Fallen Soldier Mr. President, do not leave this man behind.
BY FOUAD AJAMI
Friday, June 8, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT
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. ... A process that yields up Scooter Libby to a zealous prosecutor is justice gone awry. ... Scooter Libby was a soldier in your--our--war in Iraq, he was chief of staff to a vice president who had become a lightning rod to the war's critics. ... 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.
ThinkProgress and Crooks & Liars have clips of Ajami being interviewed on HardBall and Ajami simply cannout defend his position. When asked why Libby lied, Ajami could only say1:
SHUSTER: But the fact of the matter is, Mr. Ajami, that Karl Rove had something to do with this. We know that he leaked. He is still working there. We know that Scooter Libby left, but now he`s had his prison sentence commuted. Why do you believe that Scooter Libby lied to the FBI and lied to the grand jury if this was simply a matter of politics?
AJAMI: Well, I think you -- you know, you made again -- I mean, when you are saying that Karl Rove was one of the leakers -- I`m not defending Karl Rove, I`m only defending Scooter Libby. I -- I -- I just -- the principle that interested me was that we don`t make one man responsible for this. This was a calamity, if you will. If the leaking of this name was wrong, then many, many people participated in this error, and the idea that Scooter Libby would be left alone to shoulder the burden of this issue was what drove me to write this column.
SHUSTER: But Mr. Ajami, that is exactly the point, and that is prosecutors do suspect that, yes, there were many people involved in this, including the vice president. But when Scooter Libby testified to the grand jury, as he did, and said, Yes, I had conversations about Valerie Wilson with the vice president, but, oh, I can`t remember what the vice president told me -- come on, Mr. Ajami. You know better than that.
AJAMI: Well, you know, Michael Kinsley is a very intelligent man, the former editor of "The New Republic," among many things. And he said something the other day in "The New York Times" which I completely endorse. These were questions that were asked of Libby that should have never been asked, just as the questions that were asked of Bill Clinton some years ago should have never been asked.
SHUSTER: But Mr. Ajami, these questions were asked in the fall of 2003, before Patrick Fitzgerald had even been named as special counsel.
AJAMI: Right.
SHUSTER: Scooter Libby was interviewed by the FBI, and one of the charges he was convicted of was lying to the FBI. And again, why do you believe that Scooter Libby lied to the FBI?
AJAMI: Well, I don`t -- I don`t know that he did.
SHUSTER: Mr. Ajami, would you like to apologize for your position on the Iraq war, given that Iraq has created more al Qaeda than it had to begin with?
AJAMI: No, not at all. I think this is a noble war and I think it`s still being fought and fought well by our military. I think that the outcome of the war is not sealed. Our country will judge this war, and if people defect from this war, if they think this war is not worth fighting, well, then the verdict will come in.But I still believe that the war is being fought well. I still believe in the mission of General Petraeus. I still believe in what we`re doing in Iraq. And no, I don`t think -- and I think this simple argument that the Iraq war bred terrorism and bred al Qaeda -- I have been studying Arab politics for many -- for more than three decades. I speak the language. I know the material. And the attacks of September 11 and the terror of trail (ph), the whole world of terror that came our way in the `90s predated the Iraq war. So it`s a kind of a desperate argument, but it`s till...
HUSTER: Mr. Ajami, I`m not going to let you end this with the idea that Iraq was part of 9/11, when everybody knows -- everybody knows -- Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. But in any case...
1MSNBC
SHOW: HARDBALL 7:00 PM EST
July 6, 2007 Friday
TRANSCRIPT: 070601cb.461
SECTION: NEWS; International
LENGTH: 8020 words
HEADLINE: For July 6,2007
BYLINE: David Shuster , Jeremy Bronson
GUESTS: Dan Froomkin, Dana Milbank, Shelly Cohen, Fouad Ajami, Paul Rieckhoff, Rep. Dan Burton, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
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