Shameful Indifference
Speaking of the anti-military right, check out The Editors' "Wanker of the Week" for August 8th, Michel Ledeen:
This is to mourn the murder of the free lance journalist Steven Vincent, a victim of the Sadrist thugs (that is to say, the Iranian-sponsored terrorists) in Basra. His crime was to have written about the fanatics in Basra, who are attempting to create a mini-islamic republic in the south, to the shameful indifference of the British forces and Coalition commanders, and the so-called Left in this country and Europe. If there is ever a day of reckoning, those opinion makers who have remained silent in the face of the monstrous terrorist campaign against the Iraqi people will find it quite impossible to explain their de facto collusion with the terrorists.
He hasn't quite made it as far as the Powerline boys to include the Iraqi people in that litany of traitors, terrorists and incompetents but give hime time.
If only they'd listened to him and sent in General Ahmad Chalabi and his boy scouts this thing would have been a cakewalk. The plan had so much promise. And he looked so cool in his black GI Joe t-shirt:
Memo to those on the right who say the Left supports Islamic fundamentalists: we're the Godless Heathens, remember? We're against the religious zealots running governments across the board. Of course, that includes your "base" here in the US too so you'll have to pardon us for our consistency and ask yourselves why we find you incoherent on this matter.
We always understood that while deposing Saddam was easy, the risk of civil war or an Islamic theocracy were very high. We thought it might be worthwhile to wait for just a fucking minute to see how this little terrorism problem played out before jumping into the middle of the hornets nest and swinging wildly. So, please don't blame us. We don't like totalitarians. We don't like theocrats. And we understood that when you go mucking around in the middle east at the direction of con-men and ideologues, you are likely to fuck things up.
America isn't magic. The military does not have magical powers. We knew this. Michael Ledeen and his fanciful cohorts apparently didn't. Now they are blaming everybody --- and I mean everybody --- but themselves for the failure they have wrought.
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