Soccer Dad

What we fought for and what we're fighting for

Instapundit links to a number of bloggers who recall that this is the third anniversary of the liberation of Iraq. April 3, was the third anniversary of the death of columnist Michael Kelly.

His Sept 12, 2001 column "When Innocents are the Enemy" remains the best rationale for the war on terror.

If it is morally acceptable to murder, in the name of a necessary blow for freedom, a woman on a Tel Aviv street, or to blow up a disco full of teenagers, or to bomb a family restaurant -- then it must be morally acceptable to drive two jetliners into a place where 50,000 people work. In moral logic, what is the difference? If the murder of innocent people is for whatever reason excusable, it is excusable; if it is legitimate, it is legitimate. If acceptable on a small scale, so too on a grand.

Well, yes, Israel's and America's interests are the same and there's nothing wrong with that. (It feels like I'm saying something novel after the "Israel Lobby" paper.) And it's the inattention or the rationalizing of the threat against Israel that has emboldened the Jihadis against the West.

Unfortunately, Michael Kelly is no longer here to make that argument.

(I would never presume to say that he'd still be a cheerleader for the Bush administration. But I think that he'd still have agreed with President Bush's overall direction in the War on Terror even if disagreeing with some of the particulars.)

UPDATE: This post is listed in Carnival of the Vanities at Free Money Finance.

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Technorati tags: Michael Kelly, war on terror, Israel.