Herbert & Krugman
As always, excellent reads. Here you go for Paul Krugman. And here's Bob Herbert.
Krugman: "It's not a good sign when, a year into an occupation, the occupying army sends for more tanks."
Herbert is even more straightforward: "At least 10 more American soldiers died yesterday in George W. Bush's senseless war in Iraq.
"They died for a pipe dream, which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as a fantastic notion or a vain hope. "Pipe dream" originally referred to the fantasies induced by smoking a pipe of opium. The folks who led us into this hideous madness in Iraq, against the wishes of most of the world, sure seem to have been smoking something."
And:"My problem with the warrior fantasies emerging from the comfort zones of Washington and Crawford, Tex., is that they are being put to the test in the flaming reality of combat in Iraq, not by the fantasizers but by brave and patriotic men and women who deserve so much more from the country they are willing to defend with their lives."
Finally, he gives us: "[W]e've destroyed countless homes and legitimate businesses and killed or maimed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including many women and children. That was a lousy strategy for winning hearts and minds in Vietnam and it's a lousy strategy now.
Equally unsurprising is the erosion of support for the war among Americans. There's no upside. Casualties are mounting daily and so are the financial costs, which have never been honestly acknowledged or budgeted.
Mr. Bush has enmeshed us in a war that we can't win and that we don't know how to end. Each loss of a life in this tragic exercise is a reminder of lessons never learned from history. And the most fundamental of those lessons is that fantasy must always genuflect before reality."
Damn straight.
As always, excellent reads. Here you go for Paul Krugman. And here's Bob Herbert.
Krugman: "It's not a good sign when, a year into an occupation, the occupying army sends for more tanks."
Herbert is even more straightforward: "At least 10 more American soldiers died yesterday in George W. Bush's senseless war in Iraq.
"They died for a pipe dream, which the American Heritage Dictionary defines as a fantastic notion or a vain hope. "Pipe dream" originally referred to the fantasies induced by smoking a pipe of opium. The folks who led us into this hideous madness in Iraq, against the wishes of most of the world, sure seem to have been smoking something."
And:"My problem with the warrior fantasies emerging from the comfort zones of Washington and Crawford, Tex., is that they are being put to the test in the flaming reality of combat in Iraq, not by the fantasizers but by brave and patriotic men and women who deserve so much more from the country they are willing to defend with their lives."
Finally, he gives us: "[W]e've destroyed countless homes and legitimate businesses and killed or maimed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including many women and children. That was a lousy strategy for winning hearts and minds in Vietnam and it's a lousy strategy now.
Equally unsurprising is the erosion of support for the war among Americans. There's no upside. Casualties are mounting daily and so are the financial costs, which have never been honestly acknowledged or budgeted.
Mr. Bush has enmeshed us in a war that we can't win and that we don't know how to end. Each loss of a life in this tragic exercise is a reminder of lessons never learned from history. And the most fundamental of those lessons is that fantasy must always genuflect before reality."
Damn straight.
posted by Jude at 11:18 PM
