Democrats for truth

I'm stunned this is out of the Boston Herald, but this is GREAT!




By Jules Crittenden
Boston Herald City Editor

Five years after Sept. 11, the Democrats have suddenly become obsessed with truth. Their version of it.
Former President Bill Clinton is incensed with the ABC docudrama "The Path to 9/11," set to run Sunday night, that depicts his administration as cavalier in its disregard for the threats al-Qaeda posed, and too distracted by the Monica Lewinski affair in any case to act decisively. Clinton is concerned a TV dramatization will become the accepted version of history. Democrats in Congress threatened to wage regulatory jihad on ABC, and ABC went back into rewrite.

Some observers are shocked by the hypocrisy and the chilling effect this kind of behavior can have on the free discussion of ideas in the United States. But I welcome this development.
For starters, I assume this means that legions of Bush-haters will be showing up at Michael Moore’s house, demanding refund of the $8 each of them spent on his falsehood-studded distort-a-palooza, "Fahrenheit 911." At the time, outright lying and revisionism were being encouraged by the left, so it was reasonable for them to subsidize Moore’s tour de force in the genre. But they are attempting to move beyond that, and we should encourage them.
More importantly than any hotdog-addicted bomb thrower’s already discredited juvenile fantasy, I assume this means we can expect Democrats to hang up the old "Bush lied" canard. With their newfound interest in truth, they will have to finally admit the following. It is a long list, so please bear with me:
George Bush was elected president of the United States. Twice.
All of the world’s major intelligence agencies, probably to include most agents in Saddam Hussein’s own Mukhabarat as well as his own generals, believed Iraq had an active WMD program. He did, as has been recently shown, have existing stockpiles of up to 700 chemical projectiles.
Iraq attempted to buy uranium in Niger. The outing of Valerie Plame was not a White House plot.
Saddam was winning the sanctions war. He had throughly corrupted the United Nations food-for-oil program and Europe was pushing to eliminate the crumbling sanctions regime. Had Saddam been allowed to remain in power, the likelihood is that he would have resumed production and development of WMD.
Oil is perhaps the world’s single most important strategic asset. Allowing control of the world’s greatest reserves to fall into the hands of a megalomaniac like Saddam would be disastrous. In today’s world, "no blood for oil" makes as much sense as "no blood for water."
If "blood for oil" is a crime, someone needs to talk to the French about their deals with Saddam at the time they were squawking about their humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people. The French would get the oil, Saddam would get all the blood he wanted.
Saddam’s regime had contact with al-Qaeda, as his own documents attest. His regime had openly trained, financed and harbored terrorists for years. He attempted to assassinate a former United States president.

The Bush administration used Halliburton for military services under contracts signed by the Clinton administration.
The Iraqi people welcomed the arrival of the Americans with cheers and invitations to tea. The Iraq and Afghan campaigns have given 50 million people democratically elected governments. The insurgencies there are terrorist actions that do not enjoy the support of the majority of the people.
The approximately 3,000 American deaths suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the 10,000s of thousands of Iraqis killed primarily by insurgent attacks, pale compared to the deaths we could expect on both sides if the United States had to take on a rearmed Saddam. Those soldiers and civilians have died in furtherance of vital American interests.

While individual abuses have been committed and criminally prosecuted, the United States has not practiced torture, nor, beyond the isolated acts of depraved or highly stressed individuals, has the United States military engaged in war crimes. The deaths of civilians at the hands of the United States military, well below levels ever seen before in modern warfare, have been the result of honest mistakes or cynical use of human shields by our enemies.
Our enemies are not freedom fighters. They are barbaric murderers, for whom torture, brutal execution and the purposeful murder of innocents are matters of policy.
They hate us because we exist, free non-Islamic societies that are more successful and powerful than their own. They don’t give a damn what we think or do, or how understanding of them we care to be, as long as we die.
Political dissent and civil rights are alive and well in the United States. Cindy Sheehan, John Kerry and Michael Moore are free and vocal in their opposition. You, if you choose, can slap a bumper sticker on your car calling for the president’s impeachment. You may call him a murderer or an idiot. You will not end up in Guantanamo.
Legal authority exists that allows the NSA to tap phone calls made to and from foreign parties. Computerized monitoring of phone traffic within the United States is not phone tapping. Monitoring of the flow of cash around the world makes sense. If the NSA did not do these things, and there was an attack on the United States, the administration’s opponents want to know why.
The Bush administration has waged a highly effective war against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, capturing or killing large swaths of al-Qaeda’s leadership and rank and file. To date, there has been no successful attack on the American mainland or, outside Middle Eastern combat zones, no major attack on American assets, since Sept. 11, 2001.
The United Nations is corrupt and ineffective. Relying on the United Nations to resolve any foreign crisis, without close and constant monitoring by responsible powers, is to invite disaster.
Israel has bent over backward to accommodate the existence and demands of parties that openly seek Israel’s destruction. Israel is the most open and free society in the region, a Jewish state where Arabs can vote, own property and serve in government and the military. We are bound to Israel by deep cultural, political and strategic bonds.


Lebanon is, most charitably, a state held hostage by terrorists, less charitably, a terrorist state. Israel was entirely justified in its campaign to remove this threat on its northern border, and the blame for Lebanese civilian deaths lies with Hezbollah for using Lebanon as a human shield.
Iran is a dangerous threat to the entire Middle East and to the world that must be confronted directly and forcefully. Now.
Finally, despite setbacks, misjudgments and errors, George Bush has been an effective leader, moving forward in America’s interest and making hard decisions despite considerable obstruction and dissent. He enjoys the support of many key foreign allies brave enough to buck complacency and the temptations of short-term mercenary advantage.
I await the newly truth-obsessed American left’s recognition of these facts. I encourage this remarkable new interest in accuracy by the American left, however petty and misguided it may be in its nascency. If broadly applied -- and once the Democrats get past the desire to muzzle opposing views -- it has the potential to elevate political debate in this country at a critical time when we face determined enemies, foreign and domestic.

Crittenden has covered crime, science, foreign affairs and military matters in New England, Israel, India, Pakistan, Kosovo, Kuwait and Iraq. He is now a Herald City Editor.

He can be reached at.... jcrittenden@bostonherald.com