Does the left want us to actually lose the war in Iraq?

Christopher Hitchens asks that very question in his Slate column. It's a question that many of us have wondered for quite some time now.

How can so many people watch this [the problems in Iraq] as if they were spectators, handicapping and rating the successes and failures from some imagined position of neutrality? Do they suppose that a defeat in Iraq would be a defeat only for the Bush administration? The United States is awash in human rights groups, feminist organizations, ecological foundations, and committees for the rights of minorities. How come there is not a huge voluntary effort to help and to publicize the efforts to find the hundreds of thousands of "missing" Iraqis, to support Iraqi women's battle against fundamentalists, to assist in the recuperation of the marsh Arab wetlands, and to underwrite the struggle of the Kurds, the largest stateless people in the Middle East? Is Abu Ghraib really the only subject that interests our humanitarians?

Emphasis mine. It doesn't take a genius to see that many on the left are so driven by their seething hatred of George W. Bush that they secretly (and sometimes not so secretly) wish for the U.S. to fail in its effort to stabilize Iraq into a burgeoning democracy. After all, failure to do so could be pinned on Bush, and by God Allah, that would be sweet music for those who have continued to suffer "electile dysfunction"! However, success in Iraq could be credited to Bush, and many libs would rather be dipped in cow patties, rolled in honey, and dropped into a Texas ant bed in the middle of summer than ever see Bush given credit for anything.

Anywho...

Isn't there a single drop of solidarity and compassion left over for the people of Iraq, after three decades of tyranny, war, and sanctions and now an assault from the vilest movement on the face of the planet? Unless someone gives me a persuasive reason to think otherwise, my provisional conclusion is that the human rights and charitable "communities" have taken a pass on Iraq for political reasons that are not very creditable. And so we watch with detached curiosity, from dry land, to see whether the Iraqis will sink or swim. For shame.

For shame, indeed. To those liberals who do not match this description, do not be offended...he's not talking about you. For a sizeable chunk of liberals that resemble the above remarks, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for rooting for your country's defeat. Reasonable people may disagree on whether invading Iraq was the right thing to do, but reasonable people do not hope that we fail in our endeavor to restore peace and hope to a country that has not seen it for a long time.