Self-Flagellation

Victor Davis Hanson at his best over at National Review Online.

His historical perspective is so valuable during this time of struggle for our national soul. As they say, read the whole thing.

Two money quotes:

What would we think now if George Marshall had been forced out on news that 3,000 miles away George S. Patton's men had shot some Italian prisoners, or Gen. Hodges's soldiers summarily executed German commandoes out of uniform, or drivers of the Red Ball express had raped French women? Should Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell have been relieved from his command for the February 12-13, 1991, nocturnal bombing of the Al Firdos compound in Baghdad, in which hundreds of women and children of Baathist loyalists were tragically incinerated and pictures of their corpses broadcast around the world, prompting the United States to cease all further pre-planned and approved attacks on the elite in Saddam's bunkers throughout Baghdad? Of course not.

. . .

If it were not so tragic it would be ironic to see what the present prescient critics are going to say — much less do — when they confront the hideous reality that Iran and perhaps Syria will have acquired nuclear weapons and with them the ability, without a neighboring nuclear India staring them down, to blackmail most of the Middle East and the oil-hungry world at large.

We can agree to disagree with the admonition George Washington set forth in his Farewell Address to remain wary of foreign entanglements. Arguments can be made that we live in a different age; the seas off our Atlantic and Pacific coasts no longer offer the protections enjoyed a century ago.

However, can anyone make a rational argument to leave Iraq now as we are on the verge of Victory?

A moral argument?