Scale of International Morality

We're all so happy that Bush was right about promoting democracy in the Middle East. He was right to go to war, because look what a lot of good resulted.

On the scale of international morality, only one thing is worse than massacring thousands of your own civilians. That's what Hussein did. Worse than preying on people in your own country is massacring thousands of civilians in another country. That's what Bush did.

He said he did it for good reasons, and so far a lot of people have believed him. The Iraqis themselves are grateful that Bush rid them of Hussein, and only the most militant Iraqis would say that Bush is a tyrant. But we shouldn't forget about the crime he committed. He attacked another country without provocation: a weaker country that did not threaten us. Since Germany did it to Belgium in 1914, in the Great War that marked the advent of modern atrocities, we have regarded such attacks as crimes.

We aren't the first country to commit this crime, and we aren't the first country in a dominant position to do it. We could be the first democracy ever to have done it, though.

Americans don't do things like that. Not for any reason.