Dan Savage has an excellent column about why progressives should abandon their insipid pro-tyrant pacifism in favor of supporting policies that will actually improve the lives of the people they claim to be defending.
So the left needs to put down the PAP symbols and put away the "No War" posters. We're at war, ya dopes. Simply stopping the war now--rather than holding the United States to the standards we set after the last world war--would harm the very people the left professes to care about. Afghanistan needs a Marshall Plan now; Iraq's going to need one soon. U.S. smart bombs and troops, the left should argue, have to be followed by smart money and medicine and a constitution and an American commitment to long-haul nation building. We have to do for Afghanistan and Iraq what we did for Germany and Japan; anything less is immoral and indefensible. That's the argument the left should be advancing.
The way the Bush Administration has handled the reconstruction of Afghanistan so far does not inspire confidence. Unless we couple our military actions with some far-sighted policy, our victories may turn out to be pyrhic and short-lived. I'm ready to rally for a democratic Iraq - who's with me?
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