So Much for the Voices of Reason

The Post still doesn’t get it. The editorial staff is still saying that the war in Iraq was “justified and necessary.” This right after pointing out that David Kay’s report showed no evidence of the so-called “weapons of mass destruction,” noting that the Bush regime distorted the nature of Saddam’s connection to al Qaeda, and reminding us that Duh-bya willfully misled the public about postwar reconstruction costs (both in terms of money and human losses).

That the Iraqi people have been “freed from fear” under the absolute rule of the U.S. occupying forces — as opposed to the absolute rule of Saddam Hussein — is completely beside the point. There are any number of world dictators about whom this argument could be made. The decision to invade Iraq, against the wishes of virtually the entire civilized world, was not made under the pretext of making conditions better for the Iraqi people. It was made because Iraq posed an imminent threat to the security of the United States. In other words, a lie.

Even before the invasion happened, I heard people espousing the long-term benefits of overthrowing Saddam Hussein, and the arguments — though I may have disagreed with them — were sound, logical, and rational. But faced with the realization that the majority of people also disagreed with the arguments, the regime decided to lie to the American people. Now that the lie’s been exposed, the party line is to shout out loud that things are better for the Iraqis. And, alas, the Post continues to toe that line. I shouldn’t be all that surprised, given that the Post also — as pointed out in this week’s Ombudsman column — chose to bury administration admissions that no connection existed between Saddam and 9/11 (as I noted at the time). But it’s truly sad to see the death of what I had seen as one of this nation’s last bastions of rationality.