Christopher Hitchens, that professional Brit gadfly who’s previously referred unironically to Iraq and Afghanistan as wars for liberation, repeats his assertion in the essay “Why I’m (Slightly) for Bush.”

My response:

In Afghanistan, the decentralized warlords are arguably better for democracy, and certainly better for women, than the Taliban had been. Too bad the warlords let Osama get away so swiftly and silently. And too bad the country’s rebuilding has gone so slowly. But hey: At least the junkies panhandling on Broadway might get a break in their junk prices, now that opium production’s back on the rise.

As for Iraq, the situation’s iffier. Jihadist factions, some with imported mercenary soldiers, are capturing or attempting to capture large segments of Iraq’s geography. Women outside Baghdad are being “encouraged” to cover up and shut up, to appease local clerical feifdoms. (Saddam, as part of his brutally efficient megalomania, had suppressed hardcore Islam’s cultural influence.) The reconstruction, as in Afghanistan, has proven easier to talk about than to accomplish.

Even if you believe it was right to go into these places, it’s time to ask who’d be best at cleaning up these respective resulting messes.