Back

Well, I'm back and there is so much to write about I am almost boggled.
First, for those who care, I didn't get "stomped like a bug" at the fencing nationals. I certainly didn't stomp either though. I finished nicely in the middle of the pack with plenty of room for improvement.

Now, on to other things, Shamil Basayev is dead. Hearing this earlier in the week actually caused me do do a small happy dance while driving my car. I normally don't celebrate the death of a person but I'll make an exception in his case. Rarely in modern history has there been a man more deserving of being blown into small pieces. For those who don't know, Basayev was the planner of the Moscow opera house raid, the Beslan school raid, and many other equally heinous activities. This inspires me to start work on my long promised post on Chechnya.

The Israelis are gearing up for what looks like it could be an invasion of southern Lebanon (again). This is in response to a couple of hostage takings and, more to the point a rocket attack on Haifa, the largest port and the third largest city in Israel. The Israeli army is not about to sit and let Hezbollah launch rockets at major civilian centers. Since they will be condemned by the world for any action against this group in Lebanon they may as well go all out. There is a pretty good chance that tanks will roll into Lebanon within the week. I hope I am wrong. Lebanon is pretty much screwed in this. They don't want to fight Israel but they can't control Hezbollah which has a larger army than Lebanon does. So the Lebanese are going to get caught under the hammer. This is why you never want to let people keep private armies in your country.

Speaking of private armies, the various Iraqi militia forces are still busily trying to kill each other while trying to get the US to train their fighters by having them join the Iraqi army. ALL of the militias in Iraq need to be disarmed. Forcibly if needed. This will never happen though because it would require a major upswing in troop levels and casualties. Since the press would see that not as a needed step in the stabilization of the country but as a horrid upswing in violence showing the we are "losing the war" they would howl louder for immediate pull outs. I fear that we are going to give in to that pressure soon (relatively and leave a hell of a mess behind us. The American people are weak. We have no staying power for anything that requires hard sacrifice. I'm glad we were made of sterner stuff back in the 1940s. The fact that we have lost 2500+ soldiers in three years of war is not a terrible tragedy. It is in fact a demonstration f how effective our military is. Those losses are MINISCULE for what were are doing.