Olmert: criminally incompetent

I am generally very loathe to criticize any Israeli government from my comfortable place in the Diaspora, but I simply cannot see much at all that is positive about how the current Israeli government has handled the situation in Lebanon.

The war itself seems to have been waged incompetently. From the beginning, Israel had no clear strategy and pulled its punches. It changed its stated goals daily. Any war where one eye is on the battlefield and the other eye on worrying about world opinion is a war with no depth perception and no consistency.

The UN resolution is yet another worthless document that sounds OK in theory and will be a disaster in practice. The fact that the operative parts of the resolution ignore the Israeli captives is only the tip of the iceberg.

The resolution is heavily dependent on a useless Lebanese army, which is itself sympathetic to terrorists and views Israel as the enemy, not Hezbollah. It also allows the UN to define what defensive actions Israel is allowed to take - meaning Israel has no chance to defend itself.

And if Olmert already supported the very flawed cease-fire, why on earth did he choose the weekend after the UN vote to finally expand the operation in Lebanon - when gaining a strategic foothold becomes almost moot? Why did 24 Israeli soldiers have to die yesterday?

Olmert seems to represent more the pointy-haired boss of Dilbert than a real leader.