Anne Applebaum's op-ed in today's Washington Post reminded me of something I wrote recently in another venue: many things, maybe even most things, are not wholly good or wholly bad. The Iraq War certainly falls into that category, in my estimation.

It's bad, horrible, terrible, that lives have been lost in this effort. Not just American lives, but the lives of members of the other Coalition forces, the lives of Iraqi civilians, too. The cost to our federal budget, and hence to all US taxpayers, is bad. The way the Bush Administration has done some things will, in the longer lens of history, turn out to be bad. The way some service members, throughout the seniority spectrum, have conducted themselves has been bad, and make me, as a proud retired Sailor, ashamed of them (I must hasten to point out that this is a minuscule proportion of the total force; the vast majority of our military folks make me proud that they perpetuate the high military traditions and values that I and others have passed down to them).

If we've fomented more terrorists and terrorism (and that's a big "if," but I'm including it to cover the bases), that's bad, too. Yes, there are a lot of bad things that have resulted from this war, as the never-ending litany of reports by the like of The New York Times and The LA Times and their ilk continue to remind us.

But good has come from this war, and more will come in the future (just as more bad will come in the future). We've deposed Saddam Hussein, a monster who fits the Texas legal phrase "He needed killin'" as well as anyone. We're teaching the Iraqis democracy, how to build and conduct military and paramilitary forces to defend their nation. As much as some folks hate to admit it, our continued presence in Iraq gives pause to at least some of the people and states who, at the very least, are not our friends. We're shaking off the perception that America doesn't have the guts to stick it out when things get difficult.

The whole point is, you can't get the good without taking along the bad. If you don't believe that the good that comes from the Iraq War outweighs the bad that comes with it, I think you're wrong, but it's a perfectly reasonable, if misguided, position to take.

But the refusal by some to acknowledge the good that's coming from the Iraq War can only serve as a damper on getting more of the good stuff. If it's severe enough, and if there's enough of it, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. And when it's done solely for political gain, as I believe is the case for many Democrats, starting with the leader of their Party, it's contemptible. It is, I believe, responsible at least in part for some of the deaths our troops have suffered, and for deaths we have yet to suffer.

Dissent is a necessary and valuable part of our political culture. But the intellectual and even factual dishonesty by some, purely for political gain, is disgusting. I don't have a Rush Limbaugh-like desire to have everyone think the same way I do, and I recognize that spin, misdirection, plausible deniability and so forth are traits of politicians of all stripes. But these acts, which deny the good and amplify (and sometimes create out of whole cloth) the bad, are hurting America in general, and my comrades-in-arms in particular.

And on this 64th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, it turns my stomach.