One, two, three, false

Doesn't matter how often you say something, but if it isn't true it isn't true. Harry linked yesterday to an uncritical piece by Simon Jeffery on the Keep the War Going (or Stoke the War) crowd. One of the things Jeffery slips into the piece is this:

The arguments may have shifted with events - the anti-warriors protest against the presence of foreign troops, while proponents talk of democracy instead of WMD...

You see. Democracy and related issues in Iraq weren't part of the argument to begin with for the pro-war camp. You can say this once, twice, three times, more - it's false. Which is why Amir Taheri can finish the way he does in this excerpt from an article in yesterday's Times (via Mick Hartley) and it not seem bizarre that he does:

Iraq has been set on the road to democracy. This is going to be a bumpy road with many zigzags. But, provided the US-led coalition does not lose its nerve, but stays committed until the new Iraq can defend itself against its domestic and foreign foes, the Iraqi experience could inspire democratic change in other Muslim countries in the Middle East.
.....
The Arab despots and their friends in the West make a meal of the cliché that democracy cannot be imposed by force. But what happened in Iraq was not imposing democracy by force. The US-led alliance used force to remove impediments to democracy. The people of Iraq became the co-liberators of their country, first by not opposing the US-led coalition and then by risking their lives to set their nation on a new path in the face of vicious terrorism.

It is time to see what is happening in Iraq on its own merits, not in the context of an irrational hatred of the United States and George W. Bush. Like it or not, President Bush has got one thing right: give any nation a chance to choose democracy and it will.

And it is also why Kurt Andersen can write what he does two posts down without that seeming bizarre. So why the repetition of what is at best a half-truth (i.e. this wasn't the primary reason given by George Bush and Tony Blair for the war) and, when all is said and done, a falsehood? Well, who am I to say? Oh, all right then, here's a suggestion: some anti-war people aren't too comfortable about having opposed a war which could lead to the democratization of Iraq.