<p>Would you know the name of the cricketer by any chance? I used to follow cricket but I don’t get reception in the states. The Indian cricket team is certainly very strong right now. The newer players are very talented. I say they have an excellent chance of making it to the semis, if not the finals of next year’s World Cup.</p>
<p>Anyway. the closest cricket club is in New York City 
I wish I had applied to Haverford since they have an actual cricket team.</p>
<p>I don’t recall…it was just a cocktail party conversation, but I’ll check it out and PM you when I find out. We were talking about college and future occupations for our kids, and he was humorously lamenting that after all the time, expense, and effort involved in his own medical education his uneducated but athletic cousin makes 20x his income and is a national hero to boot.</p>
<p>Philadelphia has a long history of cricketing, and there are still a half-dozen or so active clubs. You might find these interesting:
<a href=“http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/NASSH_Proceedings/NP1988/NP1988n.pdf[/url]”>http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/NASSH_Proceedings/NP1988/NP1988n.pdf</a>
<a href=“http://www.cricketfestival.com/web/about_us.htm[/url]”>http://www.cricketfestival.com/web/about_us.htm</a>
I play tennis at Merion, but I always enjoy watching the international Cricket and Croquet matches, which often remind me of historical re-enactors at work.</p>
<p>Watching CNN, I happened to see the families of the two Israeli soldiers and I wondered…were they ‘trigger’ troops? Both are older reservists, both (?) are not yet fathers. </p>
<p>Increasingly, I believe Israel, with the US blessings, is in the process clearing a DMZ in southern Lebanon. After listening to the Lebanese president equivocate about Hezbollah, I can guess the reasons.</p>
<p>
Exactly. This does look like the Middle Eastern version of the Korean DMZ.</p>
<p>The attacks are too well-planned and too furious to be the response to two ‘surprise’ kidnapping events. Israel is furious about something else, most likely the arms build-up in Lebanon whichmust have been the subject of many a back room negotiation prior to the attacks. Is Israel’s fury the culmination of a series of regional events that were put into motion when al-Hariri was assasinated? I wonder.</p>
<p>Israel is going for broke to get a 20 kilometer wide DMZ. The planned creation of a DMZ could well be a Sharon legacy. The Wall must be providing Israelis with a better sense of protection.</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5207066.stm[/url]”>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5207066.stm</a></p>
<p>Here’s a good in-depth article on what may be behind it all. I agree that it’s not really about the kidnappings, although that puts an easy to understand face on it for those who haven’t been subjected to incessant rocket attacks from an area supposedly pacified under UN resolution 1559.</p>
<p><a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines;
<ol>
<li><p>Are the attacks so well-planned they were pre-meditated? No. Israel like the US and every other western nation war plans constantly. They use aerial and satellite photos to pick out targets. They’ve been tracking what they could of Hizbollah’s bunkers and locations for years. Planning is a necessity for a country surrounded by enemies - as it is for any country with a military and a real potential that force might be needed.</p></li>
<li><p>Is the response way too harsh? That is a matter of personal opinion. To take one perspective, first, within Israel, public opinion is completely united, it appears, that the kidnappings must be halted and that the country can’t be held hostage to hostage-takers. Second, Hizbollah while part of the Lebanese government has violated a UN delineated boundary, giving lie to the concept of Lebanese sovereignty. Israel has stated clearly that it would prefer a Lebanon with real sovereign power because that would keep the border quiet. Third, Israel has multiple goals: reduce Hizbollah’s weaponry; inform them and their masters of the very, very high cost of attacking Israel; create public pressure within Lebanon (and perhaps the Arab world) which will make Hizbollah’s re-arming expensive and difficult; show the various nations around them how powerful Israel is relative to them, thus assuring themselves of more years of relative peace with those other countries. If you were Syria and were watching Israel dismantle Lebanon, would you want to start a war with them? </p></li>
<li><p>The best analysis of this mess was by Fouad Ajami in Opinion Journal - the link is [url=<a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008681]here[/url”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110008681]here[/url</a>]. Ajami states it became obvious that Hizbollah’s goal was creation of a state within a state, and that the tipping point was when Syria suddenly withdrew in 2005 from Lebanon in fear of US action against it. After discussing the rise of Hizbollah within Lebanese politics, he says: </p></li>
</ol>
<p>"But Nasrallah was in the end just the Lebanese face of Hezbollah. Those who know the workings of the movement with intimacy believe that operational control is in the hands of Iranian agents, that Hezbollah is fully subservient to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The hope that Hezbollah would “go Lebanese,” and “go local,” was thus set aside. At any rate, Nasrallah and his lieutenants did not trust the new Lebanon to make the ample room that a country at war–and within the orbit of Syria–had hitherto made for them in the time of disorder. Though the Shiites had risen in Lebanon, there remains in them a great deal of brittleness, a sense of social inadequacy relative to the more privileged communities in the country.</p>
<p>That raid into Israel, the capture of the two Israeli soldiers, was a deliberate attack against the new Lebanon. That the crisis would play out when the mighty of the G-8 were assembled in Russia was a good indication of Iran’s role in this turn of events. Hassan Nasrallah had waded beyond his depth: The moment of his glory would mark what is destined to be a setback of consequence for him and for his foot soldiers. Iran’s needs had trumped Hezbollah’s more strictly Lebanese agenda." </p>
<p>Earlier Ajami says:</p>
<p>“Nasrallah’s brazen deed was, in the man’s calculus, an invitation to an exchange of prisoners. Now, the man who triggered this crisis stands exposed as an Iranian proxy, doing the bidding of Tehran and Damascus. He had confidently asserted that “sources” in Israel had confided to Hezbollah that Israel’s government would not strike into Lebanon because Hezbollah held northern Israel hostage to its rockets, and that the demand within Israel for an exchange of prisoners would force Ehud Olmert’s hand. The time of the “warrior class” in Israel had passed, Nasrallah believed, and this new Israeli government, without decorated soldiers and former generals, was likely to capitulate. Now this knowingness has been exposed for the delusion it was.”</p>
<p>Interesting article driver. I missed it. Thanks for posting.</p>
<p>Lerg, I agree about the deliberate nature of strong military organizations. However, while the attacks may not have been part of a strategic Sharon plan (though I believe a 20 kilometer wide DMZ sounds like something Sharon would initiate), the attacks are not a ‘reaction’ to the kidnappings. Even the best armies cannot pull off a invasion on the scale of the past 13 days without a few weeks of prior logistics planning-- at least. </p>
<p>Hezbollah is not really a state within a state is it? Isn’t it more like a rogue guerilla army within a weak puppet state? The Israelis make it their business to understand their rogue enemies. They must have discovered something about Hezbollah and southern Lebanon which caused them to begin a process of obliteration–complete with air dropped missives urging the Lebanese to abandon their towns–nevermind the fact that all the roads out of town were under fire. </p>
<p>I can guess part of the discovery–arms build-up.</p>
<p>My suspicions about back room wrangling were not far off.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines”>The Times & The Sunday Times: breaking news & today's latest headlines;
<p>I believe Rice has a third aim: allow the Israelis to establish the widest possible DMZ. Also, as I believe Iraq has been a sucessful implentation of the administration policy to frustrate and engage a stateless enemy in it’s own backyard, I don’t believe Rice is as worried as The Times about escalating Shia-Sunni tensions.</p>
<p>What happened to Lebanon and Syria in the aftermath of the Hariri assasination? Was Hairiri the lead man behind the momentum in Lebanon?</p>
<p>“We’ll have to politely agree to disagree on the viability of ‘free’ elections in Iran and whether or not Ahmadinejad is a mere puppet of that same police state.”</p>
<p>It’s an easy hypothesis to test. Watch what happens in the next two elections. If Ahmadinejad is “a dictator”, he isn’t thrown out of office by an election. If Ahmadinejad is a “puppet”, then whatever he says shouldn’t be taken particularly seriously - instead, one should listen to what his “string master” says - in this case, Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council and a religious leader who, on most matters, is quite a bit more liberal than Ahmadinejad is.</p>
<p>That it is a religious state is unquestionable. That’s part of what the revolution against the U.S. backed torturing dictator was all about, and the only force that move him out without resort to bloodshed. That is likely the only force that would have been able, as it has, to resist the plots and depradations of the U.S. government for a quarter century, including the state egged on by the U.S. to use chemical weapons against them. That’s what the vast majority of Iranians chose. It wouldn’t have been my choice, but it is hard to imagine their grip being loosened while under siege, and surrounded by 200,000 aggresssive, hostile troops. Hence the election of Ahmadinjedad. But then a so-called democracy without a constitution or a bill of rights (because having one would force the country to relegate a major part of its citizenry to second-class citizenship, as is the long history of Jews in Europe (my ancestors can tell you all about that) wouldn’t be my choice either.</p>
<p>One thing the liberals and reactionaries in Iran, and the people generally seem to agree upon - the need for a nuclear weapon to protect them against the United States, and quickly.</p>
<p>One thing I don’t fully understand. If Israel is attacking central and northern Lebanon so severely, degrading its general infrastructure so that, even if it wanted to, the government of Lebanon can no longer confront Hezbollah, shouldn’t we assume that this is what Israel was intent on doing? Why shouldn’t it be assumed that the attack on the government and infrastructue of Lebanon - not Hezbollah, but Lebanon - is an attack on the government and infrastructure of Lebanon?</p>
<p>They must be aiming at women and children, Druze and Christians, airports and banking centers for a reason, I should think. The simple answer is to terrorize them, but for what ends?</p>
<p>I think Rice’s strategy is foolish beyond words. The Shia and Sunni may hate each other, but they are united in their hatred of Jews and Israel. If she thinks they will be divided further by Hezbollah or the Israeli invasion, I am afraid she will be sadly mistaken to see how quickly factional or sectarian differences are put aside in favor of their common goal.</p>
<p>And Mini, I think the goal in Lebanon is to draw Syrian and/or Iran into the war mix. This might have been coaxed along by the Bush neocons, but it seems clear that taking out Hezbollah includes taking out the financial backing, which clearly implicates Iran.</p>
<p>I do think it interesting that you believe the Iranians need a nuke to be protected from the US. The Iranian aspirations scare the rest of the Arab nations, who do not want them to have a nuke either.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that the current Israeli action against Hezbollah will result in greater security for the Israeli people are fools. Of course Israel has every right to protect and defend itself. However the current action is a totally disproportionate response. Civilian casulties are significant and targeting of non-military targets is significant. This in a country which is one of the few democratically elected governments in the region.</p>
<p>Is there any doubt what the Islamic news media is reporting to its readers? How many moderate Muslims are being radicallzed! Our foreign policy in the region is a total failure at this point in time. Now, our willingness to let Israel be overagressive in response to the kidnapping of TWO soldiers will reduce our diplomatic influence in the region to zero.</p>
<p>While Israel is now “winning”, its future is now far more bleek as is ours.</p>
<p>“I do think it interesting that you believe the Iranians need a nuke to be protected from the US. The Iranian aspirations scare the rest of the Arab nations, who do not want them to have a nuke either.”</p>
<p>I don’t believe anything of the kind. I think the IRANIANS think they need a nuke to be protected from the U.S., and I think such a belief, given their experience. is well-founded. But perhaps the best protection they have against the U.S. is seeing the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, a Hezbollah uprising, fighting in Palestine, a diplomatic standoff with Korea, an Islamic government in Somalia.</p>
<p>As to Israel’s goals, they seem to relish taking out the more liberal elements in surrounding countries, such as the current Lebanese government, Arafat’s secularists and Christians, etc. It appears they prefer things “black or white”. It seems shortsighted to me, but terrorizing civilian populations, and imprisoning thousands of individuals without trial seems to be the name of the game.</p>
<p>Sorry to misunderstand you, Mini.</p>
<p>I don’t think the Iranians have anything to worry about from the US at the moment. The Iraqi adventure has pretty well tapped us out, and the populace is not up for an Iranian invasion right now. The Israel proxy is doing it for us anyway.</p>
<p>“I don’t think the Iranians have anything to worry about from the US at the moment.”</p>
<p>Probably right, but they are dealing with knowledge of their own history over the past 25 years, and if there has ever been at time to build a nuke, this would seem to be it. In other words, if you were an Iranian, your view would likely be very different. And this appears to be the opinion of the current (reactionary) President and the two previous liberal and moderate ones.</p>
<p>Perception of existential threat will do that for a country’s citizens and leaders, whether or not other people believe the threat is a reality or not.</p>
<p>Similarly, I know many people don’t consider the rockets and suicide bombers from the north and south in Israel to be much of an existential threat (they are after all, <em>only</em> Kassams and Katyushas, not big megaton bombs). However, those Israelis still feel threatened by rockets blasting into their neighborhoods, killing people here and there and disrupting their way of life, even if the international community does not.</p>
<p>So, perhaps I understand the Iranian perception, even if I don’t see the existential threat.**</p>
<p>“The Iranian aspirations scare the rest of the Arab nations, who do not want them to have a nuke either.”</p>
<p>Hardly existential. The last time they were attacked, and more than half a million died, was at the hands of an Arab nation using chemical weapons, and egged on by the United States. So if you think the U.S. “fears” Iran -which hasn’t attacked or invaded anyone in the past 27 years, just figure out what it looks like from the Iranian perspective.</p>
<p>But it is intriguing that Iran has so much fear, considering that other Arab leaders are increasingly concerned about Iran’s regional aspirtions. </p>
<p>Arab Leaders, Unlike Much of Public, Uneasy About Hezbollah
By Faiza Saleh Ambah
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, July 24, 2006; Page A12</p>
<p>JIDDAH, Saudi Arabia, July 23 – The war between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon has created widespread public support for the militant Shiite group among people across the Arab world, but leaders appear uneasy about the conflict and fear it could boost the influence of Hezbollah’s patron Iran, analysts say.</p>
<p>Jordan’s King Abdullah, whose country hosts more than 1 million Iraqi refugees, the majority of them Shiites, has often warned about the ascendancy of Shiite dominance in the region. Iran and Iraq are predominantly Shiite, as is Hezbollah.</p>
<p>Abdullah “wants to stop the spread of Shiite influence in the region. He thinks Hezbollah’s decisions are made in Tehran, and that Hezbollah’s actions were timed so as to distract from international pressure on Iran’s nuclear program,” said Riyadh Mansour, international affairs editor at Addustour newspaper in Jordan.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300919.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300919.html</a></p>
<p>The Iranians quickly figured out, as early as 1982, that they stood no chance of standing up to the United States by themselves. The only way they were likely to survive was to foster good relations with Shiites around the world, and spread Shia influence in the region. About the only tool they had at their disposal was/is oil money. This has been part of their strategy for 25 years. It’s not very different from the U.S. strategy of “spreading democracy” in the region, by backing Saudi, Kuwaiti, (and even Iraqis - like Saddam Hussein) undemocratic leaders.</p>
<p>Nations like Saudi Arabia have much to fear, though not likely from Tehran, from the anti-Shiite Osama Bin-Ladens in their midst. Compare the fears: Iran was actually attacked by a Sunni dictator with the blessing of the U.S., and more than a half million died. 200,000 aggressive foreign troops sit on their borders. Israel, with U.S. arms, bombs civilian populations, and makes 700,000 people homeless in two weeks. They have good (enough) reason.</p>
<p>The article that driver posted delineated the Iran involvement in Lebanon and Hezbollah. The most interesting observation? That Hezbollah has been a fruitful and inexpensive investment for the Iranians in their efforts to protect themselves and frustrate their enemies.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>mini, we agree that the furious Israeli campaign to destroy southern Lebanon was always the intended goal. I believe the kidnapped soldiers were hung out as bait–sometimes known as ‘trigger’ troops. You also raise a good point about the Israelis distrusting so-called liberal powers–perhaps authoritarians bordering on dictators are more stable andmore predictable? Do they have cause for that preference? I’ve seen Lebanon’s Prime minister on CNN and he’s as big a waffling puppet-head as the best of them (unless I am misreading Arab culture, always a possibiity). I wouldn’t trust him to protect my dog.</p>
<p>The question of cultural preference for authoritarianism is an interesting one. How big an obstabcle is that preference to peaceful Western societies? Perhaps Israel is less starry eyed than the US neocons–or perhaps the Neocons have a decades-long timeline in mind.</p>
<p>“mini, we agree that the furious Israeli campaign to destroy southern Lebanon was always the intended goal.”</p>
<p>Why “southern”? the bombing I’m seeing is in the south, north, and center, with pinpointing of civilian targets - banking centers, airports, electrical generation plants. </p>
<p>Hezbollah is a bunch of really bad guys. It took two decades for the strategy to bear fruit for Iran - it didn’t prevent Iraq (with the encouragement of the U.S.) from killing half a million of its people, or continuing subversion from the U.S., or 200,000 U.S. troops amassed on its borders. On the other hand, they haven’t attacked anyone in the past 27 years (unlike some country I know.) They haven’t made 700,000 people homeless. </p>
<p>The U.S. has four choices: they could go to war with Iran (and risk losing, as they are with the occupation of Iraq.) They could broker a deal of security guarantees (not likely until the U.S. cuts and runs, as we will) for Iran in exchange for an end to support for Hezbollah and an end to nuclear engineering; they could continue to insist on Iranian “regime change” as the price of non-interference -really a non-starter (it would be like Iran demanding the election of the Green Party candidate for U.S. Prez); or it could do nothing but business as usual, and arm Israel even further. My personal opinion is that the U.S. is so weakened in public opinion abroad, public opinion at home, and militarily by the catastrophic occupation of Iraq, that the fourth is the most likely.</p>