This Is A Good War

Kid Various is, unfortunately, not going to be able to make it to the Galloway/Hitch rumble in Manhattan on September 14 because he's going to be out of town. (Like WAY out of town.)

And Mr. Scriblerus isn't going because, like, his kid is going to be born the next day, or something lame like that.

That leaves Mr. Surly, who should get himself pumped up by reading this outstanding piece by Hitch published in the current edition of the Weekly Standard.

Hitch argues that Iraq is a war Americans should be proud of, that its detractors use pithy but false arguments, and, on top of it all it contains a WH Auden reference. You're not going to get that at Democratic Underground!

Hitch also reminds us that the choice in early 2003 was not between war and the status quo, but rather between war and a drastically deteriorating situation.

For a good overview of this one must read Kevin Pollack's The Threatening Storm. (Or just look up a lot of old newspaper articles.) Critics like to say that Iraq was never a threat to us. Saddam was safely contained in his box. Of course, that is only true if the box was a soaked, cardboard box held together with tape.

People fail to rember that in 2001 and 2002, the sanctions regime was collapsing. Weapons inspectors had been kicked out in 1998. The oil embargo was a joke. France and Russia were openly lobbying to allow for trade with that shattered nation. The UN was helpless (and now we find, on the take...) Commercial flights to Baghdad had started up again, against the international travel ban, just because people decided to longer honor the ban.

These choices are not made in a vacuum.

Kid Various encourages you to read the whole thing. More ammunition about why this is a good war. And why we have to keep pounding away at that because the Administration has yet to wake up make a decent argument. For too long we've been riding on this:

The second bit of luck is a certain fiber displayed by a huge number of anonymous Americans. Faced with a constant drizzle of bad news and purposely demoralizing commentary (emphasis KV), millions of people stick out their jaws and hang tight. I am no fan of populism, but I surmise that these citizens are clear on the main point: It is out of the question--plainly and absolutely out of the question--that we should surrender the keystone state of the Middle East to a rotten, murderous alliance between Baathists and bin Ladenists. When they hear the fatuous insinuation that this alliance has only been created by the resistance to it, voters know in their intestines that those who say so are soft on crime and soft on fascism.

In any case, Hitch has given Kid Various a new quote to hang up over his desk so that he may read it every day.

If the great effort to remake Iraq as a demilitarized federal and secular democracy should fail or be defeated, I shall lose sleep for the rest of my life in reproaching myself for doing too little. But at least I shall have the comfort of not having offered, so far as I can recall, any word or deed that contributed to a defeat.