In fact the reason then Israeli Prime Minister Barak ordered the IDF out of Lebanon, was partially under electoral pressure from the Israeli public, because Israeli casualties were skyrocketing. Barak also acted on the advice of his well-paid campaign advisor and Bill Clinton confidant, James Carville who advised Barak that "moderate Israelis' would vote for him if he did. As it turned out James underestimated the number of "moderate Israelis', and Barak lost the election by a wide margin to Ariel Sharon who got 1,698,077 (62.39%) to Barak's 1,023,944 (37.61%).
"Funny Jimmy" as he's known in the Big Easy where he grew up, returned to the "James Carville and Mary Matlin show." Not one to easily give up on lost causes, it is being rumored in Washington that James, the apparent eternal devotee of Le and La Clinton, is spending much of his time these days trying to figure out how to get Hilary elected President and he is studying the odds for the 2012 Democratic primary. Carville, and others including remnants of his former campaign team in Israel, see the possibility of the Democrats dumping Obama, as doable if former IDF reservist, Rahm Emanuel, the new Mayor of Chicago, will dump Obama, sign on with Hilary, and bring the US Israeli lobby and their cash with him.
In his free time James is working as an adman for Miracle Whip in a TV commercial which features " Funny Jimmy" Carville and others expressing either their love or hate for the imitation mayonnaise spread. "If you've got these fancy, dancy mustards and stuff like that, that's kind of an elite thing," says Carville. "Miracle Whip is the essence of America. We are a simple people, very trusting and only wanting to do God's will."
Contrary to the Israeli lobby spin that Israel left Lebanon in May of 2000 as a unilateral goodwill gesture to advance the fake "peace process", IDF statistics leading up to Hezbollah's expulsion of the IDF and the collapse of its collaborationist South Lebanese Army (SLA) match those explained recently by Hezbollah's Deputy Secretary-General, former chemistry professor Naim Qassim who is perhaps the leading expert on exactly what transpired in South Lebanon during this period. Professor Qassim's book, "Hezbollah from Within" is the most authoritative volume on the subject of Hezbollah"to date.
Also, Israeli TV audiences had grown weary of
watching footage-often courtesy of Al Manar, of Israeli soldiers killed in
Lebanon as a result of Resistance operations. Even today, fighters who were on
the scene in the spring of 2000, report that they were surprised at the Israeli
debacle as were the Israeli SLA Lebanese collaborators. In some instances,
retreating Israeli soldiers used their former Lebanese "partners and brothers"
as human shields hoping that the Lebanese resistance would not fire on fellow
Lebanese as the Israelis fled. The IDF did not inform their SLA allies that
they were withdrawing. Ever hopeful of igniting a civil war in Lebanon, the new
IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz and Israeli intelligence meticulously left
behind lists of the names of many of its Lebanese collaborators, hoping for a
Lebanese-Lebanese bloodbath.
As it turned out Hezbollah quickly, and some say reluctantly, instructed their units to adhere to a strict policy of no retribution and to "let bygones be bygones." Only modest punishment was administered by the Lebanese State Judiciary partly because the number of Israeli (US taxpayer) paid killers was high and there was not enough prison space to house them and also because Hezbollah wanted to avoid sectarian strife since a large percentage of the collaborators were from one Lebanese sect and cries of "sectarian targeting" were predictable. The issue of whether Hezbollah was too lenient with these collaborators following the expulsion of the IDF is, eleven years later, still sometimes discussed in Southern villages among families who lost loved ones to the turncoats.--many of the latter living today, as next door neighbors to their victims' families.
If the STL does decide to hire Blackwater USA to execute any arrest warrants in Lebanon or if Israel decides to hire "seek and kill" Blackwater units during its predicted coming invasion, whatever that does for Xe's Stock prices, its BW's stock of mercenaries that will be eagerly anticipated in Lebanon.
As for Baraks boast that the new IDF Chief Benny Gantz "knows south Lebanon" the career assassin might want to recall, as he remembers why Israel withdrew from Lebanon in May of 2000, that as one Hezbollah veteran told this observer this week, "South Lebanon knows Benny Gantz".
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