Doc,

Such admissions are exceedingly rare: The awful truth: arrogant America got it right.

Two months ago, one could readily announce one's participation in an anti-war march. Now, many of us are caught in a grey blur. The black and white feelings of recent months have become smudged in the aftermath of what your everyday ingenue (Holly Golightly) might describe as a Very Confusing War. Ideological convictions began to founder at the sight of rejoicing Iraqis. People tried to find nice ways of saying that the casualties were few enough to warrant the outcome. And liberals like me had to ask themselves if in the end American hypocrisy mattered enough to outweigh the actual result - if confused and cynical motives (oil, presidencies, imperialism etc) could diminish the simple humanitarian triumph.

Joanna Murray-Smith wrote forcefully against the war once. Now, whe has the courage to admit she was wrong.

And yet, the World's Policeman did something no one else could or would do. It could have all gone horribly wrong, but it didn't. Civilians died, young men and women paid all kinds of prices and both Western and Iraqi children who lost fathers or homes have had their personal maps drastically redrawn by the hand of fate. But the fear and the torture is over. America, in all its infuriating arrogance, acted. Not so long ago, I dreaded this. And now, I have to admit, I was wrong.

It is a lesson as old as time itself: WAR WORKS. Against oppression, it has been the most important tool we have.

(Thanks to Tim Blair for the link)


- posted by total @ 5/11/2003 09:24:00 AM .