The war-cliches dictionary, part two- from Shmuel Rosner

The dictionary of war clichés - part 2 (Ha_Aretz)

To the many readers who sent suggestions, thank you. To those of you who missed part 1 - read it here.

And now to the second part:

We have hit a large part of their weapons arsenal (IDF):
And in two weeks they'll get more by way of Iran or Syria. The same goes for "we hit the top commanders of...", "we hit 80 percent of the terrorists infrastructure" etc.

We condemn both sides...:
Conan O'Brien had a good one perfectly suitable for this. "This morning the Vatican weighed in on the crisis. The Vatican came out and condemned Israel's attacks on Lebanon... which is great, because all day yesterday, the Jews and Muslims were asking, 'What do the Catholics think?'"

United Nations delegation:
Are you Americans? You're not Americans? Then why would you even think Israel is going to listen to you? (The same goes to EU envoys, Russian messengers, and all other goodwill ambassadors).

Special envoy Vijay Nambiar:
The operation will continue for as long as it takes us to learn how to pronounce your name right.

At some point in the future, the secretary intends to travel to the region (U.S State department):
At some point in the future Secretary Rice also intends to have a hair cut, to ride a horse and to retire after a long, fulfilling career. But seriously, the date they're talking about is not far off, and maybe as soon as next Sunday.

The situation is very serious, very grave (EU's Solana):
The EU was impotent so far, and intends to stay so - but will always be ready to give a grave assessment of "the situation." How about sending an international force?

We have exercised pressure on the Syrian government (Italian foreign minister):
The truth is, the world hasn't yet put real pressure on Syria. Just consider this: The UN started a process of investigating the parties responsible for the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. This should have led to more Security Council resolutions and more sanctions on Syria - but it never happened. At such a pace, the resolution might be ready by the time Assad's grandson comes to power.

International force:
A military unit capable of escaping as fast as everyone else.

The Lebanese army is strong enough (Israel):
To do nothing. The chances it will fight Hezbollah, so I'm told by Lebanese in the know, is zero. The military is mostly Shi'ite and is taking orders from the president, a Syrian puppet. On the other hand, Israel doesn't trust an international force, and for good reasons.

No more. Israel will not be held hostage - not by terror gangs or by a terrorist authority or by any sovereign state (Ehud Olmert):
Well, not until next week.

Everyone wants it to stop now (Tony Blair):
It's like saying "everyone wants peace," or "everyone wants to be rich". Of course everyone wants it to stop - on their terms!

Disproportionate / Disproportionate response:
This expression is the clear winner of the day, with many readers suggesting it should be included in our dictionary. Michael Weingarten wrote: "How about adding 'disproportionate'? What does it mean? If they kill 10 of our guys, we should only kill 10 of theirs, or it's not proportional?"Bruce Feldman of West Lafayette, Indiana, suggested: "A dangerous condition threatening an actual solution to a problem. Targets of disproportionate response are entitled to the status of "victims."

Steven Poole directed me to his blog where you can find this: "Few will suggest that a pedantic notion of the exactly proportionate response, i.e. to kidnap two members of Hezbollah in return, was the correct deed." Anyway, an interesting, more serious, article entitled "Israel and the Doctrine of Proportionality" can be read ). I want to thank the readers Paul Denhup, Nicole Miznik, David Mark, Jacob Penn, Muhammad Bashir.