More same old blather from the left.

Madeleine Albright is pretty dismissive of Bush's reasons for engaging terrorists in Iraq. Her piece is headlined, "Good versus evil isn't a strategy." Typical Democrat oversimplification of Bush's position, but it reminded me of a documentary about how we got involved in Kosovo and bombing Serbia, and there was Madeleine backing use of power to prevent further killing and to stop Milosevic's depredations, but only if there were no American lives lost. So how was Milosevic different from Saddam? Why was "ethnic cleansing" sufficient to trigger our intervention, but not what Saddam did to the Marsh Arabs and the Kurds? Because Iraqi isn't part of Europe? We were stepping in to stop an evil process. If you don't recognize evil, what guide do we have for when to intervene if we can? We did nothing while a million Rwandas were killed with machetes. Then we allows thousands of people to be "ethnically cleansed" by the Serbs in Bosnia. If we weren't fighting evil, what were we doing?

Then there's this astonishing argument from the New York Times about Palestinians in Baghdad who are fleeing the country because Saddam is no longer there to protect them from their neighbors.

Two busloads of Palestinians fleeing violence in Baghdad were encamped today near Iraq's western border hoping to gain refuge in Jordan and have rebuffed the Iraqi government's attempts to draw them back to the capital. Their arrival at Jordan's gate last Sunday, and attempts to enter without proper transit permits, prompted Jordanian authorities to close the border for several days.

The Palestinian community in Iraq was once a pet cause of Saddam Hussein, who granted its members special treatment. But now, they say, they are suffering the backlash for that favoritism, and for being Sunni Arabs.

Of course, they're not trying to go back to Palestine, though, just Jordan.

Albright is correct in saying that good versus evil isn't a strategy, but then it isn't what Bush has claimed to be a strategy. It's why we're fighting. By helping Iraq become a free democratic nation, the strategy is to give Muslims living under oppressive regimes and oppressive religions a choice other than terrorism to redress their grievances. They see the vast gaps between their lives and those of westerners and they can find hope in becoming suicide bombers and the blessings to be received in the next life, or hope in this world through their own efforts by getting an education, starting a business, or just working and raising a family. Economic progress can't occur in a society where religion interferes with things like education, women's rights and freedom of thought and speech.