What THE LEFT Wants...

Mr. Jones is, as usual, wrong when he says that "the Left" is afraid of winning (particularly of Bush winning) the war and reconstruction in Iraq. I don't know which left he's been reading but the liberals I read have consistently argued that the problem was twofold: going in for the wrong reasons, and going in with a bad plan. I'd be willing to cut the administration some slack if I thought they were doing something right; I've never argued (nor have I had any tolerance for those who argue) that the stupidity of the rush to war or the misdirection means that the reconstruction of Iraq shouldn't be done right: to the contrary, it is precisely because our justification and planning were so weak that we have an added responsibility to not screw up Iraqis' lives long-term. It's not the war itself that's the problem: it's the half-assed way that it's been carried out (as Mr. Jones and the David Brooks article that he and everyone else will be linking to admit) which makes it not just criminal but an atrocity.