Avedon Carol: Onward Bushian Soldiers

Last night Atrios linked to Henry's discussion of Volokh and the call for evidence against "Western commentators who defend the Iraqi insurgents, or at least justify their actions as being a supposed campaign for self-determination, allegedly justifiable rage at Western misbehavior, and so on." Henry comes back with:

In any event, in the spirit of Eugene's appeal, I'd like to put out one of my own. I'd like instances in which commentators make egregious claims that a substantial section of those who opposed the war are, in fact, rooting for the other side.

Among the examples appearing in the comments was this one from Neil quoting Kurt Anderson:

Each of us has a Hobbesian choice concerning Iraq; either we hope for the vindication of Bush's risky, very possibly reckless policy, or we are in de facto alliance with the killers of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.

Note that the alternative possibility that Bush will somehow think better of his reckless policy and do something that might work (or even that Divine Providence will intervene), isn't in this equation - you must either believe in the impossible or you support the enemy.

Most interestingly, your "good" option isn't defined as peace or even as just "the good guys win", it's defined as Bush's vindication. It's all about him, as usual.

Now, we know that Bush always talks that way, but these guys aren't Bush, and seeing them take this tack really does make me wonder how they can fail to be embarrassed to spew this crap. I think they really do imagine themselves to be some kind of intellectuals, and yet they can't seem to absorb the possibility that people just plain think the policy itself is not workable.

So they evade the serious debate over the efficacy of the policy by dragging us all into the path of a speeding train and claiming that those who warn that we need to get off the tracks are actually cheering for the train to crush us. Bush says we will defeat the train, and the only reason we might think otherwise is that we have a pathological hatred of Bush, which means we must actually hope that the train will prove him wrong - even if it kills us.