Even The Right Says Israel Lost. Got Ass-Whumped, In Fact.

A lot of Blo-Vating and hand-wringing from some of America's most prominent Conservatives in the National Review On-line.

The only comment I could add, I would direct to Canada's pro-Israel cheering section: journos like Andrew Coyne and Warren Kinsella, among many others, the Blogging Tories, and so forth. And that comment would be: I TOLD YOU FUCKING SO, YOU ASS DANCING MONKEY BOYS FOR NEO-CON EXPANSIONISM!

You know, I don't claim to be any kind of military expert (although I play a mean game of A&A), but there were lots of real ones on CNN. After the first twenty got up and said that the IDF's response to Hezbollah provocations was either "troubling" or "obscure" or "not likely to maximalize success", that sent a message to me. No matter what the inherent morality of Israel's response (and I think it crossed the line the moment Beirut airport got bombed), it became immoral as soon as it became clear that it was doomed to failure. And that moment was, by all indications, pretty early in the conflict.

So I think many on the political Right, and even a few progressives, now need to engage in a bout of instropection and, yes, take some of the responsibility for Israeli war crimes. You people goaded Israel on to nothing more than a black eye and a bloody fist! Defeat! Calamity! The Sound of Failure and Cold Water Running, as the Mekons famously sang. Don't blame me or Koffi Annan or the dude at My Blagh or the "MSM"! Quite WHINING! Take some of that personal responsibility you're so eager to foist onto other people!

Speaking of Koffi Annan, The NRO roundtable discussion contains some particularly offensive blithering on this topic by the Hudson Institute's Anne Bayefsky:

Kofi Annan's wide grin, as he stood side-by-side with Secretary Rice on Friday, said it all. He won. But America and freedom's cause lost.

At exactly the moment the reformed U.N. Human Rights Council condemned Israel and only Israel for the third time in two months, America cut a deal with the same U.N. to pin down the arms of the state on the front lines of democracy's war.

Why is the America that guards the right of self-defense so dearly willing to deny it, in effect, to the state of Israel? Why would America permit the U.N., which has systematically sided with Arab and Islamic states in their war against the Jews for half a century, to play-act as even-handed peacemaker?

Since the Summer War began in July, the political Right has been eager to demonize the U.N. in general and Koffi Annan in particular as being anti-Israel and anti-Semitic. However, they neglect to point out his strong support for a number of pro-Israel initiatives at the U.N., in particular his support of Israel's right to their turn at the Security Council table.

How ungrateful! But these people are angry--they've just got behind another disastrous war--and so harsh words are natural.