by Armed Liberal at August 20, 2004 04:56 PM
Via TAPPED, a seriously great comment from Howard Dean.

In a column available at Cagle Cartoons (??), Gov. Dean says:

Europeans cannot criticize the United States for waging war in Iraq if they are unwilling to exhibit the moral fiber to stop genocide by acting collectively and with decisiveness. President Bush was wrong to go into Iraq unilaterally when Iraq posed no danger to the United States, but we were right to demand accountability from Saddam. We are also right to demand accountability in Sudan. Every day that goes by without meaningful sanctions and even military intervention in Sudan by African, European and if necessary U.N. forces is a day where hundreds of innocent civilians die and thousands are displaced from their land. Every day that goes by without action to stop the Sudan genocide is a day that the anti-Iraq war position so widely held in the rest of the world appears to be based less on principle and more on politics. And every day that goes by is a day in which George Bush's contempt for the international community, which I have denounced every day for two years, becomes more difficult to criticize.

Right on, as we used to say.

I'm one of those who abandoned respect for the U.N. quite a while ago, and so have a hard time with those – Kerry included – who call for the U.S. to align it's foreign policy with U.N. mandates. The appalling track record of the U.N. continues, and weakens the claims of those who look to it as the world's moral arbiter.

Gov. Dean deserves applause for taking this stand, and for acknowledging – atypically for a politician – how it connects to his past views.