Bob Kerrey: The Left's Iraq Muddle

Wall St Journal ^ | May 22, 2007 | BOB KERREY

[jern]

At this year's graduation celebration at The New School in New York, Iranian lawyer, human-rights activist and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi delivered our commencement address. This brave woman, who has been imprisoned for her criticism of the Iranian government, had many good and wise things to say to our graduates, which earned their applause.

But one applause line troubled me. Ms. Ebadi said: "democracy cannot be imposed with military force."

What troubled me about this statement -- is that those who say such things seem to forget the good U.S. arms have done in imposing democracy on countries like Japan and Germany, or Bosnia more recently. [Illustration]

Let me restate the case for this Iraq war from the U.S. point of view. The U.S. led an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein because Iraq was rightly seen as a threat following Sept. 11, 2001. For two decades we had suffered attacks by radical Islamic groups but were lulled into a false sense of complacency because all previous attacks were "over there." It was our nation and our people who had been identified by Osama bin Laden as the "head of the snake." But suddenly Middle Eastern radicals had demonstrated extraordinary capacity to reach our shores.

As for Saddam, he had refused to comply with numerous U.N. Security Council resolutions outlining specific requirements related to disclosure of his weapons programs. He could have complied with the Security Council resolutions with the greatest of ease. He chose not to because he was stealing and extorting billions of dollars from the U.N. Oil for Food program.

No matter how incompetent the Bush administration and no matter how poorly they chose their words to describe themselves and their political opponents, Iraq was a larger national security risk after Sept. 11 than it was before....

[devolve]

Yup

Sometimes a leftie does something right

[dixiechick2000]

Yep...stopped clock, and all. ;o)

[El Gato]

(former) Senator Kerrey seems to have found his cojones, which seem to have gone missing about the time he cast the deciding vote for BJ Clinton's tax increase.

Perhaps since his own role in what the anti-American peace mongers would call a war crime, having come out a few years ago, has freed up his intellect from the fear of that coming out, and his basic sensibility is now coming out.

[El Gato]

He has been there and has paid the price.

Indeed, that price was the major part of a leg, and likely his first marriage as well, even though he met and married his first wife *after* returning from Vietnam. It probably didn't help that he had something of a secret to keep, involving what the whacked out left would call a war crime, but which was more like, "in a war stuff happens"

[DuncanWaring]

What a difference an ‘e’ makes.

[PerConPat]

Thanks for posting this, jern. MinorityRepublican and I also posted it on 5/21 and 5/22 respectively. But Kerrey’s comments certainly deserve more attention than they will receive. As far as I’m concerned, this article is as good of an explication, of why the Iraq campaign was necessary, to come from any commentator of any political persuasion.

[PerConPat]

Correction: Thanks for posting this, jern. MinorityRepublican and I also posted it on 5/21 and 5/22 respectively. But Kerrey's comments certainly deserve more attention than they will receive. As far as I'm concerned, this article is as good of an explication, of why the Iraq campaign was necessary, to come from any commentator of any political persuasion.

[Rembrandt]

“What a difference an ‘e’ makes.”

Yep, when you think about Bob Kerrey, ‘e’s an ok bloke; when you think about John F’in Kerry, ‘e’s not so ok.