By Andrew L. Jaffee

How many times have we heard the politically-correct equate the liberation of Iraq with Saddam’s atrocities, or carefully phrased NPR commentaries implying that things just might have been “better” under Saddam (among public radio’s other ridiculous stunts)? Well, Andrew Sullivan, no wilting flower, lays this sophistry to rest in his usual eloquent fashion:

The blogger Michael Totten continues his tour of Kurdistan. Here’s his latest - a visit to Saddam’s former torture chambers. The photograph above is a memorial to six Kurdish children murdered by Saddam’s thugs. I have made a great deal of fuss over torture committed by the Bush administration, but that is because I believe in this country as a beacon for freedom, not because I hate it, or want to see its honorable war fail. It’s because I love this country and believe in the cause of this war that I am so distressed by this horror. And it’s always important to say, although it of course goes often without saying, that there is no moral equivalence between the kind of abuse and torture allowed during military detention by George Bush, as a misguided part of intelligence gathering, and the orchestrated, impervious, brutal torture-state controlled by Saddam. Totten tours a building where over 10,000 people were murdered. In Abu Ghraib under General Miller, we’re talking six. All torture is evil; but there is no equating the sins of the liberator with the crimes of the dictator.