War-Hating Liberals Seem to Love War

August 30, 2012 by Gary DeMar

A strong statement to make, I know, but let’s look at it:

The U.S. had about 38,000 troops in Iraq and 36,000 in Afghanistan at the end of George W. Bush’s second term. Liberals hated him for it. Why, he was a war criminal, don’t you know, and he was a warmonger, and he was a Nazi and a child-killer! Not a day went by that the media wouldn’t report how many U.S. troops were killed that day.

Two years later, under Barack Obama, there were an additional 10,000 troops in Iraq (48,000 total) and an additional 61,000 troops in Afghanistan (97,000 total), substantially expanding the wars not only in troop levels, but also expanding them to countries not previously touched by the Bush administration.

And liberals remained silent. Where were all the almost-daily anti-war protests from the left? Where were all those violent demonstrations by liberals in which they burned replicas of Bush and openly joked about assassinating him (wholesome peace-lovers that they are)? It was all a sham, political partisanship, jealousy that Republicans have strength and determination to defend America at all costs while Democrats are weak pushovers who are declare wars lost before they’ve even begun.

One of the phonier complaints from liberals during the Bush years was that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were unconstitutional.

The only time liberals will make this complaint is when it will make a Republican look bad. But the wars were constitutional. Congress voted to go to war.

What’s not constitutional is to go to war without Congress voting on it. You know, precisely what Barack Obama did with regard to Libya. That was very clearly unconstitutional. But it was a war being waged by the Democrats’ hero. Which raises the very real likelihood that liberals believe the word “unconstitutional” can apply to anything they are in simple disagreement with.

Of course I don’t think all liberals love war. There is one lone war protester in my city that walks from one end of the sidewalk to the other, saying nothing, wielding a sign that reads “WAR IS A LIE” on one side and “END THE WARS” on the other. He was very active between 2003 and 2008, stopping for the first two years of Obama’s presidency, but he has picked it back up again. I guess he found his principles buried beneath the couch cushions during this era of chronic unemployment.

No, not all liberals love war; only the ones who protested daily under Bush but now aren’t even aware we’re still in Afghanistan and don’t care enough to keep up to date.