Andrew Hagen

Millions of Iraqi voters streamed to the polls today. (*) They voted in their country’s first free election in half a century. Several suicide bombings today did not deter the vote.

The voters acted in defiance of terrorists, thugs, and murderers. They brought down the notion that they did not want the right to guide their own country’s future at the ballot box.

Thanks to the courageous and noble people of Iraq, the night of terror has given way to the first rays of morning freedom.

It is a glorious day in Iraq.

It is a sad day for the Left. Though I have defended it for long on the basis that its core moral principles remained intact, now I must reconsider whether the Left retains any moral legitimacy.

For many years, Iraq was a country ruled by a brutal dictator, Saddam Hussein. The Left did not fight the dictator’s expansion into Kuwait. The Left opposed sanctions against the dictator. The Left opposed toppling the dictator. The Left opposed fighting the remants of the dictator’s terroristic security police. The Left opposed helping the people of Iraq who were under murderous attack from the most savage and anti-democratic underground guerilla campaign in recent years. The Left opposed helping the Iraqi people defend themselves long enough to vote. Now the Iraqi people have voted anyway. The Left has failed its own project, and the Iraqi people.

The Left failed abjectly on the Iraq issue to stand by what were once its core moral principles. This failure comes on the heels of its embrace and appeasement of totalitarianism in the 20th century, Chernobyl, and countless other failures of the Left’s. The dream that a good Left can be put back together now looks more like a smokescreen.

I wonder whether there can be any Left again. I wonder if the Left is now finally dead.

One thing is clear. If the Left is dead, the Iraqi people will not regret its loss.

On this grand day, it is appropriate to remember all of the coalition fighting men and women who gave their time and health and lives in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Northern and Southern Watch, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and operations after the fall of Saddam, continuing today. We remember the missing, including Scott Speicher. The security and the liberty of America and the world has been well-guarded by their bravery and sacrifice.

Photo credit: Faleh Kheiber/Reuters.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 30th, 2005 at 11:09 and is filed under Iraq. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.