Another 'Mission Accomplished'
"Hezbollah started the crisis. And Hezbollah suffered a defeat." — Emperor George Bush II, August 14.
'We was robbed!'
"However hard [Israeli PM] Ehud Olmert tries to spin it, the UN ceasefire that began yesterday is a disaster for Israel... With an unprecedented green light from Washington to do whatever necessary to uproot the Iranian front line against Israel, and with a level of national unity and willingness to sacrifice unseen here since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, our leaders squandered weeks restraining the army and fighting a pretend war. Only in the two days before the ceasefire was the army finally given the go-ahead to fight a real war. But, by then, the UN resolution had codified the terms of Israel's defeat." — Yossi Klein Halevi, Israel correspondent for the US pro-Bush New Republic weekly, August 15.
The 'real war'
"The most telling criticism has come from demobilized [Israeli] reservists, who have told stories of neglect and confusion in the way the ground campaign was waged ... A petition signed by a group from an elite reserve division charged that members of tank crews were 'slaughtered at the Saluki River in a futile battle whose aim was to show the resolve of the army', that soldiers from the crack Golani Brigade were 'abandoned in broad daylight to Hezbollah snipers in Bint Jbeil' and that young paratroopers 'bled to death while waiting for an evacuation that never arrived'." — Chicago Tribune, August 18.
Driveller Downer runs wild
"Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer says the Democrats 'may be finished' after falling captive to the 'feral left'... Downer said the party had abandoned the mainstream position of founder Don Chipp. 'They were progressively taken over by what we call the Green Left Weekly group, the feral left — sort of rabid, leftist, university student types of people', he said." — From the August 23 Australian.