War etc

Getting beyond opposition

Tom Friedman of The New York Times observed the recent anti-Bush demonstration in London and noticed– as we did at Harry’s Place– the absence of “something, anything, that acknowledged that the threats to global peace today weren’t just coming from the White House and Downing Street.” As we have too, Friedman makes the case that the non-nihilist Left has a huge stake in the success of a pluralist and democratic Iraq.

He wonders, with some justice, “whether George Bush has made the liberal left crazy.” And he concludes:

For my money, the right liberal approach to Iraq is to say: We can do it better. Which is why the sign I most hungered to see in London was, “Thanks, Mr. Bush. We’ll take it from here.”

Yes. But I suppose anyone who had tried to carry a sign like that would have had it ripped from his hands by one of the march organizers.