War Critics

Liberal critics of the war who consider themselves above the fray can't have their cake and eat it too on Iraq. An excellent essay by Christopher Hitchens on "Why Haditha isn't My Lai", also made this point about moral choices:

There is no respectable way of having this both ways. Those who say that the rioters in Baghdad in the early days should have been put down more forcefully are accepting the chance that a mob might have had to be fired on to protect the National Museum. Those who now wish there had been more troops are also demanding that there should have been more targets and thus more body bags. The lawyers at Centcom who refused to give permission to strike Mullah Omar's fleeing convoy in Afghanistan—lest it by any chance be the wrong convoy of SUVs speeding from Kabul to Kandahar under cover of night—are partly responsible for the deaths of dozens of Afghan teachers and international aid workers who have since been murdered by those who were allowed to get away.

Of course, expecting consistency of thought from liberals is a fool's errand. They are consistent only in their constant criticisms.