‘Liberal hawks’ are really just being smart
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Re “Return of the liberal hawks,” Current, May 28
Jacob Heilbrunn’s labeling of defense-oriented Democrats as “liberal hawks” is misleading at best.
First, no one of even cursory knowledge would call any member of the Democratic Leadership Council a liberal. They are avowed, militant centrists. Furthermore, Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner have almost the same opinion of post-9/11 national security as Howard Dean and Al Gore. All of them supported the 1991 Iraq war and the 2002 Afghanistan war and believe that we should beef up the military to target true anti-American terrorism.
All of them believe that the war in Iraq is a distraction from the war on terrorism and believe that we should never have gone in. I don’t think you call that being a “hawk.” That’s what you call being “smart.”
BEN MENDELSON
Santa Monica
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