed (no word on wounded). Meanwhile, as usual, the Jerusalem Post is all over the place, claiming similar Israeli casualties, to 30 Hezbollah killed there and 20 more at Bint Jbeil (and two of the Israeli paratroopers at BJ). Without some way of gauging wound severity, I need one of our local pros to step in and comment — this could be anything from “embarrassing mop-up” to “steady slogging,” and I can’t tell which.  One thing that seems very clear is that the long-range anti-tank munitions clearly seem to be cramping IDF’s style. 

So far, aerial bombardment aside, this very much looks to be an infantryman’s war, as the IDF slowly works on clearing or pocketing the heavily-fortified border zone.

JUST IN 8/9/0950:  Haaretz reports that the Israeli cabinet has voted to not sit on their thumbs and lose the war.  Although the surface reasons are to make Katyusha launches more difficult, that’s only a teensy part of this.  What’s really being voted on is whether or not to break Hezbollah.  And the reason that was put to a vote is to determine whether or not the Israeli people have the stomach for watching their dead roll in, and whether Kadima can survive that politically (or, indeed, can survive NOT doing this).

UPDATE 8/10:  IDF has apparently either taken or is about to take Marjayoun, which is enroute to Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley.  Meaning that Hezbollah’s about to get cut.

“Lenny M.” posted a quick powerpoint photographic essay on why ball-bearings are nothing to laugh at.

Studying an era of smooth-bore shot, I have to say that the results are even more impressive and nasty than I expected.  Don’t think you’ll catch me sitting outside with my coffee sipping defiance at Hezbollah… the random killing power is definitely something to take note of… it’s Canister Shot, Redux.

Well, finally, Siniora has demonstrated his utter lack of testicular fortitude by coming out swinging against “Israel’s savage war on Lebanon and the Lebanese people.”

No mention that Hezbollah dragged them into this.

No mention that Hezbollah has refused his peace proposal except on those points most convenient to them, about which they “can talk” once Israel leaves the country (presumably w/o their kidnapped troops, as well).

Awww, come on, B.A., cut him some slack, after all, his country’s been invaded….

No.

This editorial effectively cedes Lebanon’s government to Hezbollah, and declares that Hezbollah is in the foreign-policy driver’s seat.  This is politically unforgiveable, as it makes the Lebanese government party to war while simultaneously declaring that the nation of Lebanon has no sovereignty and indeed does not exist except as a rump state of Hezbollahland.

If I were Lebanese and non-Hezbollah, I would be severely pissed at this craven lack of leadership.

Slubblog hits it out of the park with a hilarious little photo essay showing blatantly posed toys used for propaganda fauxtography.

Oh, the humanity.  Wait, these are toys.  The stuffedanity?  The Plush… help me out here, folks.

Looks like NYT got suckered in by a Pallywood Production.

Here’s Gateway Pundit… and it looks like they nailed it, all the way down to the two clashing tones of the guy’s shorts, and the way he seems to have gently laid his cap by his side for the Pieta shot.