The unconventional Rudy Giuliani strategy has been based on a simple yet unorthodox premise: the frontloading of the primaries has compressed the schedule to such an extent and there is such a potent mix of GOP candidates with a chance, that this election season is a numbers game, not a momentum game, and there will be no clear winner coming out of the early states that, come Florida and Super Tuesday, Rudy can sweep in and score a sequence of victories.

The closer we get to January 29 and February 5, the more it seems like Rudy Giuliani is dead in the water. The RealClearPolitics.com averages have him in fourth place nationally, at 12.1%, his long-held leading status washed away and replaced, in the end, by Arizona Sen. John McCain; and in Florida, where he has expected to win from the beginning, Giuliani has been surpassed yet again by McCain, who leads him by an average of 2.9 percentage points.

Rudy’s strategy is beginning to look like a failure, and it may turn out that way, but looks can be deceiving. Despite McCain’s lead, Rudy can still pull it off. There have been a few instances already in which even the scientifically-designed averages have proven incorrect, including Hillary’s victory in New Hampshire; we can only put so much faith in poll data, especially given the tightness and fluidity of the GOP race for president.

Furthermore, Rudy has put the utmost focus in Florida; he’s got a firm organization in the state, and absentee voting has already begun, with 40% of the vote already in, and the former mayor’s showing has been good thus far. He has indeed “set the tone” for the debate in Florida, and now the other candidates, albeit with some momentum, particularly for McCain, are going to have to enter into his playing field with a focus on the issues as Rudy’s set them up, as well as a less-developed organization. Giuliani’s strong base and active campaigning in the state of late have a high chance of helping him pull out a victory in Florida.

A victory in that state would, as a result, thrust Rudy back into the field. If he succeeds in proving that he can beat three candidates who have succeeded in the earlier states—being McCain, Romney, and Huckabee—that will give him a great advantage; he will have a propaganda tool to use for Super Tuesday, and it will give him a wave of Big Mo going into Super Tuesday.

Though there’s always the chance for success without a Florida victory, pretty much everything hinges on Rudy winning in Florida at this point, and if he does win (which I’m hoping), more successes will follow as we enter into Super Tuesday.

Who will end up being the victor is at this point anybody’s guess, but the winner of the 57 delegates in Florida will undoubtedly get a tremendous boost. The outcome of the Republican nomination could well stem from success or failure in Florida, and Rudy does have a solid chance in that state. So don’t write him off yet; there’s still a lot that can happen in the next 10 days.

RealClearPolitics.com compiles averages of the various national and state polls, taking into account the scientific principle of averaging differing results to form a more accurate conclusion.

In the national poll average, as of December 14, Mike Huckabee surged 10.4 points–from 9.2 percent roughly two weeks before to 19.6 percent. As of that date he had a 12.8-point lead over former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney in Iowa and a 7.6-point lead over Romney in South Carolina. However, as the dynamics of the race thus far have shown, anything can happen in the coming months. Anything.

Nevertheless, the consensus is that former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani will win neither Iowa nor South Carolina, and, given Romney’s lead and Arizona Sen. John McCain’s endorsement by New Hampshire’s most powerful newspaper, is not likely to win that state.

However, despite Rudy’s decline in the national polls, coinciding with the rise of Huckabee, and a failure to add said states to his delegate count, he can still get the Republican nomination for president.

Up until now, Mitt Romney has been considered the odds-on favorite to defeat Rudy Giuliani for the nomination. However, this judgment has been based on his previously clear leads in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, and Romney’s campaign has been based upon a strategy of victory in all three states, particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire. Yet Huckabee’s surge is derailing Romney’s chances at succeeding in this strategy.

If the key initial states are split up amongst any two or three of the candidates, which will certainly not be Giuliani, the door will be open for the former mayor to press forward and reestablish himself as the frontrunner in the race. According to the poll averages, he has a substantial lead in Florida, California, and New Jersey, and polls also show that he is leading by large margins in Pennsylvania and New York, as would be expected.

Rudy has the best shot in a plurality of the remaining states, and if the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary results are divided between Romney and Huckabee, no clear leader will emerge from either contest, giving rise to questions about whether either candidate can actually win and diminishing the importance of each state. And the social conservative division amongst four different candidates–Huckabee, Romney, Thompson, and McCain–further opens the door to the potential for a Rudy success, given the issue of terrorism.

In response to the unprecedented frontloading of the primaries, Giuliani has bet his chances on a campaign strategy centered not on winning the early contests, but instead on winning the later, bigger states. Whether his strategy will prove effective or not is anybody’s guess, but Huckabee’s push forward and the battle between him and Romney for the lead in the early states nonetheless help enable Rudy to achieve his present.

“Give me liberty or give me death!” proclaimed Patrick Henry prior to the Revolutionary War, and his declaration seems to be ringing around the globe today.

As many as 6 million Mexicans take the risky trek through the heat of the desert to enter this country illegally each year.

Nearly 98 thousand Cuban refugees risk their lives annually to flee the tyranny of Fidel Castro’s regime and come to the US.

Tens of thousands of Americans have put their lives on the line and died in battle for their country.

Why is that?

There is only one answer as to why these people would risk their lives in one form or another for America: She is the premier land of freedom and opportunity. There is no other like her. Since the Constitution first went into effect in 1789, the United States has had a reputation of being “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” and it is well-deserved.

Our Constitution grants us rights unseen in other countries, yet we don’t think about the benefits that this country has to offer, the rights that we have that are denied to Cubans in their country, to Iranians in theirs, and to the news network that was shut down in Venezuela for opposing dictator Hugo Chavez.

While our government is criticized by foreign nations as being “oppressive” in its “spying” and “censorship,” American citizens continue to enjoy more personal freedoms than the majority of other countries on the planet. We constantly see headlines in the newspaper about the government engaging in “illegal wiretapping” and “torturing” of accused terrorists, issues which are entirely debatable. And while headlines rage negatively about our civil rights, we don’t compare the right of Muslim schoolgirls to wear hijabs in the US to the prohibition of that, and other religious garb, in France, coincidentally our biggest Western critic. We in the US have the right to freely exercise our religious faith, or lack thereof, as granted to us by the Constitution.

We can also look at the US in comparison to the UK. We are blessed to have a Constitution which, at least in the amendments, spells out our rights as citizens – rights which the courts, overall, do a decent job protecting, even if the judgments are sometimes disputed. Those disputes aside, we have certain rights that cannot be abridged. The British have rights, but they’re not spelled out on paper. They’re subject to change without a Constitution guaranteeing those rights to their citizens.

The United States is by far the most privileged nation on Earth. We do not experience poverty like those of other nations. Our poor (consisting of only 12% of the population) often own a home, have a car, and posses a computer with internet access. That is poverty in this country, and we are lucky not to know what poverty is in other countries. For example, 480 million people live on less than two dollars a day in Sub-Saharan Africa alone, yet the number of people in such conditions in the US is so infinitesimal that they’re not even included in reports.

Our GDP per capita is around $44,000, and our GDP PPP is around $13.13 trillion. Our unemployment rate is at a mere 4.4%, lower than the average of the previous four decades. This economic prosperity was made possible by, yes, American hard work and ingenuity, but also by a government system and citizen-granted rights which enable for a thriving economy to occur.

It’s hard to imagine a United States of America without the Constitution. We could potentially see Muslims denied the right to practice their faith because of a small band of radical jihadists bent on destroying America. We could see a 15-year-old accused of murdering a neighbor locked in jail for life without trial, liberal Democrats locked away for opposing Bush administration policies, and the New York Times shut down because the government opposes it. Heck, I could be denied the right to publish this column because I’m “too young.” The list goes on and on for what reality in this country would be without the Constitution.

Our rights are also protected in the very nature of our government structure. This document laid the groundwork for a phenomenal system of government which, despite its flaws, has worked extraordinarily well over the past two hundred years. In three branches of government (legislative, executive, and judicial), in addition to the people, we have checks and balances as well as separation of powers. In separate branches of government we find the powers of one branch checked by the others; in the people we find a stopgap against the tyranny of government; and in a republican government structure we find preventions against the tyranny of the majority.

 We are blessed, as Americans, to have a constitution which so clearly establishes and protects our rights as citizens in as many ways as it does. The document enables us, the most privileged people on Earth, to have many personal freedoms and protections of those freedoms that we take for granted.

 Isn’t it time we celebrated these rights?

While claiming to be a conservative, President George W. Bush is, in fact, no conservative. He is, rather, a fiscal socialist.

The Bush Administration has, since the year 2001, grown the federal debt by an astounding 53%, a shocking three trillion dollar increase from a comparatively low $5.6 trillion debt to a disgustingly high $8.6 trillion. According to libertarian economist Stephen Slivinski, director of budget studies at the Cato Institute, “In Bush’s presidency so far the federal budget has grown by 27 percent after adjusting for inflation. That’s more than twice as fast as during the eight years of President Clinton.” Entitlement spending was 4.1 percent under President Carter and 3.3 under President Clinton. Now, under President Bush, entitlement spending is growing at 5.1%–under a supposedly “conservative” president.

According to an August 2006 Denver Post article, “even after entitlement, defense, and homeland security spending are removed from the equation, the growth of federal spending in the Bush years (4.5 percent) exceeds that of the Johnson (4.1 percent), Carter (1.6 percent), or Clinton (2.1 percent) presidencies.” Comparing Clinton, the last president, to Bush, federal spending has increased 2.4% more than under Clinton. Bear in mind that those folks were Democratic presidents, not Republican presidents claiming to be conservative by any stretch. Finally, Bush and the Republican Congress expanded government spending to an astounding 20.8 percent of 2006 GDP. Reagan would be appalled.

Upon inheriting a recession from President Clinton, President Bush saw fit – rightfully so, in my opinion – to cut taxes. This was a wise decision because, as proven under the Reagan administration, tax cuts do, indeed, stimulate economic growth and increase government revenues. However, also like under Reagan, government spending continued to increase. Reagan has the excuse of massive defense spending, which was necessary in order to end the Cold War (which it of course did), and a Democratic Congress for a much of his two terms. President Bush does not, for this president had a Republican Congress, a Congress of the party that is supposed to be for less spending and smaller government, up until this current Congress.

And under this president—a man who ran under a platform of “compassionate conservatism” and the principles of limited government—the scope of government has expanded to epic proportions, and government spending, even barring Iraq, 9/11, and Katrina, is the highest it’s been since LBJ. That’s atrocious, especially considering the fact that President Bush touts himself as a conservative. Yet if he’s any type of conservative, he’s certainly a faux-conservative, not a real one.

First of all, with his 2003 Medicare legislation, President Bush and the Republicans in Congress instituted additions which blew that program up to a size of unprecedented proportions, increasing Medicare costs by at least $534 billion in 10 years. And his adjustments were adjustments for the drug companies, not the people. Poll after poll showed America’s seniors didn’t want the additions to the program this legislation provided. In essence, the president and Congress chose to expand a government program without the support of those that would be affected by the law, which makes it all the worse.

The president also continued with his government expansionist policies with regards to education. His No Child Left Behind Act, while well-intentioned and including many good policies (at least, in theory), expanded the range of the federal government in matters of education to abhorrent levels. And to make matters worse, like what had happened under the Clinton administration with his NSEA law, the federal government failed to fund the mandates of its own program. This consequently resulted in increased strain for the states, which had to and continue to have to reach into their own pockets to fund the mandates required of them by the act. The government shouldn’t have instituted this expansionist program in the first place, let alone not fund it while it is in place.

This is the inherent flaw with federal government programs with regards to education. It continues to expand its influence in matters of education and then never funds its mandates appropriately. Therefore, the federal government should keep its educational powers at bay, if not lessen them. But, in the case of NCLB, what do you expect when you have George Bush, fiscal socialist, and Teddy Kennedy, liberal expansionist extraordinaire, work together to put forth education legislation?

At any rate, the point is that the President, a man who pretends to be a conservative, has expanded government like a liberal and driven us into the biggest debt in US history. He’s cut taxes, yes, but with tax cuts must come moderate spending, as the revenue increases tax cuts provide do not necessarily outpace government expenditures. Tax increases, on the other hand, increase revenues at faster paces than tax cuts, and therefore tax and spend liberalism, in governmental terms, not economic, is more plausible. Fiscal socialism, however, cannot work because, though government revenues are increased, the increases are not enough to come even close to compensating for the expenditures. Neither policy, however, should be instituted, for the one hurts economic interests and the other dampens budgetary interests.

The president and Republicans in Congress need to wake up and smell the coffee. If you’re going to cut taxes, you have to keep spending down. If you’re going to claim to be conservatives, you have to actually practice what you preach and keep government spending and expansion at bay. If you’re going to institute a federal program that will directly affect the states, fund it, don’t hurt them.

The ball will, sadly, be in my generation’s court. Because the Bush Administration has squandered a surplus, spent like a drunken sailor (with all due respect to sailors), and expanded government, we will be forced to grapple with the debt that has resulted from his fiscal socialist policies. My generation now has to foot the bill for this blatant incompetence which has added so much to the debt. Being beholden to creditors is never a good thing when you’re an individual with a family to provide for. Now imagine being a nation which has 300 million people to provide for. Being beholden to countries like China, one of our biggest creditors, for instance, as we are puts this into full perspective. Only time will tell when the American president—whomever he is—will say, “Oh, you mean that Taiwan? I guess you’re right. We’ll stay out of the way.”

The government needs to get spending under control now, in one way or another. The tax cuts aren’t the problem—they’ve increased revenues. It’s the spending that’s the problem. Entitlement programs need to be reworked, many of them switched over to means-tested structures, nondiscretionary non-defense spending under control to the best of our ability. Pork barrel spending must be eliminated, perhaps through the granting of the line-item veto power to the President. Discretionary spending must be either frozen for a certain amount of time or operate under a limited budget. Tax loopholes must be closed in on. Then, only then, could we see a little bit of hope for the debt—and for my generation—without damaging the economy with tax increases.

We elected a man to the office of the president with the idea that he would be a “compassionate conservative.” What is compassionate about leaving my generation with the fiscal crisis we’re now in? What is conservative about spending without end and increasing the scope of government? The answer is nothing. So what is he? All evidence points to a political philosophy of fiscal socialism, and the same goes for the vast majority of modern Republicans serving in Congress, who controlled the legislature for the first six years of the Bush presidency.

I’ll further examine the particulars of the serious budget crisis in a later post, but the above gets the gist of the tragic budgetary crisis this country, and particularly my generation, is facing as a result of the fiscal socialist policies of this president and the previous Republican Congress. Gone are the days of Ronald Reagan, fiscal conservatism, and the Republican Revolution, and we have dire need for someone to bring them back.

Iraq Officials Decry U.S. Troop Deployment

WASHINGTON — Worried Congress’ support for Iraq is deteriorating rapidly, Baghdad dispatched senior officials to Capitol Hill this week to warn members one-on-one that pulling out U.S. troops would have disastrous consequences.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,271695,00.html

Okay, so here’s what I’m getting here. The Iraqi government, at its own wish and recognizing the threat of the US pulling out soon, has gone all the way to visit Washington, D.C. to tell the Congress that it needs the US to stay in Iraq longer. Here’s what this news has got me thinking about.

The Iraqi government wants us to stay. Let me reiterate: they want us to stay. If the Iraqi government wants us to stay and needs our help, doesn’t that tell us something about what our course should be and how we shouldn’t be talking about a precipitous withdrawal? How can we abandon the Iraqi government when they’re telling us and feeling it important enough to come to the US and lobby Congress to get us to stay?

On the same token, however, I recognize that thus far their efforts at finding a political solution and so forth have either had relatively little (noticeable) success or recognizable effort to bring the country together and remedy, at least to some extent, the situation there. Therefore, my hope is that these meetings also showed the Iraqis that they need to really try to work for a political solution to their problems and actually step up now and really try to find a solution and get things going so that we don’t leave. I hope that they got the message that the political will in this country is slipping day by day and that there’s a point beyond which our efforts just won’t continue there, and that if they’re really serious about wanting us to stay they have to take recognizable steps forward that all Americans can see and realize and say, “Hey, our efforts really do mean something there and the Iraqi people are really trying to make this work. We should stay and finish the job.”

Right now we’re just not seeing that, and I think that’s critical if the effort is to continue and succeed. The political situation has improved there in recent months, as has the military situation as a result of the surge and President Bush’s and General Petraeus’s change in strategy (particularly as it relates to Baghdad).

The Iraqi government, which clearly gets the full reality of the situation in Iraq (there’s no way they can’t, given the circumstances and the position in which it is in, recognizes the need for the US to stay, but they must recognize that our patience is limited and weighing thin. We tend to rally behind war before it happens, but once we realize that people actually die in war, we don’t like it. Recognizing both these aspects simultaneously, they have to know that it’s necessary that they step up and redouble their efforts to improve the situation there.

Iraq is a necessary and noble struggle, in my opinion, and I think we need to be there until the Iraqi people can protect themselves and sustain themselves without our intervention and the terrorists can be held at bay in that country. However, it’s clear that the Congress, including an increasing number of Republicans, and the American people are losing patience, and I’m hoping that this trip gave the delegation the message: that if they don’t step up soon, bad things are going to happen and we’re not going to stay there because the political will, like with Vietnam, will be gone, and what happened in Vietnam when we left will happen in Iraq now. But this time we won’t have Vietnamization – we’ll have Iraqization, and the results will be the same, only perhaps more dire on a global scale, as what happens in Iraq affects the whole region, and what happens in the Middle East affects the Western world.

I do want to recommend everyone, especially those opposed to the effort in Iraq, to the “After Action Report” of retired General Barry R. McCaffrey, a highly-decorated military servant who returned from Iraq and produced this in-depth report in March. I haven’t read the whole thing, but this report shares with us both the good and the bad in Iraq, of which there is plenty of both. As the General, who was praised highly tonight by retired Marine Colonel David Hunt, a man who, when I once heard a highly esteemed Marine speak, was hailed as something of “the only military analyst you can really trust” and who has been critical of much of the military policies of the administration, lets us all know the reality of the situation.

He tells us point-blank of the problems Iraq is facing, of which there are many, stating flat-out that “the US Armed Forces are in a position of strategic peril,” that the Iraqis are lacking in preparedness and defensive capabilities, so and so forth, yet at the same time he says that, “Since the arrival of General David Petraeus in command of Multi-National Force Iraq— the situation on the ground has clearly and measurably improved.” In that portion he tells us of many of the successes we’ve had and some ways in which the Iraqi people are standing up, which is a good thing to see happening. Is it enough? I’d certainly say not, but I think it’s enough to warrant that Congressional leaders take a step back and give the policy a minimum of six months more. After that point, if things are still grim, then we can start talking alternatives.

I think, looking at the whole picture, as the General relates quite well in this report, there is enough proof of success, or at least potential for success, at this point to warrant that we give the mission one more chance, and enough proof that the situation will deteriorate if we pull out in a manner that, as the General says, “[w]ill in all likelihood result in a widened regional struggle which will endanger America’s strategic interests (oil) in the Mid-east for a generation. We will also produce another generation of soldiers who lack confidence in their American politicians, the media, and their own senior military leadership.” Is it worth that, plus a number of other humanitarian tragedies which will no doubt result? I’d say not.

You can view the entire report here, and I highly recommend that everyone check it out. It’s got plenty of good stuff to read.

Furthermore, though, if I were placed in charge of deciding how Iraq should be handled politically, I’d go the route of the three state, one country solution which is advocated principally, at least on the major national field, by Democratic Senator Joe Biden, although we’d go about it in different ways.

I’d split Iraq into three separate states – a Sunni state, a Shi’a state, and a Kurdish state (they’re doing well now already) – with Baghdad as the multiethnic capital city which is not part of any of those three states. The national government, which would broadcast out of Baghdad, would then be reduced to essentially managing the distribution of oil revenues, internal security, international relations, the army, and matters that affect multiple Iraqi states and need some method of mediation for those disputes. Otherwise, the Iraqi states would essentially be autonomous and be able to run their own affairs democratically and not worry so much about working with the other groups to manage the whole country.

The main problem that is presented with this plan is for the areas other than Baghdad which contain multiple religious groups, and frankly right now I don’t have a real solid solution for how to deal with that, but I’m sure one could be figured out. No matter what the Iraqis do now I don’t think we’ll ever see complete political success with trying to make Iraq into one country in the mold of a federalist US-style state, and I therefore think the three state, one country solution is the way to go. But, seeing as that’s not all that likely, at least at this point, I vote we work to get the Iraqi government to really try to make solid progress on the political front and step up to find a solution that can work – not perfectly, but work – that would allow the Iraqi people to sustain themselves politically and be in a position for us to leave, and I do think that is possible, so long as enough pressure is put on the Iraqis to do so (though not a timetable for withdrawal, but reasonable threats of potential pullout due to lack of political will are reasonable).

Politically I would also go to the public, many of whom want us out, and say, “If you want us out, step up yourselves. If you want us out, show us that you can deal with the situation there and sustain yourself without erupting into total chaos.” Privately pressure needs to be placed on the Maliki government and they need to be told that if something clear and indisputable isn’t done over the next few months, would could be out of there due to lack of political will. Hopefully, again, this delegation got the message that our patience is wearing thin and that’ll help, but the Bush administration itself needs to really put that pressure, in private, on the Iraqi government. That’s essential to success in the country.

Militarily I would, along with the switching of Iraq’s political structure, continue to give the Bush-Petreaus strategy, which has proven to have some success, a real chance at succeeding in full, because I think it holds a great deal of promise. And so does General McCaffery, who states that, “In my judgment, we can still achieve our objective of: a stable Iraq, at peace with its neighbors, not producing weapons of mass destruction, and fully committed to a law-based government.”

We need to stay the course. There are plenty of things we can do to improve and strategies that we can shift around, but there is, believe it or not, a lot of good coming out of Iraq right now due to our military strategies and some political efforts on the part of both us and the Iraqi government, and I say we let it continue and give it one last chance. If in six months the situation isn’t noticeably better, then I’ll seriously start thinking that we might need a sharp change in course. But let’s give it six months and not leave the Iraqis at the mercy of the terrorists and a conflict that will erupt into a full-fledged civil war if left unchecked. I believe it is our moral obligation to do so. We have obligations we’ve taken on in Iraq and we can’t leave the Iraqis out there to dry and abandon both them and our obligations to that nation. We have to finish the job, and in light of all the good things coming out of Iraq, despite all the bad, I say we give it one more shot, for a secure and stable Iraq is better for the region which is better for the US and better for the world. An insecure and unstable Iraq, on the other hand, is bad for the region and worse for the US and worse for the world. Not to mention it gives the terrorists a leg up propaganda-wise, for they will be able to say once again, as Osama did after Somalia (and increased membership numbers as a result), that America is a weak nation which will leave when the going gets tough and will give them a new sense of strength.

If we pull out now, or even by the end of the year, Osama and his ilk will look at this, Somalia, Vietnam, and other historical precedents and say, “Look at how weak America is! When they going gets tough they’ll pull out. We’re strong and we can beat back America. We’ve already done it, and we can do it again! Join with us and, with the grace of Allah, we shall succeed and be victorious! Allah Ackbar!”

Do we really want to send our enemies such a message of American weakness? I’d suggest not. Staying in Iraq has both Iraqi and American benefits, and we need to reap in those benefits, not turn them into tragedy and propaganda for our enemies.

We need to continue the fight and not abandon the Iraqi people in their time of need. We cannot give the terrorists a strategic tool which they can easily turn against us.

To close I would like to quote a passage from Ronald Reagan’s 1964 “A Time for Choosing” speech:

You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, “There is a price we will not pay.” There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning in the phrase of Barry Goldwater’s “peace through strength.” Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits—not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

It’s time we moved past partisan politics and accepted our duty for what it truly is.

Be prepared for a new wave of the Truth!

The fact is, there was no victory in this war, from either end, and if there was, it was minor, and really more a success than a victory. I would argue that Israel waged more military successes than Hezbollah while Hezbollah waged more successes on the “political front,” that of the hearts and minds of the Arab Muslims in the region.

In terms of military successes, one would have to argue that Israel waged some successes, managing to push back Hezbollah from their immediate border, effectively cleaning out the northern border with Lebanon, thereby helping to prevent a number of future attacks. They did some damage to the terrorists, but not even remotely enough. They weren’t able to disable enough Hezbollah infrastructure to come even close to crippling them. The terrorists are now able to continue on and rearm, showing that, while Israel managed to successfully destroy a number of Hezbollah sites and kill some good numbers of people, little military success was accomplished by this in the grand scheme of things.

It’s quite clear that Hezbollah had to have a reason for willingly accepting the cease fire. One possible explanation for this acceptance is that the terrorist group had used the majority of its weapons already and required a restock of them. Alternatively, another potential explanation for this could be that Hezbollah merely sensed a political advantage towards agreeing to the cease-fire, being able to say that they waged a victory, a statement which would ring true to many in the Arab Muslim world. And a third reasonable explanation would be Iran and Syria seeing some sort of logical reasoning or benefits towards having Hezbollah agree to the cease-fire. All three of the above explanations are surely plausible, though there is a chance that elements from each were involved in the decision of Hezbollah to agree to the Un resolution.

Now, Israel, on the other hand, no doubt conceded to the resolution due to international pressures, including those of their closest ally, the United States, and the very fact that the resolution passed was one of unanimous consent of approval by the Un Insecurity Council.

Rational for both sides of the conflict aside, we already discussed the military successes, so let us address the political successes, or those of Hezbollah.

The reaction of the Arab world to the cease-fire is astounding. Hezbollah was seen as the victors and it was passed along as a great success for the Arab Muslims of the Middle East for the terrorists to have successfully beaten the “mighty Israeli Defense Forces,” which have been known throughout the state’s history for being a powerful military force. The cease-fire was greeted in Beirut with fireworks and claps of joy, and Hezbollah was greeted with open arms by the people of Lebanon, despite the fact that they were the ones who brought this war upon that state.

With Israel declaring victory, I cannot help but be reminded of the end of “Star Wars: Episode II: Attack of the Clones” when Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi remarks on how the Battle of Geonosis was a victory, to which Jedi Master Yoda responds, “Victory, you say? Master Obi-Wan, not victory. The shroud of the Dark Side has fallen.”

I change this around in terms of Israel sharing their perspective on the war being a victory and say to the state, “Victory, you say? Prime Minister Omert, not victory. Only prolonged the inevitable, have you. The shroud of the Dark Side remains fallen.”

You see, while Israel may have waged some successes, this was far from a victory. Hezbollah has already launched 10 missiles or mortar strikes on Southern Lebanon tonight, having previously declared that they will continue to attack Israel until it withdraws, and Israel is faced with not confronting these attacks.

This cease-fire now gives Hezbollah the chance to rearm, regroup, and recoordinate their activities and structure for another inevitable war. Israel did not receive the two prisoners that were initially taken by the terrorists; nor were there specific enforcement requirements within the resolution ordering Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah.

What did Israel have to gain from conceding to this cease-fire? Absolutely nothing. It delays the inevitable and shows a weakness that best not be shown to others in the Arab world. It was a nasty PR move in that sense, allowing Hezbollah to declare victory and relish the many political benefits that result.

In the long-run, what good did this war do? It did virtually no good, having accomplished almost no successes as a result of it. No return of troops, no disarmament of Hezbollah, no guaranteed strong Un enforcement, no positive press, nothing. Nothing but a relatively small amount of damage successfully rendered upon the terrorists. If Israel was going to enter into this conflict they should have sought to see it through, no mater what the political consequences.

Now an Un force will be stationed in Lebanon, but what good will it do? The corrupt United Nations has essentially been rendered impotent on security matters and has proven to be quite an anti-Semitic organization. It failed in Rwanda, it’s failing in the Sudan, it’s failed in numerous other venues, and it will fail now. They did not enforce the provisions ordering Saddam Hussein to disarm in Resolution 1441, and they did not enforce Resolutions 1559 and 1601(?), which called for the disarmament of Hezbollah.

What does this tell us about the job the United Nations will do in this situation? Does it give us any pleasant prospects for success, that it might actually do something to halt the terrorist advance? The idea of placing an incompetent, inefficient, ineffective organization in such a situation is nothing short of ridiculous and it won’t help Israel in the least.

I can think of no benefits of this cease-fire other than the fact that it will lessen the loss of innocent life, and while the loss of innocent life is terrible, in the long run it does little justice, because the violence will continue for as long as Hezbollah retains its armed militia and remains a terrorist organization.

What needed to happen was, Israel needed to continue their offensive until they were sure that Hezbollah was crippled beyond repair, or at least short-term repair; Hezbollah needed to release the two captured soldiers; and Hezbollah had to be disarmed (the Un resolutions had to be enforced). But of course, due to the international community’s rejection of continued Israeli operations in Lebanon, Israel had to not only abandon all hope at rendering Hezbollah impotent itself, ending the terrorist actions embarked upon them by the organization, but they had to abandoned their two soldiers that were captured.

So, no, Israel did not achieve a victory. They didn’t receive a defeat, either, but they didn’t achieve a victory. The same goes for Hezbollah. Little good came from this operation, in the end, as Hezbollah did receive a number of critical blows upon itself by Israel. But it wasn’t even close enough, and we can already begin to count down the days when the inevitable follow-up war begins.

In essence, the war between Israel and Lebanon was merely an extension of the global War on Terror which is affecting us all, and which we are fighting. And, in the grand scheme of things, though Israel may not have lost and Hezbollah may not have won, there can be little doubt that this was a great loss and setback in the grand scheme of the War on Terror. And that is a most unfortunate fact. Like in Vietnam, this overall loss in the WoT was due to politics, not the actual situation on the battlefield.