Fouad Ajami wrote a startling op-ed for the Wall Street Journal yesterday, imploring the president not to leave a “fallen soldier” behind. If Ajami were addressing actual soldiers, his piece might have even been compelling.
In “The Soldier’s Creed,” there is a particularly compelling principle: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” This is a cherished belief, and it has been so since soldiers and chroniclers and philosophers thought about wars and great, common endeavors. Across time and space, cultures, each in its own way, have given voice to this most basic of beliefs. They have done it, we know, to give heart to those who embark on a common mission, to give them confidence that they will not be given up under duress.
Alas, Ajami wasn’t referring to a serviceman or woman; he was writing about Scooter Libby.
Scooter Libby was a soldier in your — our — war in Iraq…. Scooter Libby was there for the beginning of that campaign. He can’t be left behind as a casualty of a war our country had once proudly claimed as its own.
So, as far as Ajami is concerned, it’s entirely legitimate to compare a convicted felon who lied about leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent in a time of war to those who actually wear the uniform and serve in Iraq.
Ajami adds that the Libby case “has been, from the start, about the Iraq war and its legitimacy.” To which my friend Anonymous Liberal responded, “What planet does this guy live on? Scooter Libby is not and was not a soldier in anything. He was a public official who was intimately involved in the events that led to the outing of an undercover CIA officer. That’s what Fitzgerald was investigating, not the war in Iraq or anything remotely related to the war in Iraq. And Libby lied and obstructed that investigation, crimes for which he was convicted beyond all reasonable doubt by a jury of his peers.”
For all the recent talk about “amnesty,” it’s interesting to see just how many White House allies want Scooter Libby to face no penalty for his crimes, isn’t it?
