Give them an Inch

Dennis Prager, in his latest article about how Jordanians deserve to be blown up for being insufficiently angry at Palestinian terrorism, poses an interesting question to those of who oppose the war.

In a previous column, I proposed that supporters of the war in Iraq ask opponents of the war just one question: Without in any way compromising your opposition to the war, would you at least acknowledge that the people we are fighting in Iraq are evil? Virtually every one of the many letters I received from readers opposed to the war was incapable of answering in the positive. By fighting America and George W. Bush, the "insurgents" are essentially inoculated against moral judgment.

A few points.

Who are you talking about when you ask who we are fighting in Iraq? Well some of them are foreign terrorists, who are presumably evil. Some of them are Iraqi insurgents, angry at the foreign occupation of their country, who may or may not be evil.

Consider for a moment; if during the Bill Clinton years, Canada had determined that Clinton was a bad man and had to be removed from power, and had taken successful military action to do so; would you have fought for America's right to determine it's own future. Now I admit Clinton was no Saddam Hussein (although to listen to some of your colleagues on the right talk, you'd think he was pretty close), but you'd think a lot of Americans would fight the Canadians, and I doubt you'd blame them all that much.

Now the choice to indiscriminately slaughter their fellow citizens is evil, no matter how you look at it. But that's not the only tactic these insurgent groups are using.

Pretending that our nuanced position on the Iraqi Insurgents is due solely to our hatred of President Bush is nonsense. And I am pretty sure that you know it's nonsense. And of course pretending we support them (insofar as we do support them)because they fight America is double nonsense.