"I certainly would never use the term "leftist poseur cliche" to describe his writing." Well, I was specifically referring to this: "Today the army, crazed with humiliation and rage, is dragging us into a second Lebanon War. The butting bull is not bothering to check whether the china dishes will break as a result of its wild behaviour. It knows that there is no government which will stand up to its bellowing for revenge." Professional modern armies under civilian control sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes employ wrong strategy. Sometimes employ individuals who don't adhere to professional codes of conduct. Sometimes the politicians who order the missions of the military are incompetent, corrupt, stupid, or just make bad decisions. The IDF is doing everything it does in order to achieve certain tactical and strategic objectives. They may be the wrong objectives, the tactics may have consequences worse than doing something different - all that is arguable. But to characterize arguably the most polished professional military in the world (by objective standards, which doesn't mean it doesn't act in all the above ways) as a "butting bull" "crazed with humiliation and rage" is - sorry - a lefty poseur cliche. I remember this same kind of dismissive tone from feminists I used to know. Any discussion of the use of force in foreign policy was met with (look of withering scorn) "oh, the Boys and their Toys....." i.e. avoiding engaging with certain gritty realities because one is Above All That. If my sloppy writing made it sound like I was characterizing his entire piece that way, I apologize. Maybe he meant the "humiliated raging bull" was the Israeli polity of which the IDF is the instrument. Even there, though, it's not fair to just ignore the stated reasons for conducting the campaign as it is. He could say, "The IDF claims to bomb the airport etc because they want to cut off the supply lines blah blah, but it looks to me like an excuse for revenge..." or something like that. I agree with him to some extent about Syria, but you know, the IDF isn't going to level Damascus for the same reason they are bombing where they are in Beirut. Because the aren't crazed brutes, and they aren't making their decisions based on emotion. BTW I think when all the histories are written, you will be to the post-Iraq War Middle East what Stewart Brand was to the post-Vietnam West Coast intellectual cross-fertilization which led to Silicon Valley. I have a half-finished post about this....