Politics

Victor Davis Hanson on the new realities of war. Key graf:

Consider Operation Desert Fox of December 1999. While mired in an
impeachment scandal, President Clinton ordered four days of bombing
against supposed WMD facilities in Iraq. Few claimed that he had
bombed to divert domestic attention from his own political troubles,
much less that the absence of any proof of destroyed weapons
facilities suggested there was none there to begin with. President
Clinton was not pilloried for either preemption or unilateralism —
although he did not go to the Senate for approval; did not seek U.N.
discussions; and he did not make the case that Saddam had first
attacked us — and of course he sought no multilateral resolution. Nor
was NATO or Europe involved. General Zinni oversaw operations and in a
press conference confessed that perhaps as many as 4,000 Iraqis could
have been killed, including some civilians. There were no peace
marches, no condemnatory European editorials, and very few Republican
allegations that in a year before a national election the United
States had unnecessarily and cynically aimed bombs at facilities that
were neither proven to have made weapons nor later destroyed. No
retired general accused General Zinni of unnecessary war making or
inflicting collateral damage — or called Clinton a “chicken-hawk.”