Brooks editorial today is another fairy tale from a credulous supporter of the biggest failure in U.S. foreign policy history. It's a bed-time story for Bush, a Disney-fied Grimm Brothers book with all of the blood scrubbed from the script. One only need read on page A6 "More Troops May Be Needed In Baghdad, U.S. General Say" to learn the truth.
Yesterday at least 30 innocent people were murdered in and around Baghdad, 20 of them "kidnapped from a bus station...and killed". Brazen, brutal killings are carried out every single day in broad daylight by uniformed militia that may or may not be employed by the "government". The total civilian casualty toll is estimated to exceed 100,000, yet pin-headed Paleolithic pundits like Brooks still posit that deadly chaos in Iraq serves a higher historical purpose and a noble cause. What disgracfeful, dishonest, delusional nonsense.
But despite all the risible, ridiculous, rose-colored rationalizations, I thought he stumbled onto an apt historical comparison between Russia and Iraq. In the preceding centuries, French and German dreams of world domination ended with ill-fated military ventures into the Russian heartland. A more prescient reading of the future would show the neo-cons' folly in Iraq having the same effect on the American Republic.
So I have a proposal: Let's all petition the NY Times to send Brooks to Baghdad to write obituaries for a week before they publish his next column. If there's a dumb-ass neo-con columnist in your town who needs a taste of "low-grade" civil war to come to his or her senses, do the same with your local paper. It's a silly idea but one that could attract attention and gather momentum. Did anyone else read Jim McDermott's post yesterday af HuffPo? He suggested assigning Rumsfeld to Baghdad until the war is over, and I though it was spot on.