still dares to dream

I wish I knew where Christopher Hitchens gets his stick-to-it-ive-ness:

The third assumption, deriving from the first two, would be that if coalition forces withdrew [from Iraq], the AQM gangsters would lose their raison d’être and have nothing left to fight for. I think I shall just leave that assumption lying where it belongs: on the damp floor of whatever asylum it is where foolish and wishful opinions find their eventual home.

If I am right about this, an enormous prize is within our reach. We can not only deny the clones of Bin Ladenism a military victory in Iraq, we can also discredit them in the process and in the eyes (and with the help) of a Muslim people who have seen them up close. We can do this, moreover, in a keystone state of the Arab world that guards a chokepoint—the Gulf—in the global economy. As with the case of Afghanistan—where several provinces are currently on a knife-edge between an elected government that at least tries for schools and vaccinations, and the forces of uttermost darkness that seek to negate such things—the struggle will take all our nerve and all our intelligence. But who can argue that it is not the same battle in both cases . . . ?

Not I, Hitchens. Certainly I cannot argue that point.

and who dares to say that it is not worth fighting?

Well, many dare to say it, as the inimitable Jules Crittenden reports:

Genocide-preferring NYT ed board, noting that Britain’s slow exit from Basra has left serious problems in its wake, takes a firm stand for a more responsible rush to abandonment. Aptly headlined “Wrong Way out of Iraq” is short, sweet, and utterly chilling in its cold willingness to relegate U.S. troops to encircling Iraq and watching the mass murderfest, with a mandate only to lob bombs at questionably identifiable targets

In fact, some folks are getting downright “comfy with genocide,” says Ron Rosenbaum:

One has to admire the honesty of Barack Obama, who argued in the recent Democratic YouTube debate that even if rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq might lead to genocide, he’d favor going ahead and getting the troops out. He wasn’t saying he was happy about the possibility—he was just expressing the view that the word genocide shouldn’t freeze all discourse: He wouldn’t let it be a deal-breaker.

And Obama isn’t alone:

Our reaction to Darfur, however, an unequivocal ongoing genocide, illustrates what one might call a feel-good reaction to the phenomenon. It keeps going on and on, and we keep denouncing it and feeling good about ourselves for denouncing it, and nothing gets done.

I have no idea how we can right the wrongs we have committed in Iraq in the hope of bringing liberty as we Americans understand it to the people of Mesopotamia. I don’t know how we can restore our good name, rescue our good intentions from the wretched results so far, and implement those good intentions.

But a gal can dream, can’t she?