York: Move-On Opposed Afghanistan WarThe Rove comments
continue to reverberate:
Some officials at the internet activist group MoveOn are denying charges made by top White House aide Karl Rove, who said in a speech to a conservative group in New York Wednesday that "In the wake of 9/11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of 9/11 liberals believed it was time to submit a petition." Rove continued: "I am not joking. Submitting a petition is precisely what MoveOn.org did. It was a petition imploring the powers that be to 'use moderation and restraint in responding to the terrorist attacks against the United States.' "
After Rove's comments, MoveOn released a statement saying flatly, "MoveOn did not oppose the U.S. military action in Afghanistan." And in an interview with the Washington Post, reporter Dan Balz wrote that MoveOn political chief Eli Pariser "disputed Rove's characterization of the petition calling for moderation and restraint, saying that the petition was a personal project before he was affiliated with MoveOn and that it was not on the group's Web site at the time of the Afghanistan war."This has become part of the left's effort to demonize the Iraq War. They pretend that they supported Afghanistan at the time, which is a bit puzzling. After all, if the left were behind the Afghanistan war, then who was warning us about the brutal Afghan winter? Who was calling it a quagmire? Who was it that told us that the British and the Soviet empires had both crumbled against the fierce resistance of the mighty Afghan warriors?
