He's right. We are suffering from a form of lunacy and there will be no end to Iraq (or, presumably, Iran, or any other target of US political aggression) until we take steps to withdraw from a national state of mind which some of us (and most of the world) see as national madness.
Krugman writes:
Osama is back: last week Mr. Bush invoked his name 11 times in a single speech, warning that if we leave Iraq, Al Qaeda — which wasn’t there when we went in — will be the winner. And Democrats, still fearing that they will end up accused of being weak on terror and not supporting the troops, gave Mr. Bush another year’s war funding.
Democratic Party activists were furious, because polls show a public utterly disillusioned with Mr. Bush and anxious to see the war ended. But it’s not clear that the leadership was wrong to be cautious.
Here's the benchmark:
The truth is that the nightmare of the Bush years won’t really be over until politicians are convinced that voters will punish, not reward, Bush-style fear-mongering. And that hasn’t happened yet.
It's not going away until we make it go away. Is this something the media need to catch onto?
Here’s the way it ought to be: When Rudy Giuliani says that Iran, which had nothing to do with 9/11, is part of a “movement” that “has already displayed more aggressive tendencies by coming here and killing us,” he should be treated as a lunatic.
When Mitt Romney says that a coalition of “Shia and Sunni and Hezbollah and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood and Al Qaeda” wants to “bring down the West,” he should be ridiculed for his ignorance.
And when John McCain says that Osama, who isn’t in Iraq, will “follow us home” if we leave, he should be laughed at.
Krugman doesn't mention Democratic candidates who deal with this issue timorously. They need pressure from us, no less than the media. We can look forward to sound clips appropriate to Memorial Day, a day on which many pretend to honor the fallen but are more likely patting themselves on the back for "supporting our troops."
Until belligerent, uninformed posturing starts being treated with the contempt it deserves, men who know nothing of the cost of war will keep sending other people’s children to graves at Arlington.
