Today PM Ehud Olmert said something very stupid. He was meeting with kids in a school in the northern town of Nahariya. He was in the school in which Ehud (Udi) Goldwasser had attended. He was asked about the war and why he stopped it without having achieved his stated goal and purpose of returning the abducted soldiers to israel.

His response was, "it is preferable that they spend a little more time in captivity than having more soldiers die".

In other words, it was not worth it. The price to get the boys back was too high.

Let's not forget that the motto of the army, of every army, is never to leave a soldier in the field. An army goes after and protects its soldiers at all costs, yet PM Olmert is saying they should sit in captivity.

Let's not forget that these same people are the ones responsible for the disappearance of Ron Arad, Zachary Baumel, Zvi Feldman, and Yehuda Katz (Guy Hever simply disappeared and as far as I know we do not know that Hezbollah, Lebanon, Syria or Iran were involved, though they might have been, so he is not in the list), well over 20 years ago. Is that the attitude we used in reference to those soldiers? Better they should sit in captivity a little longer? Is Ehud Olmert signing them off to the same fate?

Let us not forget that these boys have families. These families must not be too happy to hear that the Prime Minister did not feel their childrens return was important enough. Let them sit in captivity a little longer.

Let us not forget that the stated goal of the war, the whole impetus for war, was the abduction of the two soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Let us not forget that many soldiers died in war attempting to retrieve Udi and Eldad safely and by Olmert saying that "it is preferable that they spend a little more time in captivity than having more soldiers die" he is saying that the all soldiers that did die and all the soldiers that were injured and all the soldiers that put themselves at risk was all for naught. There was no need for them to go to war. The ones that died already - oh well.

Let us not forget that the basic responsibility of an army is to protect its soldiers at all costs.

Let us not forget that the basic responsibility of a country and its government is to protect its borders and provide security to its citizens. The purpose of an army is just for that purpose, even if at times it entails soldiers deaths, sad as that may be. By saying it was not worth soldiers dying for that cause, PM Olmert is absconding his responsibility. The enemy sees that we are not willing to protect our borders nor to provide security for our citizens.

There is something rotten at the top.