In today's New York Times , one of UNIFIL's former senior advisers and spokesmen and a former UN diplomat, Timur Goksel,  seems to speak admiringly of Hiz b'allah.

Until 2003, Timur Goksel was the senior political adviser to Unifil, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which monitors the border. He says he knows Hezbollah well and speaks with admiration of its commitment and organization.

After fighting the Israelis for 18 years, 'they're not afraid of the Israeli Army anymore,' he said in a telephone interview from Beirut. Hezbollah's ability to harass the Israelis and study their flaws, like a tendency for regular patrols and for troop convoys on the eve of the Sabbath, gave Hezbollah confidence that the Israeli Army 'is a normal human army, with normal vulnerabilities and follies,' he added.

Now, however, 'Hezbollah has much better weapons than before,' he said.

Mr. Goksel describes Hezbollah much as the Israelis do: careful, patient, attuned to gathering intelligence, scholars of guerrilla warfare from the American Revolution to Mao and the Vietcong, and respectful of Israeli firepower and mobility.

'Hezbollah has studied asymmetrical warfare, and they have the advantage of fighting in their own landscape, among their people, where they've prepared for just what the Israelis are doing — entering behind armor on the ground,' Mr. Goksel said.

'They have staff work and they do long—term planning, something the Palestinians never do,' he said. 'They watch for two months to note every detail of their enemy. They review their operations — what they did wrong, how the enemy responded. And they have flexible tactics, without a large hierarchical command structure.'

Recall, UNIFIL was charged with preventing bloodshed between Israelis and Hezbollah and with protecting civilians — the very civilians that Hezbollah uses as human shields. Regardless, Goksel sounds almost pleased and envious of Hezbollah's success, no? He notes that Hezbollah blends in with civilians. But if he condemned this war crime, the Times editors and reporters did not print such comments.

A Google search reveals that Goksel now teaches, get ths, "conflict resolution" at the American University in Beirut. He has also written many articles that are biased against Israel—undoubtedly, his UN career has served him well in this regard.
 
Ed Lasky   8 07 06