Pro-War Liberals Frozen in the Headlights

[dweller]

Published on Tuesday, November 1, 2005 by the Providence Journal
by John R. MacArthur (publisher of Harper's Magazine)

New York -- It's been dreadful, these past three years putting up with George Bush's fraudulent rationales for invading Iraq. And
there's no respite in sight -- the phony justifications keep coming, no matter how many corpses pile up, no matter how badly the
political situation deteriorates in Baghdad, no matter how many lies surface about the pre-war propaganda campaign.

The other night in a restaurant I had to bite my tongue, instead of my bread, when a man at a neighboring table declared his "trust"
in Dick Cheney and the president.

But as much as I'm infuriated by the Bush brigade's steadfast support of the Iraq horror, I find myself angrier still when pro-war
liberals -- the so-called reluctant hawks -- wring their hands over the bloody mess they've wrought with their neo-conservative allies.

There are many such handwringers in politics, especially within the leadership of the Democratic Party. Sen. Joseph Biden, of
Delaware, is forever asking "tough questions" about Iraq (the torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo upset him terribly), without
drawing the obvious conclusion that we never should have attacked in the first place, and need to get out as fast as possible.

In journalism, the current handwringer-in-chief is the New Yorker writer George Packer, whose book The Assassins' Gate has met
with high praise from handwringers, hawks, and a subset of pundits I call trimmers. Handwringers "anguish" over their past or current
support for the war; hawks don't apologize for anything; and trimmers criticize Bush the foolish president, but avoid unequivocal
denunciations of this foolish war.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1101-22.htm

dp

[unschooler]

1. Oh. But Joe Biden would have done the war "right."

:eyes:

[aquart]

3. How did Biden get into a discussion of liberals?

[aquart]

2. No liberal should EVER have been pro THIS war.

They put their jobs over their country and their people.

[Tom Joad]

4. These "liberals" should be retired to lobby for their corporate friends...

At least they will be doing less damage to the country and the planet.
Ponder this: They gave george w. bush (!!!!) the authority to wage war, on evidence that we knew to be suspicious, at least.

unfucking believable. Just unfucking believable.

[IndianaGreen]

5. "the Iraq war was always winnable; it still is."

"Useful idiots," that's what these prowar liberals really are. They still think they can win this war without even thinking whether we should.

[Erika]

6. Hillary and Lieberman should be out there also

They are the biggest disappointments I've ever seen in our party.

[teryang]

7. They really have no excuse

There has consistently been a sizable number of professional military people opposed to the war from the outset. They have been isolated and ignored by the main stream media. Even if one couldn't form one's own opinion about the uneven cost-benefit equation and likely unfavorable outcomes of such a policy, there were plenty of experts out there who could have advised them.

To think that this war had a chance of being politically successful, you couldn't possibly pretend to have credentials as a military or foreign affairs expert. Such a position defines only the charlatan and opportunist who profits from belligerence.