THE ‘PEACE MOVEMENT’ didn’t get the oceans of civilian blood it wanted, and William Saletan notes that this poses a dilemma:

Some argued that war was always immoral; others argued that this war was hasty or unjust. All agreed that the immorality of war was based on the immorality of killing. Now that Baghdad has fallen, here’s my question to peaceniks: Are you against killing, or are you against war? Because what happened in Iraq suggests you may have to choose.

Every death is a tragedy, of course — except that to a lot of “peace” activists it seems that only deaths at American hands count. It’s entirely possible that fewer Iraqis have died in the last three weeks of war than in many previous three-week periods of Saddam’s reign. And now the killing by Saddam’s thugs is over for good. If we had had “peace” it would have continued indefinitely.

Of course, some have already chosen:

“The prison in question was inspected by my team in Jan. 1998. It appeared to be a prison for children – toddlers up to pre-adolescents – whose only crime was to be the offspring of those who have spoken out politically against the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was a horrific scene. Actually I’m not going to describe what I saw there because what I saw was so horrible that it can be used by those who would want to promote war with Iraq, and right now I’m waging peace.”

And they dare call the U.S. military “baby killers?”

UPDATE: Daniel Drezner writes:

My suspicion is that most of the committed anti-war types loathe American power so much that they’ll choose to keep their hands clean.

I will beg to differ.

Me too.