Excerpt:
"But too often we discuss the present risky policy without thought of what preceded it or what might have substituted for it. Have we forgotten that the messy business of democracy was the successor, not the precursor, to a litany of other failed prescriptions? Or that there were never perfect solutions for a place like the Middle East — awash as it is in oil, autocracy, fundamentalism, poverty, and tribalism — only choices between awful and even more awful? Or that September 11 was not a sudden impulse on the part of Mohammed Atta, but the logical culmination of a long simmering pathology? Or that the present loudest critics had plenty of chances to leave something better than the mess that confronted the United States on September 12? Or that at a time of war, it is not very ethical to be sorta for, sorta against, kinda supportive, kinda critical of the mission — all depending on the latest sound bite from Iraq?"
"...this war started on September 11."
What many of our leftist friends refused to realize or admit on, or shortly after, Sept 11 is that we were at war. War had been declared on western civilization long before that time.
This is not Vietnam - as much as those who hate America would have us believe.
Thanks for posting Hanson's article. I had not previously read it. He is rapidly emerging as a powerful voice.