How trendy

Charles Krauthammer analyzes the Cindy Sheenan phenomenon:

The mainstream opposition view of Iraq is that, while deposing the murderous Saddam Hussein was a moral and even worthy cause, the enterprise was misconceived and/or bungled, too ambitious and unwinnable, and therefore not worth expending more American lives. That is not Sheehan's view. Like the hard left in the Vietnam War, she declares the mission itself corrupt and evil: The good guys are the "freedom fighters" -- the very ones who, besides killing thousands of Iraqi innocents, killed her son, too.

I think Krauthammer is right, but misses an important point. You see, for a “pacifist” war and massacres are not important, what is important is the WHO and the HOW.

After all, it is all a matter of class and savoir faire, for heaven’s sake! Anyone understands that killing thousands or millions of people can be done and can be overlooked as a necessary disturbance of peace, but it must be done with discretion.

For instance, Pol Pot could kill with a certain je ne sais quoi; how quaint to see all those intellectuals tilling the soil until they died! How chic watching Iranian teenagers being stoned, hanged and quartered! And Saddam? Wasn’t he misunderstood? How trendy to support Castro bloody repressions in his quest for a just world! Not to mention the tens of millions killed by Stalin and Mao (reactionaries, all of them!)! And democracy, do me a favor, it is so passe’!

Cindy Sheehan, Anti-war