Well, I give the guy points for loyalty. Sharon appointed Dan Halutz Chief of Staff when Moshe Yaalon started to stray off the disengagement script. And so Uri Dan will continue to defend him to the end. And probably beyond.
Hands off Dan Halutz. The public lynching of the Chief of General Staff now being carried out because he sold his stock portfolio on the day Hizbullah abducted two IDF soldiers is one of the ugliest ever seen.
Knesset members from the Right and the Left, along with the media, are calling upon Halutz to resign.
To me this is just another miserable excuse, a pretext on the part of politicos and their partners in the media, to shift all the blame for the failures and mistakes in this war - and there's lots of them - from themselves to Halutz.
Yeah, sure, the stock portfolio thing was just a minor misjudgment in the larger scale of things. Let it go. And, hey, blame the politicians for messing up the war. Not the COS. (Problem is, Uri, Olmert was Sharon's pick, too.)
Very sad.
It's interesting to note that Sharon's appointment of Halutz triggered this assessment from Prof. Gerald Steinberg (who's usually a pretty sharp guy) back in February, 2005:
Halutz is the first chief of staff to come from the Air Force, and his appointment reflects the centrality of air power in Israeli strategy in the recent past and in the immediate future. From this position, he is often credited with much of the success in defeating the Palestinian terror campaign and restoring Israeli deterrence.
[ . . . ]
In the past, the IDF needed experienced commanders from the ground forces to plan and lead the response to the tank and infantry attacks from the surrounding Arab states. This era is over, and the main threats today and for the foreseeable future come from mass terror, on one end of the scale, and weapons of mass destruction, at the other end. From this perspective, Halutz's appointment is also a clear signal to Iran. If necessary, Israel will be prepared to defend its vital interests in response to the expanding existential threat from Teheran.
Well, this was the thinking just a year and a half ago. Kind of provides some insight into how we got to where we are today.
