The Left is SO blind to its own anti-US bigotry

Lanny Davis - Friend of Bill and Hillary
Lanny Davis - Staunch Leftist
Lanny Davis - Iraq Campaign Supporter

What?

That's right. Lanny Davis admits that he may have been wrong about the Iraq campaign and the fight for freedom in that country.

I remember the exact moment I had my first serious doubts about whether I was 100 percent right that the U.S. pre-emptive invasion of Iraq and the take-out of Saddam Hussein was a serious mistake.

He had believed that our containment and inspections were enough, even granting GWB the credit. He had believed, as do some conservatives, that war, and all of its expense in lives and treasure, was not worth it. He had believed that Iraqis were different....

I saw on TV in early 2005, in their first preliminary democraticelections, long lines of Iraqis waiting to vote under the hot desert sun with bombs and shrapnel exploding around them. Waiting to vote!

And then there was that indelible image - an older woman shrouded in a carpetlike cape, smiling gleefully and holding her purple finger in the air for the TV cameras, purple with ink showing that she had voted.

Smiling! In the middle of war! At U.S. troops standing nearby!

That last thought, however, shows that, the left has great trouble in believing the idea that the American military is a force for good and that our forces ARE liberators, not occupiers. The name of the operation, Iraqi Freedom, was not chosen for hyperbole.

He continues:
Is it possible, I wondered, that Iraqis truly did want democracy and freedom and the right to vote and government of the people, just as we Americans do? And were willing to fight for it, with our help?

Wouldn't that be a good thing? Even a great thing?

Maybe another democracy, however imperfect, other than Israel in the Middle East could lead to more moderation, possibly other democracies? Democracies that could serve as bulwarks against al Qaeda-type of terrorist states?

Sounds like a VERY LIBERAL idea to me. To paraphrase the blogger, Armed Liberal,"When the idea of opposing theocratic terrorism stop being a liberal idea?

And then in early 2007 came the surge, which so many of us in the antiwar left of the Democratic Party predicted would be a failure, throwing good men and women and billions of dollars after futility. We were wrong.

Surely we owe the al-Maliki government and the Shi'ite and Sunni soldiers who put their lives on the line against Shi'ite and Sunni extremists and terrorists at our behest some continuing presence and support and patience as they strive to find peace, political reconciliation - and maybe even the beginnings of a stable democracy.

I just know I can't get out of my mind that lady with the purple finger held up, smiling into the camera. If getting in was a mistake, then getting out - how and when - is not so simple as long as there is hope that she can someday live in a democratic Iraq that can help America in the war against terrorism.

Welcome to the real world, Mr. Davis.