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Tuesday, November 04, 2003

Shorter David Brooks1
Let us become the violence we deplore.2 Please.

From his column in today's NY Times:
The real doubts come when we see ourselves inflicting them. What will happen to the national mood when the news programs start broadcasting images of the brutal measures our own troops will have to adopt? Inevitably, there will be atrocities that will cause many good-hearted people to defect from the cause. They will be tempted to have us retreat into the paradise of our own innocence.

Somehow, over the next six months, until the Iraqis are capable of their own defense, the Bush administration is going to have to remind us again and again that Iraq is the Battle of Midway in the war on terror, the crucial turning point where either we will crush the terrorists' spirit or they will crush ours.


Brooks is trying to make the case that Saddam was SO bad that we are justified in killing tens of thousands of Iraqis, at the cost of thousands more American casualties, no matter how we do it. And even he doesn't seem completely convinced, since he has to throw in the bogus "war on terror" argument. As with all of these wingnuts, he fails miserably. Another thing: Brooks suggests incorrectly that the brutal measures from our troops are all in the future. He's unfortunately pretty much right to suggest that news programs haven't started broadcasting images of them.

Footnotes:
  1. The "shorter" concept comes from the blog Busy Busy Busy.
  2. Based on the quote from Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) when she cast the ONLY vote in Congress opposing the war in Afghanistan.