If you strip out the context of National Review writer Jonah Goldberg's columns and blog entries, some of what he says sort of makes sense. It his first shot at an apologia for Chilean dictator and murderer Agusto Pinochet, we extract this pearl of wisdom:
Right now, the Pinochet-hating left is talking about the manifest evil of the man in purely idealistic and universal terms. In other words, because it is always wrong to censor, to oppress, to torture etc. Pinochet must be condemned in absolute and unqeuivocal [sic] terms. Just listen to the Human Rights crowd for five minutes and you'll hear how there can be no excuse for the things Pinochet did. [emphasis his]
Well, yeah. It seems pretty obvious to me that some acts, and the people that committed them, must be "condemned in absolute and unequivocal terms."
Let's try it with something else. From this column attacking the Iraq Study Group, we can find this:
"The...Iraq... war...was...not right"
This is why I am an optimist at heart.
Great post, thanks. Don't know if you've seen these two short videos from Iraq yet or not, but both show the US Military engaging in some very dubious actions. I have them up on my site at www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com ..You have to wonder what these soldiers were thinking when videotaping this stuff...