And, of course, Jonathan is right.

-Corruption was at least as bad as it is now. And of course there was much less accountability in govt.

-Free markets were suppressed. (There has been an economic boom, and a boom in property values starting around the time it became clear that we would invade.)

-”Iraq is a total failure” — your opinion, not fact. A reasonable person might say that there have been good and bad consequences of our involvement. “Total failure” is so willfully negative as to be silly.

-Many fewer people are being killed now. A bomb here, a bomb there, many tragedies. But no more Halabjas, no more mass graves, no more children’s prison or rape rooms, no more terror as an administrative tool.

You seem to be conceding the opposite argument, since the most you are able to do is lob cheap shots on the margins.

An ideological feminist, perhaps, would make the choice you presume.

As opposed to one that, y’know, doesn’t care about women.

On the other hand, the government we are defending, the government that others want to overthrow, is building schools for girls

You forgot to mention that the schools are freshly painted. I mean, that just goes so well with your delusion that women are doing better in the newly fundamentalist Iraq.

The government under Saddam sanctioned rape rooms and supported marauding sons in acting out their sexual desires. A woman could rise in the government if she was capable (both morally and intellectually) of genocide. On the other hand, the government we are defending, the government that others want to overthrow, is building schools for girls that its opponents would turn into a burning pyre on which these girls would be sacrificed for the purity of an ideal that finds their education heretical. Your thrust is cute but lacks clarity of thought. You confuse who we are fighting with what we promote. This is the kind of thinking that sees the two Abu Ghraibs as equivalent.

Certainly don’t tell me this and turn around and criticize the use of “he” in a general form because it offends your feminist soul.

Get rid of a secular dictatorship where women could be professionals and replace it with a theocratic-leaning democracy? I can’t imagine why any feminist would oppose that!

“The real choice is between sustaining a military effort designed to contain Saddam Hussein and a military effort designed to replace him. In my mind the case for the second choice is overwhelming. … Regime change is the only way we can safely reduce our military commitment to the region.”

In calling for regime change, Kerrey displayed an inability to comprehend the predictable chaos that would ensue. The intelligence community warned the Bush administration in January 2003 that regime change “would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict.”

In December 2003, an undeterred Kerrey claimed that he had been vindicated and Iraq war critics would ultimately be proven wrong. “Twenty years from now, we’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who says it wasn’t worth the effort,” he wrote.

Today, Bob Kerrey (D-NE), unrepentant over his failed Iraq war predictions, returns to the Wall Street Journal op-ed page to blast “American liberals.” In making his argument that democracy can indeed be imposed by military force (apparently by overlooking the Iraq war), Kerrey writes:

“American liberals need to face these truths … [A] unilateral withdrawal from Iraq would hand Osama bin Laden a substantial psychological victory.”

Perhaps he should have thought about that before advocating regime change as “the only way” to “safely reduce our military commitment to the region.” By staying in Iraq as an occupying force, the U.S. is helping inflame the terrorist movement. But Bob Kerrey has never understood that from the beginning, so why would he understand that now?