So it’s blatantly obvious at this point that Bush was deadset on invading Iraq and acted with extreme negligence in the lead up to the war in addition to misleading the public on several points. Yet there is still every reason to believe that Bush believed there were WMD in Iraq, the Iraq war would be good for US security, good for the Iraqi people and even aid in the war on terror. He was negligent because he decided (not necessarily consciously) to believe these things first and then sent his administration looking only for evidence that supported these views (whether or not this type of attitude is encouraged by experience with evangelical Christianity is an interesting question).

Yet despite how disturbing this explanation is if you think about it apparently it just isn’t enough for anti-war liberals. For some reason whenever the topic of the war comes up all sorts of liberals pop out of the woodwork to offer some crazy theory about how Bush only did it for oil, for political gain, or just to appease the Zionists. A scary number of people even suggest the government faked 9/11 to give a pretext for war (wouldn’t they have made the trail trace back to Iraq?). Even the more moderate anti-war progressives seem to need to add some major malevolent intent to the story I told above.

This crazy anti-war extremism isn’t just relegated to interpretation of the past. The major anti-war protest that just happened (or will happen) in Chicago is demanding we withdraw our troops immediately. As if somehow the fact that we shouldn’t have invaded in the first place justifies further fucking the Iraqis over by suddenly withdrawing and letting them plunge into civil war (a gradual withdrawal at this point is a reasonable position but that is a different matter). That’s like suggesting that if you just shot your friend with an arrow and he is lying on the ground in pain you should pull it out because you shouldn’t have shot him even if you know that withdrawing it will cause him more harm.

So lots of liberals keep trying to figure out why the democrats aren’t more vocal anti-war critics or why no one is holding the Bush admin to account. I think these crazy anti-war wackos are the reason. The visibility of this group and the lack of a vocal moderates critical of the war means anyone who goes too far in criticizing the war risks being identified with this crazy fringe. It also means that as a matter of political calculus there is no reason to be any more critical of the war. The crazy fringe will still see you as being a pussy for not going far enough and you will lose some support from those who still aren’t sure about the war.

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise to me that people come to their conclusions on things like wars emotionally and that issues of strong emotion will tend to polarize people but hearing these crazy anti-war liberals on the radio just pisses me off so much. Why does no one seem to believe that Bush was criminally negligent (metaphorically) and mislead the public but that there is nothing more malevolent than that going on. Maybe it’s just because I live in Berkeley that I see this but the failure of Kerry’s explanation of his Iraq war vote suggests that the general populace is simply unable to do more than emote about the war.