When Good Goes Bad

Australia's left, much as our own Left is starting to argue, rejects the idea that Afghanistan is the "good war". But Australians were never burdened with needing to defend the Afghanistan War in order to condemn Iraq as the "bad war." With Iraq won (on the battlefield--we still have much to do), our Left is catching up with Australia's anti-war left (and the rest of the Western left, too, for that matter) in opposing the Afghanistan campaign.

So it should be instructive to watch Australia's debate over their commitment to fighting in Afghanistan as a leading indicator of how our Left will fully turn on this war and attmept to lose it.

The really fun part is noting that it is rather funny for the global Left to oppose a war they claim is all the things that go into a "good" war--international support (a high percentage of forces non-US), the blessings of both NATO and the United Nations, and an enemy with a cartoon-level of easily recognized evil:

Afghanistan was launched for reasons most progressive could and did support. It is the antithesis of the Iraq war, the war progressives love to hate. Afghanistan is a war of self-defence, launched after Al Qaeda’s attacks of 9/11, rather than a war fought to prevent a possible future attack. It was initiated pursuant to international law. It was sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, the piece of international machinery that progressives hold to be so important. It has been blessed by countless statements of supports from leaders of the international community.

Yet still, the Left opposes the war in Afghanistan. Is there any war the global Left supports? I mean, any war waged by a Western nation, of course.