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| 2006-06-16 |
| National Review Lately, it has become popular to recant on Iraq. When 2,500 Americans are lost, and when the improvised explosive device monopolizes the war coverage, it is easy to see why — especially with elections coming up in November, and presidential primaries not long after. . . . But for all the despair, note all the problems for those who have triangulated throughout this war. First, those who undergo the opportune conversion often fall prey to disingenuousness. Take John Kerry’s recent repudiation of his earlier vote for the war in Iraq. To cheers of Democratic activists, he now laments, “We were misled.” Misled? Putting aside the question of weapons of mass destruction and the use of the royal “we,” was the senator suggesting that Iraq did not violate the 1991 armistice accords? Or that Saddam Hussein did not really gas and murder his own people? Perhaps he was “misled” into thinking Iraqi agents did not really plan to murder former President George Bush? Or postfacto have we learned that Saddam did not really shield terrorists? Apparently the Iraqi regime neither violated U.N. accords nor shot at American planes in the no-fly zones. Senator Kerry, at least if I remember correctly, voted for the joint congressional resolution of October 11, 2002, authorizing a war against Iraq, on the basis of all these and several other casus belli, well apart from fear of WMDs. Second, those with a shifting position on the war sometimes cannot keep up with a war that is shifting itself, where things change hourly. And when one has no consistent or principled position, the 24-hour battlefield usually proves a fickle barometer by which to exude military wisdom. Even as critics were equating Haditha with My Lai, al-Zarqawi, the al Qaeda mass murderer in Iraq, was caught and killed. And what was the reaction of the stunned antiwar pundit or politician? Either we heard that there was impropriety involved in killing such a demon, or the former fugitive who was once supposedly proof of our ineptness suddenly was reinvented as having been irrelevant all along. . . . This is really too good to EFL -- you gotta go read the rest of it. However, there is one good passage in the latter part that I can't resist quoting: Aside from the bias that counts always our losses and rarely our successes, we are sick and tired of manipulations like the lies about flushed Korans, forged memos, and the rush to judgment on Haditha. Most weary Americans want at least a moment to savor the death of a mass-murdering Zarqawi, without having to lament that he might have been saved by quicker medical intervention. Ouch! |
| Posted by:Mike |