Honorable Americans

The editors at National Review focus on a “Profile in Disgrace”, of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library’s bestowal Monday of a Profile in Courage Award on Rep. John Murtha:

The military’s investigation of those claims isn’t finished yet, but Murtha apparently can’t wait for all the facts to emerge before damning the accused. In doing so, he inflames international opinion against the United States and makes it more difficult not only to fulfill our mission in Iraq, but to conduct military operations anywhere in the world. Even if the allegations against the Marines are true, Murtha’s rhetoric is imbalanced: He declines to emphasize that the vast majority of soldiers perform their duties honorably and that those who break the rules are severely punished, choosing instead to cite the actions of a few sadists as though they were representative of the military.

Contrast this with the Vets For Freedom:

In WWII, America was unified against an evil enemy and we moved past mistakes to achieve victory. Today we are divided and weak against an enemy that is equally as evil as our adversaries in WWII (perhaps more so), and we are letting every setback in this war define its failure.

See this:

That's not to say you can't criticize the effort. Every effort is going to have unforseen obstacles and problems. Every effort is going to need to be tweaked and corrected.

But there are constructive ways to do it and destructive ways to do it. The lesson should be we owe it to those we put in harm's way to carry on a constructive conversation to help them better do their jobs. And we need to be sure that mixed messages, such as those from Vietnam, aren't again sent out to potential future enemies. All it does is cost American lives as we again have to prove we aren't "paper tigers". I think that point is getting through concerning the military. However it would appear in the political realm, paper tigers are still rampant.

David Limbaugh’s deconstruction of a prominent broadcaster’s interview of Secretary of State Rice, “MSM never tires of antiwar propaganda,” is instructive.

Also interesting was Russert's water-carrying for the Democrats on the Iran issue, as when he asked whether we'd have an easier time dealing with Iran if "we did not have the complication of Iraq." In other words, doesn't the "fact" that Bush lied on Iraq WMD mean that no one will believe him on Iran WMD?
A better question would have been, "Knowing what we now know about how Democrats retrospectively distorted the circumstances leading up to the Iraq War, especially portraying Bush as having lied about WMD, and knowing their fair weather support for our mission in Iraq and how they soured the public on it, wouldn't it be very difficult to get the public to support an attack of Iran's suspected nuclear facilities?"

For a corrective, see “Revisionist History: Antiwar myths about Iraq, debunked,” by Peter Wehner:

For many antiwar critics, the president is faulted for the war, and he, not the former dictator of Iraq, inspires rage. The liberator rather than the oppressor provokes hatred. It is as if we have stepped through the political looking glass, into a world turned upside down and inside out.

The real world will be turned upside down if Demoweenies’ organ grinding and their MSM monkies prevail.

Lynn Chu holds a J.D from the University of Chicago Law School, is admitted to the New York Bar, and is a very successful literary agent. Midge Decter emailed me a first draft of a poem Chu wrote. Chu may not give up her day job for poetry, as she admits. It’s a long read, but a good creed. Pay special attention to the last line.

Why I Continue to Believe in the War in Iraq
(first draft)

Because to depose a murderous despot is a good thing.
Because the UN resolved to do something a dozen times and didn’t.
Because we are the only nation in the world with the decency and strength to do it.
Because other nations, ruing their past glory, are envious.
Because I believe in nationbuilding.
Because the left has always insisted on this.
Because I harbor no animus toward Muslim peoples.
Because we must seed the world with democracy, for it is right.
Because Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, deserves no less.
Because we destroyed mountains of conventional WMD and averted the sure redevelopment of worse.
Because we halted the UN’s corrupt partnership with tyranny, in the sham of Oil for Food
Under which the Iraqi people suffered while Saddam and his new business partners sipped oil.
Because containment is impossible in a globalized world.
Because dictators are easier to topple than covert networks.
Because war is best conducted there than on the streets of New York.
Because in truth the world respects us for it, however they moan.
Because received opinion will change on a dime.
Because Iraqis are an educated people fully capable of democracy.
As is all of humanity.
Because we did so with a minimum of human loss.
Because the war and rebuilding can be self-financing with oil.
Because one out of three in the axis of evil is 33.3% better than zero.
Because it makes the left crazy to see the U.S. succeed nobly against a tyrant.
For they love tyranny when it suits them.
Because Saddam financing bin Laden to harry us was only a matter of time.
Because we needed to finish what we started in 1991.
Because half-measures can be worse than none.
Because America is as brave and competent as it is reasonable to expect of clumsy imperfect humans.
Because sanctions were crumbling.
Because if Saddam had the bomb in 1981, he would soon have it again.
Because in 1948 the UN created Israel, to world acclaim, whose existence is just and must continue to be defended.
For the evil of antisemitism still lurks in the world, in radical Islam and elsewhere.
Because the new kind of war will be sporadic, desultory, and covert.
And will bore us, but complacency is dangerous.
Because to them their jihad has only just begun, and crush it we must.
For Osama Bin Laden is not Deng Xiao-Ping.
Because our nation is strong enough to shrug off the malice and subversion and sophistries its heedless factions devise.
Who style themselves heroes and whistleblowers.
For their vanity and venality betrays them.
Because this war’s lessons will assist in transformation, which must continue.
For the emasculated CIA and bloated DOD must be reformed.
Because the idea that the world has outgrown war is a fantasy.
Because if we cannot do Iraq then we can never do Rwanda or Darfur.
Because we need to pick our fights.
And there is nothing immoral about making a list ordered by need and self-interest.
For all politics are a balance of factors moral and practical.
Because, when the world is ever really in trouble, fashionable anti-Americanism will fall away.
For all know that America is not the source of evil in the world.
Because people just like to exaggerate.
And nowhere is the human condition more on display than in a democracy.
Because all of these considerations are matters for our elected representatives to manage.
Because partisans lie and lose their souls and trick the rest for only a moment.
Because failed states harbor criminal gangs.
Because propping up dictators no longer brings “stability.”
Because we can no longer countenance killing fields.
Because we must learn how to replace chaos with democracy.
For democracy is not only stable, it is just.
Because we won in Afghanistan, whose economy is starting to boom.
Because the carping elite are hypocrites about all of this, but love to second-guess and criticize.
Because they will do so regardless.
Because the pundits all have other agendas.
Because Iraq must continue to “balance” Iran in that region.
Because we can use a middle east base.
Because avoiding the responsibilities of empire has invoked our enemy and laid the seeds for failed states.
Because civilization is always effortful.
Because we will not and need not suffer a draft to fight the mother of all wars, the very jihad of our enemy’s dreams.
Because this demand shows the critics’ bad faith.
Because their perverse, fervent, secret wish is for another Vietnam.
Because small war is a new art, one we need to master.
Because does not a stitch in time save nine?
Because the same will be required of us again, and we must study its statecraft.
Because the UN will save no one.
Because diplomacy is sometimes the path to a solution, but just as often isn’t.
Because wordsmiths overestimate words.
Because politics is always war by other means.
Because we must expect only carping and ingratitude and have infinite patience.
Because it is the right thing to do and the sophists’ words will vanish with the wind.
Because lies however big, are only temporary.