Billmon: Dying for Israel

You find anti-semitism in the strangest of places -- the Democratic Leadership Council, for example. Perusing the on-line pages of Blueprint, the DLC house organ, I came upon this filthy piece of anti-semitic propaganda from Will Marshall, the head of the Progressive Policy Institute and a well-known DLC fellow traveler:

As they catalogue the administration's many mistakes, Democrats should also attend to the other side of the balance sheet. That side shows that our forces and their allies have toppled one of the world's most odious tyrants; upheld the principle of collective security; liberated a nation of 24 million; made possible Iraq's hopeful experiment in representative self-government; and changed the strategic equation in the Arab-Israeli conflict. (emphasis added)

I have to say, I find this very disturbing. Marshall appears to be arguing that one of the reasons for the invasion of Iraq (and the deaths of 1,871 U.S. soldiers and counting) was to further the military and strategic interests of the state of Israel. Our brave men and women in uniform, in other words, are dying for Israel -- or so this purveyor of vicious anti-Semitic slurs would like us to believe.

Now as I'm sure you know, when Cindy Sheehan allegedly wrote a letter claiming her son Casey "was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel," she was roundly condemned and vilified by every sentient conservative on the planet -- and by Christopher Hitchens, too. And yet, here we have a leading member of the Dino Democrat establishment saying much the same thing, and the reaction on the right, is . . . dead silence.