As most people know, Ted Koppel recently devoted an entire edition of his "news" program, Nightline, to an editorial in which he merely read a list of every American soldier who has died in Iraq while showing their pictures. Koppel (and the rest of the Left) piously pretends this was done out of some pure motive to honor those dead, although no mention was made of the (no less honorable, surely) soldiers who died in Afghanistan. Only one conclusion can be reasonably be drawn from this. The main difference between Afghanistan and Iraq is that even the most fanatically anti-war people on the Left didn't -- or perhaps felt they couldn't -- openly oppose the former as they did the latter. (Some did, however, like the Peaceful Tomorrows group, which claims to speak for the families of 9/11 victims.) In fact, the Left still pretends not to know of all the reasons that the war in Iraq was necessary and right. No one should be surprised at their sophistry; those on the Left always pretend their motives are pure and that they're morally superior to the rest of us. If they were forced to admit the war in Iraq was justified, then they would be unable to justify their own opposition to it. How can those who opposed the liberation of 25 million people from virtual slavery ever pretend to be "morally superior" to those who supported it? There is no doubt that reading only the names of the soldiers who died in Iraq was done to turn popular opinion against President Bush and anyone who still supports our presence there.

Is that how we honor the dead now, by trying to make their sacrifice turn out to have been in vain? Is that how the dead of World Wars I and II were honored, or the dead of the Korean War? The Left began "honoring" the dead by throwing away what they died for during the Vietnam war, and have been trying to repeat that performance ever since. Every time American soldiers are sent to achieve an objective, the Left (claiming to be concerned for them) begins undermining public support for their mission. Like the al-Qaeda elements our military is fighting in parts of Iraq, the Left is putting forth their best effort to stop Iraq from becoming a success. Unlike the terrorists, however, they'll still be here after Iraq has become a democratic society, waiting for the next opportunity to fight against those fighting for freedom.

If there's one trait that marks the Left more than any other, it's their voluntary virtual enslavement to that which is negative. The flip side of that coin is their inability to even acknowledge that which is positive. Is it good that soldiers died in Iraq? No! But then -- if you're intellectually honest -- you also have to ask, is it BAD that Iraqi schoolgirls are no longer sent to Uday's rape rooms by their principals? Is it BAD that Iraq has freedom of the press and free elections for the first time ever? Is it BAD that the mass graves are no longer being filled? Is it BAD that hospitals are no longer being ordered to let children die to make a better case against the UN sanctions? Is it BAD that Saddam is no longer hiding his violations of 17 UN resolutions and his cease-fire agreement with the US? Is it BAD that Saddam and his thug government are no longer systematically violating human rights as a matter of course? Is it BAD that Saddam is no longer giving money and support to terrorists and destabilising the Middle East? Focusing on the cost of the war while deliberately ignoring what it has accomplished is a half-truth at best, and an attempt to turn the deaths of our soldiers into a political tool. One cannot speak of those who died in Europe in World War II without remembering that they did so to free France and Germany, and remove Hitler from power.

If you want to honor the dead, then you work towards a freer, better Iraq. You praise that which has already been accomplished while you mourn the losses. You work to increase public support for the good work they did, and their fellows are still doing, so that it can be accomplished better and faster. No one is ignoring those who gave their lives in Iraq, as Ted Koppel and the Left seem to think. Using their deaths to make political points against their commander-in-chief, however, does not honor them at all.