israel kicked hizbullah's tail throughout southern lebanon and they could do nothing about it. israel flattened everything in it's path, which will take years to recover from. israel dominated the air and ground with no setbacks. lebanon and the rest of the world was begging whoever would listen for the fighting to stop (ie, get israel to stop). israel may be perceived as losing the war, but it did not. as a result, israel will correct whatever mistakes were made and improve in every realm possible. islamic nations, with false assurance and hope, may surely feel emboldened to attack again (an inevitable fact in this part of the world) but it will be against a much more ready and prepared enemy. and they will attack at their own peril.

Mike,I think you are Jewish and you don't know yet!

we will sadly have another day to prove our superiority. Those of us here are quite optimistic that the stooges of peretz/olmert/peres/livni are well into retirement in the various arabid countries they plan to move to!

I completely agree, i couldn't say it better.

WHAT ABOUT THE KIDNAPPED SOLDIERS?

The victory that you speak of is even less of a victory than Israel has traditionally enjoyed during its previous wars with surrounding Arabs ... but that never stopped the arabs from fighting the same war every 10 years. Even if the arabs have little chance of beating Israel in a war, if Israel keeps giving them the chance, then one day the arabs will be lucky and will win. That is the nature of probability and repeated trials. Even if the arabs only have a 0.1% chance of beating Israel in any given war (which, having seen '73, is a lowball figure), if Israel keeps letting them try then eventually the arabs will win. The war in Lebanon was a disaster and a fiasco for Israel, and Olmert and Co. have been even worse since. It is pathetic and sad.

There is no more arrogance of the IDF 's ability to secure victory as we see with the Kassems from Gaza or in defeating Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel is in a downhill slide because of faithless corrupt leaders and citizens. There is a growing awakenign that trusting in the U.S for securitry has led to this present sickly condition of Israel. The vassal state Israel beholden to the U.S. for no peace Road Map has become a cursed yoke around the neck of the Jews. The only One left for Israel to turn to for help is the Holy One of Israel. Something Israel should have done in the first place. Jeremiah 17;5

The problem is simply that the IDF since 1967, has a mindset of blinders; it sees all future conflicts within the parameters of how it would like to use its` military assets, REGARDLESS of how the enemy inititiates its attacks. A professional always plans the next war, not replaying the last war. The hubris and haughty contempt of the IDF`s past & present chiefs of staff toward groups like Hamas & Hizbollah show they learn not at all past mistakes. The 1st and only relevant rule of war is..."either sh*t or get off the pot". You fight to win and kill your enemy until he surrenders, or don`t bother waging war to begin with. You don`t send 2 former army CLERKS (Olmert + Peretz) to lead an army. Israel got what it paid for-nothing more, nothing less.

imagine yourselves in a leadership position. better yet, imagine your son/daugher on the front line and you call the shots. katyushas are little terrorist pricks, but relatively speaking they didn't take that many lives. and idf casualties could have been much worse if the ground war started from day one w/0 the air force's intervention. who wants to play god here? israel got rained on for over a month but the price in lives was less than if the idf had stormed in sooner. israel may look bad but that's a small price to pay. she never comes out smelling like roses in any case. and perhaps, this is also a reflection a new generation which is tired of fighting; a generation which no longer identifies w/ the spartan state. is there anyone to talk to on the other side?