Hassan Nasrallah says the Georgians were defeated because of Israeli incompetance

Here is an interesting excerpt of an al-Manar summary of a recent speech made by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah:

Sayyed Nasrallah asserted that "the results of the war are evident even today, in both the military and political fields in Israel." He said Israel is facing the worst leadership crisis in its history.

"The entire front line of the army's brass stepped down because of the war. Gal Hirsch, who was defeated in Lebanon, went to Georgia and they too lost because of him," his eminence said.

For the past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping the Georgian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice

Hirsch, a brigadier-general in the reserves, served as commander of the Israeli Army’s Galilee Division during the war and resigned in its wake. In recent years he consulted the Georgian army on the establishment of elite units and rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.

"Relying on Israeli experts and weapons, Georgia learned why the Israeli generals failed. What happened in Georgia is a message to all those who accept that Washington entangles them in adventures, miscalculated wars and dead-end confrontation. In the end, the US (administration) will abandon them because its interests are above anything else, just as they did to their allies in Lebanon.”

Interesting, no? In a short couple of sentences Nasrallah clearly spells out two of the important lessons of the war in Georgia:

a) US-Israeli-NATO doctrine, equipment and training suck. One of the things which are hammered in the heads of the Western public is the well-known line that "we have the best trained and equipped forces in the world". That's complete baloney. Recent military history has shown over and over again that this is totally false. When is the last time that Western trained and equipped armies (or proxies) faced a tough opponent and held firm, nevermind prevailed? Just think of how little resistance the US trained Lebanese militias showed against Hezbollah recently. Photogenic and high-tech does not translate into militarily effective it appears...

b) The Empire is a lousy ally and patron. Simply put - when things get tough, the Empire runs. When is the last time the empire actually stood by an ally in trouble? WWII? Even the US support for Britain at that time was, I think, pretty late coming. The Americans fought well against the Japanese and they fought decently in Korea. But in both cases this was not to help some ally, but to defend US national interests. But it appears that standing by an ally (or puppet) in trouble is just not something the Empire does (think of the betrayed Kurds and Shia in Iraq here and compare that with Russia's support for South Ossetia).

There are plenty of US allies out there (think Taiwan or Colombia here) who might want to think very carefully about how much trust they are willing to put into Uncle Shmuel's "protection".