Winners and Losers

So, over one- hundred people killed, millions of dollars in property damages on both sides, entire populations under siege, and two weeks later we really must ask ourselves, who the fuck won?

Sorry, did the adult language above offend you? I don't often write using expletives but sometimes they are completely necessary. I am angry and frustrated by the results of operation ""Pillar of Defense." If for no other reason that neither I nor most of the civilian population in Israel have the least idea what it is that we were trying to accomplish. I assume that it had something to do with stopping rockets, mortars, and other assorted instruments of death from raining down on us. OK, that's a good objective in that it is measurable at least. Of course we must ask ourselves why now, why not six months ago, why not a month from now. It's not like the rockets are a new thing, they've been doing that for a while, and I would hazard a guess that, left to their own devices they'll probably keep doing it.

Here the cynic will say: "it happened just now because it couldn't happen before during the U.S. elections."
Me: "I guess I can see that. Maybe. But what woul have been so wrong about next week, or next month for that matter?"
Cynic: "Next month are the Israeli elections. The whole circuswas designed to portray Bibi as strong, enhance his credentials as leader of the nation in her time of dire need. You do that before the election, dufus, not afterwards. Duh."

Maybe. Maybe the guys in the tinfoil hats are right, but I don't buy it. It's not that I don't feel that the current leadership isn't venal enough to do such a thing. I do think that, and of course they are. Venal? They'd throw grandma under the bus and hold her down while she's run over if they thought it'd help them any. But as much as this hurts me to say, this not venality, it's posturing. It's macho bravado gone terribly, terribly wrong. From where I stand this looked nothing so much as two assholes bragging about whose car has got the bigger engine and then, bizarrely, deciding that the best way to settle the argument would be not with a drag race, but with a friendly game of chicken. And just to make it interesting, why don't we put the whole of the civilian population in the backseat. What could possibly go wrong?

So? Who won? Well, it sure as shit wasn't us. I don't think that there is anyone that thinks that the Hamas guns have gone silent for good. "Pillar of Defense"? Don't crack me up, big stinking pile of... well, you get the idea. So, if we didn't win, was it the psychopaths that won? No, not them either. If you don't believe me go ask el-Jabri, now rotting in the ground.

So who won? No one.