What He Said

Expanding on that last Iraq post, Matthew Yglesias has a good take on the insanity of the latest cheerleading rhetoric toward Iraq. First, he wonders-- as all good moonbats do-- why spending trillions on never-ending war doesn't get the same level of scrutiny as say... S-CHIP or farm subsidies. He writes-

"The American political system seems to operate as if spending on defense-related ventures doesn't come at a real cost. Propose a new domestic spending initiative, and people want to hear about your offsets. If you don't have offsets, you need new taxes. And you can't raise taxes. If you want to cut taxes, you can probably get away with it, but you'll face at least some political resistance. Defense spending, though, doesn't count -- it's completely shielded from scrutiny and we think nothing of tossing $10 billion here and $10 billion there until the end of time."

This is a key point that needs making. President Bush's vetoes of bills like S-CHIP or the Water Resources Development Act (the latter veto was overridden) are always based on his supposed fiscal responsibility, and discussion by politicians and pundits on where the funding for these programs is gonna come from.

But when the monstrously larger defense/war spending bills-- Bush's latest $46 billion request for the next six months of war is $11 billion more than the S-CHIP expansion would've cost total over five years-- are put forth (which seems to occur at least every six months), no one asks these questions. It's magic money; it comes from the war fairy. And question the necessity of such spending? Why then, you're a Communist sympathizer terrorist-loving troop hater. Same as it ever was.

Finally, Yglesias on the real goal of the surge and its success-

"In late 2005 and throughout 2006, it looked like we had a situation where the American mission in Iraq was going to become untenable. In early 2007, we were promised a 'surge' whose purpose was to make the American mission in Iraq unnecessary. It was going to create a security environment conducive to the creation of a political settlement, thus allowing for the withdrawal of American troops. It didn't happen. And it's not clear that anyone ever believed it would happen. Instead, it's created a situation where it now once again looks -- as it did in 2003 and 2004 -- that we might be able to stay in Iraq forever. And, of course, if you don't consider financial costs to be costs, and don't consider small numbers of casualties to be costs, and don't believe in opportunity costs, and try not to worry to much about the risk of war with Iran, and don't mind the lack of benefits except to the egos of the war's supporters, then this looks like a pretty smart policy."

It's all about kicking that can down the road. Where's the can headed? No one seems to care.