At the Heart of Fighting in Lebanon Lies the "Lethal Mistakes" of George Bush

Well, at least not all the British press is quite so cowed or enamored of our befuddled leader.

From The Guardian (read it all, this is but a snip):

It was meant to be over by now. This time last week Israeli military planners were demanding another 72 hours to finish the job: that's all they needed, they promised, to clear southern Lebanon of Hizbullah. Yet the enemy has proved stubborn. Despite two weeks of bombardment, Hizbullah's formidable arsenal remains in place. Yesterday they fired yet more rockets - 60 of them - deep into Israel, reaching the city of Haifa and killing a teenage girl in the Arab village of Maghar.
This persistence is causing the first rumblings of Israeli disquiet. Why are the Katyushas "still coming, and killing?" asks one Israeli columnist. Are the Israel Defence Forces losing their edge, asks another, wondering if "instead of an army that is small but smart, we are catching glimpses of an army that is big, rich and dumb". The top brass deny they have been surprised by Hizbullah's strength. They expected nothing less, they say - not least because Iran has been supplying the movement with more than $100m worth of arms. Which would explain the serious hardware, including long-range missiles, at Hizbullah's disposal.

So far none of this has eroded the astonishingly high level of Israeli public support for the war. I spoke yesterday to a "refusenik", an Israeli soldier whose principles compelled him to spend a month in jail rather than serve in the West Bank or Gaza. Even he was clear: "We had no choice but to hit back." This is not about defending occupied territory, because Israel is not an genuine occupier in Lebanon. This is, he says, about defending the country from a proxy army of a state, Iran, that is committed to Israel's destruction.

Little has punctured Israelis' sense of self-belief. They see few of the TV pictures we see, showing Lebanese children, bloodstained and weeping; they have victims of their own to concentrate on. As for the rest of the world's condemnation, it doesn't cut much ice. Why should Israelis listen to Vladimir Putin when he tells them their response has been "disproportionate"? Was Russia's pounding of Grozny proportionate? As for complaints from Britain and Europe about the 390 civilians killed in Lebanon, those are a reminder of the more than 3,000 civilians killed in the 2001 onslaught against Afghanistan: how was that proportionate exactly? Kim Howells was right to be appalled by what he saw in Beirut. But he surely would have been just as shocked had he visited the Iraqi city of Falluja after the Americans had turned it to rubble.
Besides, not much of this criticism, including that from Howells, has got through at all. The message projected by most of the Israeli media is that the bit of the world that matters - the US - is behind them. The government certainly echoes that line, and it will have been emboldened by Condoleezza Rice's show of understanding yesterday.

Indeed, for prime minister Ehud Olmert the backing of the US is central to everything this war is about. The Tel Aviv University analyst Dr Gary Sussman calls it a "war for the legitimacy of unilateralism". This approach, first pursued by Ariel Sharon and now Olmert's defining project, tells Israelis that it is OK to pull out from occupied territory - whether southern Lebanon in 2000 or Gaza in 2005 - because after withdrawal there will be a clear, recognised border, behind which Israel can defend itself more vigorously than ever. That is why, once Hizbullah had captured those two Israeli soldiers, Olmert had to hit back. If he had not, he would have vindicated the critics who brand unilateral withdrawal a glorified retreat, jeopardising Israel's security. He had to prove that pulling out did not mean running away, that Israel could still defend itself. What's more, because it had moved back to the internationally recognised border, Israel would now enjoy international legitimacy. Washington has obligingly played its role, supplying the support that confirms Olmert's logic.

I really do see in the Israeli people now a mirror image of this country's cheerleading and slavish devotion for whatever atrocity the Bushies wanted to commit abroad. It's sad that we're getting a repeat of this so soon, when I thought the whole world knew how badly it served us in the U.S.