Yes indeed it was, it served as a warning that the homefront was and still is not ready should there be another war! We need our new gas masks now(since the gov. collected the old ones and left us with nothing), our shelters need to be fix,Rambam Hospital needs fortification! The Homefront needs to be readied ahead of time, don't wait till the missiles start flying into Haifa,Kriyot,Nesher,Nahariyah, Acre do it while it is quiet. You cannot expect soldiers to fight when they are worried about their families not having these essential items on the homefront! So if you want to be successful when the war starts again be prepared now!

I felt it in my bones that we were not ready for a Syrian or Iranian attack and thanks to me, for the cost of of just a few lives we will now be prepared and ready. Just another one of my great ideas! And I have authorized a slew of media spin this week which will convince the remaining few amongst you that still have doubts about me that you are lucky to have me! (smirk).

or rather from those of us from the lefty persuasion

In the immortal words of Dr McCoy (Star Trek) "A little suffering is good for the soul!" So yes, the 2nd Lebanon war has sparked of a spate of national military soul searching. The mistakes can be and must be learned from. Just so long as all the military preparations don't vector on fighting the last war, all should be well.

You're not fooling anyone and are simply highlighting once again how delluded you are. Between you and me though your seat is safe as the Israeli people are too stupid to get rid of you and your cronies.

Carolyn, I'm sorry to tell you that Olmert and our government are busy building a shelter for them that would protect them from possible nuclear war. They have no time to fortify our shelters or to build ones where there isn't any. And they say they learned. Remember Olmert recently complained about the requests to fortify schools and preparing shelters, arguing that he prefers to fortify the army to win the war. And how is he planning to do this? He spent 4 months preparing for the second Lebanon war and look what he achieved: nothing. Did you know in the last few weeks of the war they were asking the infantry divisions to walk before the tanks so Hezbollah wouldn't target the tanks with anti-armor? Now they plan to add a new infantry divisions. Yes they need it if their plan is to sacrify the soldiers lives to protect the Merkavas. And they pay all those crazy amounts of money for defense systems like advanced Patriot defense system and the likes. We all know that the rockets fired by Hezbollah are not actually long range. Long range missiles are something that could reach a far away country, not a country that is few kilometers from you. They actually use Short-Range rockets that cannot be intercepted by Patriot no matter how advanced it is, because the rockets hits BEFORE the defense system detect it. This is why in the last war, not one Patriot tried to intercept any of the rockets fired at us. Iran has long range rockets, yes. but Lebanon? they don't need it. On the other hand, here we suffer and ask over and over for the shelters to be fixed and prepared, while Olmert goes boasting about an anti-nuclear shelter for himself. One thing we should have learned from last war: That Olmert is the worst threat against us. But we did not make use of this lesson. yet.

This millitary upgrade needs to be about more than a few new toys in needs to be about restructuring the millitary from the top down. First send the commanders abroad to leran from others and hold war games with foreign armies learn how they think in other countries if your going to have a simualtuion dont have Israeli general v Israeli general go for Israeli general v foreign general. If they dont know the best tactics then a merkava 4 will be no better than a WW2 generation tank... if you have the tools to do the job then learn how to use them. Then start making civilian infastructure secure .. whats the point of a bomb shelter if its been allowed to fall into disrapair and so its no longer fit for use when there is a war. War is about keeping your own people safe not simply going out to kill the other guy. Then you buy the best equipment to go on the offensive. Its like building a house you hasve foundations, the walls and s roof. Most importantly though the politicians need to stay out the fighting they can authroise the army to go to war but once the fighting starts the politicians stay out of it and let the profesionals do what needs to be done to win it. Lebanon had to much politcal involvement. Israel needs to RElearn what it once knew about fighting wars the current generation has been brought up fighting only the terrorists on the streets of Gaza and not enough about fighting conventional wars.