Several points about this hap-hazard defense of the IDF:

"Israel's enemy is a group of terrorists that fights while in hiding and uses the civilian population as human shields. This alone is impermissible under the rules of the Geneva Conventions." - Yes, people have been doing that for a very long time. That is why there is already international law in place making that behavior a crime. If the aim of the authors is to argue that the law should be rewritten to allow human shields to be blown away without consequence, I think Bush already made that argument implicitly. The rest of the world didn't buy it.

"As brutal as it may sound, it would be unreasonable to expect a country to accept any legal restrictions that put it at a serious military disadvantage." - I agree, and it's not particularly brutal. However, it would be nearly impossible to put the IDF at a military disadvantage against terrorists and extremists from Gaza.

"A law of war that, within the framework of acceptable practices, requires the Israelis to exercise restraint on the level of force they use would not be enforceable. After all, an international law that is not accepted by individual countries is a law in name only." - The authors say that war crimes laws are unenforceable if one country disagrees with them. I beg to differ. We have enforced war crimes laws against high political officials in the weaker developing world. I see no reason why we can't nab high political officials from the First-world as well.

"'If I were to categorically rule out killing a terrorist if he is holding a child,' says the philosopher, 'I could no longer defend myself.'" - Yes, Israel's philosopher-general would make a good defense attorney in a criminal trial, but not on this particular battlefield. Every court in the world recognizes an individual's right of self-defense. The ICC recognizes a nation's right of self-defense. However, Israel is not going anywhere. It has the largest military in the region. Yes, I know that Israel is a small country that could be taken out by a couple of "suitcase nukes," but that is not what Israel was defending itself against in this most recent conflict. They were defending themselves against aimless rocket fire from idiots whose entire purpose was to provoke Israel into doing something equally idiotic, and, as it turned out, orders of magnitude more destructive.

So the authors certainly understand, and everyone else should by now have realized, that Israel is fighting an enemy that does not fight fair. We know, it is a huge problem with no easy answers. I know one thing though: there's no way we should rewrite war crime law in order to make it easier to fight a war. Fighting a war illegally should be hard -- or preferably, nearly impossible. Maybe the authors would agree. Of course, I'm not sure what they think because this article was nothing but a bunch of war-mongering, right-wing talking points that almost added up to a full argument, but then stopped short of one glorious, berserking, bellicose climax.

...Cowards.

Usually -- no, always -- people have a problem with partisanship because it leads to deadlock. Well, did Chuck Todd suggest that Barack Obama should consider, in the interest of bipartisanship, CREATING political deadlock?! Joan, way to hit the nail on the head. I feel like I'm stuck in that South Park episode about the illegal aliens (the little green men, not Mexicans) and the nation as a whole has seen the light after the inauguration, and now the MSM is telling us all "Wow, this is gay guys. Back in the pile!"

From the first two pages of comments on the Matt Miller article, only 3/40 were positive. I suppose I'm not surprised. Every once and a while, a firmly ensconced establishment figure will just blurt out something completely ridiculous without thinking about the wishes of their political overlords. I expect to meet Matt Miller on the street pushing a shopping cart any day now...

"Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon ... said he would consult with the C.I.A. and approve interrogation techniques that went beyond the Army Field Manual as long as they were 'legal, humane and noncoercive.'"

Can anyone explain why one would bother implementing noncoercive interrogation techniques that go beyond the Army Field Manual? What's the point? Has the CIA been successful in inventing harsher techniques that are noncoercive? Has the Army been slacking off in this department, and is their field manual not creative enough? WTF?

Well, he's behind this. It's a hunch, but it's a safe hunch. Why would Obama allow Lieberman to head Homeland Security? Because, Lieberman's not gonna do anything but sit there during an Obama admin, fat dumb and happy, and just pat himself on the back for standing up to the "angry Left" and surviving. Why would he choose not to bother Obama? Well, get ready to cringe at the thought: Obama won't do anything to piss Lieberman off. No one can know exactly what that means, but it for damn sure means no investigations of former Bush officials. Course, Obama wasn't going to do that anway, so Lieberman probably received assurances that Obama would not do a few more angry, unserious things that the ACLU wants done. Any ideas on what those might be?