PUBLIC NUISANCES: They Asked for It/A Terrible Battle
Tyrrell, R. Emmett Jr.
PUBLIC NUISANCES R. Emmett T y r r e l l , J r . T They Asked for It WASHINGTON O THE GRIZZLED AND DISHEVELED stalwarts of Hezbollah and Hamas, may I say you did it to yourselves. Kapow! As...
...You are getting just what you deserve...
...Yet that leaves a large question...
...Needless to say, they have no interest in a peaceful Gaza or Lebanon...
...Though at least in southern Lebanon the peacekeepers have not raped and pillaged...
...His knowledge of the terrain is one of the reasons his history is so vivid...
...The consequence was slaughter...
...She is a very nice woman, unassuming, quite pretty for 80 or so years, and no cigar clamped between her teeth...
...More than 36,000 were wounded...
...The land from which Hezbollah has been firing missiles was supposed to be free of militias, according to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559...
...The book should be out in America shortly...
...Twice that many were wounded...
...That, of course, is how Reagan expressed what is the oldest idea known to man: philosophical acceptance of the inevitable...
...But the city abounds with British citizens who admire our country...
...They remain obdurate and dishonest, and now their clients have unleashed war against Israel...
...On the first day of the battle i9,240 British soldiers lost their lives...
...I hope our government resupplies them as soon as they finish the business...
...So you can be sure his work on Churchill and America is well worth reading...
...In time they will be able to hit anywhere in Israel...
...Reportedly some 50 percent of Hezbollah's missile-launching capacity has been destroyed...
...Prefatory to their infantry assault the Brits laid down a withering artillery barrage...
...Even the lion-hearted Churchill urged other strategies...
...The TaifAccords, by which the Lebanese civil war was ended, also called for disarming the militias and giving the Lebanese army control of its border...
...He is the great man's official biographer, and just last year his history of Churchill's long relationship with America was published, Churchill and America...
...He is a Marine...
...bombing...
...Diplomacy does not seem to work with the Syrians or with the Iranians...
...Thus I was mildly surprised when Lord Watson of Richmond, a distinguished Englishman of impeccable liberal credentials, in his introduction of Gilbert gently put our casualties into perspective...
...When Gilbert mentions a soldier who died in battle he adds a special touch...
...July 4th," one of the assembled Brits remarked, "it is the 230th anniversary of one of your happiest moments...
...So in this enthralling history he has quoted from the diaries and letters of the soldiers...
...We have been dealing with the Iranians diplomatically on their nuclear capacity for months...
...When in World War II Washington was intent on invading Europe, memories of the Somme weighed heavy on our British allies...
...And what did you donkeys do...
...Moreover the terrorists of Hezbollah and Hamas have revealed to any sensible observer that they have no interest in peace with Israel or with the West, for that matter...
...Next they will be landing them on Tel Aviv...
...You captured Israeli soldiers in an unprovoked attack...
...As another Israeli bomb lands nearby, as a shell whizzes overhead, may I remind you that you are hunkering down either on Gaza or on Lebanese soil that was evacuated by the Israelis so that you could live in peace...
...Many, even many conservatives, get very agitated by such suggestions...
...The battle, it is said, left a "scar" on the nation...
...Israel is going to have to take action to see to it that no more missile attacks are possible and that Hezbollah's suppliers-Syria and I r a n - s t o p arming them...
...The Somme was misbegotten from the start...
...Martin Gilbert is "an historian," he will tell you, "of the human condition...
...Now they are landing them on Haifa...
...He is also a very great lecturer, and as he prepared a brief lecture for the reception the room was packed, not only with members of the general public but also with fellow historians of note and with Lady Soames, Churchill's surviving daughter...
...Compare what both of our countries have suffered in this war with what the British suffered in a day at the Somme...
...The Allies did a good thing in beating back the Kaiser and the Coalition forces are doing a good thing in beating back the Islamofascists...
...The brutes in these governments are pitiless and belligerent tyrants...
...The death of two British soldiers in Afghanistan recently made headlines here for several days...
...Pacifying the region is obviously going to be left to the Israelis...
...The casualties from war in Iraq are very much on the minds of both Americans and the British today...
...The battle went on from July 1, 1916, to November 19, 1916...
...In fact, as I left the English- Speaking Union I noticed the Stars and Stripes flying from its facade...
...That means its suppliers are going to have to be dealt with...
...A Terrible Battle LONDON y OU MIGHT THINK LONDON a curious locale from which to celebrate July 4th, or Independence Day as we say...
...Perhaps this is accurate, but only troops on the ground will be able to ensure that the terrorists do not return with their missiles...
...Well," said the Old Cowboy, "boys will be boys...
...He recognized that all his admonitions against the Nazis in the previous decade had proved futile...
...Tonight we are observing one of our most unhappy moments, the Somme...
...Well, allow me to remind them of President Ronald Reagan's reaction when his National Security Adviser informed him in the Oval Office of the Israeli 78 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTEMBER 2006 R. EMMETT TYRRELL, JR...
...Gilbert is also one of the English language's greatest living historians...
...Unbeknownst to them the artillery was not effective...
...SEPTE~a~ER 70_9 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR 79...
...They used bombers we had sold them, the adviser harrumphed...
...You tunneled under the Israeli borders to infiltrate Israel and kill innocent civilians...
...Ultimately 300,000 lives were lost, counting the casualties of both sides...
...He produces many maps and relates the tactics and strategies of the generals, but he also takes you into the trenches with the troops, some of whom went on to great fame, for instance, future Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, who was badly wounded...
...I spent the evening of July 4th in the vast and glorious edifice that is the English-Speaking Union, observing the 90th anniversary of one of the bloodiest battles of all time and certainly of World War I, the Battle of the Somme...
...It all ended badly-for everyone...
...What brought us together this summer was a reception for my friend Sir Martin Gilbert's new history of this terrible battle, The Somme: Heroism and Horror in the First World War...
...In the respite between the artillery assault and the rush of the British infantry from their trenches and across the open field to the German positions, the Germans set up their machine guns...
...The same bellicosity afflicts the allies of these terrorists in Syria and Iran...
...Yet even troops in Lebanon cannot deny Hezbollah's acquisition of ever more powerful weapons...
...What are the next measures to be taken to secure peace in the Middle East...
...Gilbert is a great student of battlefields and has visited the Somme many times...
...At the end of the evening I purchased Gilbert's book and asked him to inscribe it to a pal of mine who is leaving Washington to further serve his country...
...The British were dug in on one side, the Germans on the other...
...He tells readers where the man is buried, "to enable the reader who might visit the battlefield to pay his or her respects at the graveside...
...Now only world war would bring peace...
...I would think this means that Israel for the short term is going to have to take control of the border regions of Lebanon and of Gaza from which it withdrew...
...United Nations peacekeepers have been stationed there to see that these diplomatic measures were implemented...
...When in May 1940 Winston Churchill became prime minister, he thought himself a failure...
...Gilbert has written 78 books, beginning with his multi-volume life of Winston Churchill...
...The only recourse might well be the recourse taken by Israel in June 1981 when Israeli aircraft destroyed Iraq's nuclear facilities...
...Again the terrorists have foolishly tipped their hand...
...Well, at least my interlocutor had no hard feelings about Independence Day, though to hold a grudge after 230 years one would have to be a Serb or an Islamofascist...
...Obviously once again UN peacekeepers have failed...
...Listening to their sophistries about their need for nuclear power or their desire for a peaceful world puts me in mind of all the irenic poetry of the late Herr Hitler back when things were good for him in the middle 1930s...
...Many of the dead were very young, some just 15...
...You established an infrastructure of missiles to rain down destruction on Israeli cities that were at peace, providing security and prosperity for both Jews and Arabs...
...They have revealed with their missile attacks that the missiles they have access to are increasingly powerful...
...Britain's allies, the French, were engaged in a brutal struggle against the Germans at Verdun and they prevailed on the British to mount a second attack on the Germans at the Somme...
Vol. 39 • September 2006 • No. 7
