Another Ornery Essay: The fine folks at Ornery, commies though they are, have put up another good "War Watch" piece, this one entitled, "Two Dangerous Fantasies about the War--or--Why Joe Lieberman Is the Only Choice for Democrats."

An excerpt:

It was in the campaign to win over the U.N., and only then, that the WMD situation became the main plank in the pro-war platform, and that was only because this was the only violation of U.N. resolutions that the Security Council veto-holders and the largest NATO powers seemed even remotely interested in considering.

In other words, it was not us, but France, Germany, Russia, and China that decided that the only place worth focusing our efforts was the question of WMDs.

But, as I wrote at the time and repeat now, even if not a single WMD is ever found, the campaign in Iraq was morally and legally justified by any rational standard of international law and fundamental national rights.

Personally, I think Iraq was a bad strategic choice on military grounds, but nobody could have predicted how quickly the Leftist Elite throughout the western world would insist that it had suddenly become morally wrong for a nation to defend itself without getting the permission of the U.N.

But if you give it even a moment's thought, the behavior of the U.N. is not an argument against the legitimacy of the American war against terrorism, it's an argument against the legitimacy of the United Nations as the arbiter of which wars are permissible.

I can promise you right now that if China ever invades Taiwan, the Security Council, in which China holds a veto, will not sanction American military intervention to save our ally from being swallowed up by imperialist China as ruthlessly as they swallowed Tibet.

Would that make it "wrong" for us to take military action against naked aggression by the Chinese dictatorship against a people who have made it clear they do not wish to be a part of the Chinese Communist empire?

No. This myth that we need U.N. approval or a war is "illegal" is only a temporary club designed to beat the Bush administration with.

It is certainly true that in trying to persuade the French, Germans, Russians, and Chinese to vote with us on a resolution supporting military action in Iraq, the Bush administration pulled out all the evidence they could find to support the only argument that seemed to have a hope of working with that hostile, anti-American audience: WMDs.

But it did not work with them, and we Americans, even those who hate Bush worse than the devil, should have the honesty to remember that WMDs were never the only or even the most important reason for the U.S. to topple Saddam's government.