The price of free speech

Here's another one of those articles that I came across by following links, and wish I hadn't.

From a link on Orcinus, the proof that anybody can write a book, author of Useful Idiots: How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First, and this article, The price of being wrong, Ms. Mona Charen:

Democrats further argue that our failure to find weapons of mass destruction proves that the war was illegitimate. In fact, not satisfied to say that Bush erred, they insist -- against logic -- that Bush purposely deceived the world about the presence of the WMDs so as to drag us into an unnecessary war.

It's not just Democrats, Mona. In fact, there are more than a few Democrats who think the whole war is perfectly legitimate. And I'd guess that the overwhelming marjority of them would never say Bush purposely decieved in order to drag us into an unncessary war. I, on the other hand, would say that very thing. (And I am not a Democrat.)

Have they thought this through? In the first place, Bush was hardly alone in believing Iraq possessed WMDs. All of the Democratic candidates thought so, too.

Well, there you go. You just shot your argument.

As did the U.N., the British, the French (yes, the French should know, they built Saddam's first reactor back in 1981), the Russians and even Scott Ritter. He certainly possessed them in the past, and used them on the Kurds and the Iranians.

Had to get that dig in about the French. I wonder how much people like Mona hated the French before the French dared to just say no. (And, like many using this WMD argument, Mona doesn't mention that one of the reasons we know Saddam had them in the past is because we supplied them, although she's perfectly willing to slap the French for building a reactor! In the words of Lizzie West: If it's all the same - to you old dame - I'm gonna call that kettle black.)

And why would Bush lie about something that would so rapidly be revealed?

I think I can answer that. Because, if things had gone the way he thought they were going to go, the whole thing would have been a quick snap, the U.S. would have had the oil pumping and the Iraqis would have been contained in their little American-style democracy, and nobody would have cared whether there really were any WMDs. Unfortunately for Mr. Bush, it didn't quite work out that way.

A vicious dictator who supported terrorism in the region and tortured and starved his own people on a truly gruesome scale has been deposed. Did massive numbers of innocent Iraqis die? No. In fact, as Walter Russell Mead has pointed out, continuing the sanctions for one more year would have killed more Iraqi civilians than the war did.

Let's let all the loaded emotional verbage from the first sentence slide. What number equals "massive"? As opposed to "gruesome scale"? Or are they the same? And, I guess Walter Russell Mead is admitting that our sanctions were directly responsible for killing perhaps massive numbers of Iraqi civilians. Would that be a fair conclusion to make from Mona's statements?

Regardless, we don't know how many innocent Iraqis "died"*, do we? Because we don't count them. Some of us don't care and some of us don't want to know - and some of us can stand in both camps. And, thank you Walter Russell Mead, but...we're not done yet. *(The war is not past tense. Mona talks about it like it's done, and tallied.)

Still, Ms. Charen is not finished with that overly general statement. She'd like to tidy it up by providing us some numbers.

According to UNICEF, Saddam's response to sanctions was to permit 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of five to die each month (60,000 per year) so that he could purchase military equipment and palaces. The number of Iraqi civilian deaths in the recent conflict was estimated at 3,240 by The Associated Press.

So, 3,240 is not a "masive" number of innocent people. In fact, I take it we are to infer that it is a quite acceptable number. And again, "in the recent conflict was" - as though it's over.

Let me address Mona directly here again: Saddam's "response" to sanctions "permitted" 60,000 little children per year to die. Whose sanctions were those? No responsibility? If some thugs say they are going to shoot you, Mona, unless you do as they say, then by your argument, you are completely responsible for your own death when they do. They will have no culpability.

But, Ms. Charen's coup de grace remains:

It's true that we have reasons beyond humanitarianism for doing this. But it remains a mystery that the Democrats cannot see the advantages to us. We are creating in Iraq an open, market-oriented, pro-Western (we hope) country in the heart of darkness that is the modern Middle East. This is a giant step toward draining the swamp that generates homicidal jihadis. It demonstrates strategic thinking on Bush's part.

Further, it could well be argued that we have done the Iraqi people a huge service. We have liberated them and are now showering them with new schools, hospitals, electrical grids and fresh drinking water. There are plenty of countries around the world that would welcome a U.S. invasion.

Huh-uh. I'm not even going to say anything.

....but hey, you do what you want....you will anyway.