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Overheard in the Purgatorium

“You want to send troops to Darfur? I sympathize. I’m not sure what they’d be able to do there. A few years ago, men and women of conscience were urging the United States to intervene on behalf of the Kurds, who had suffered, many of them, a fate worse than death at the hands of Saddam Hussein and his mass murdering sons. Being gassed to death, people tell me, is no picnic. And the United States did intervene, and the Kurds were saved. And now it is said by the same conscience stricken folk that this intervention has been a failure. Men and women of conscience on the left – except for Christopher Hitchens and some few others besotted by the courageous Kurds– are clamoring for the troops to come home. So it seems the French (and Cindy Sheehan; can't forget her) were right all along, doesn’t it?

"You know, let me hazard a prediction. The Americans are a bit behind Europe in their emotional responses to things of this kind. I predict that when the United States is fully convinced that it should draw its troops from Iraq and let the country collapse into sectarian warfare – no picnic either – Europe will come to the realization that President Bush was right about nearly everything, except the presence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq. Nothing can spare Europe, nothing will spare Europe. Of course, by this time, the United States will again lag far behind Europe. The window to democracy in Arabia that had been opened by the blood, sweat and tears of Americans will close with a bang.”

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