David Brooks is one of the most capable of the nationally-known conservative commentators. Sometimes he's silly, like a few weeks ago when he professed to be shocked, shocked at the fanatical hatred for George Bush as evidenced by things like ... the fact that Molly Ivins' new book on Bush is titled Bushwhacked.
But his latest New York Times piece shows, to put it very charitably, an unhealthy degree of enthusiasm for colonial-style war. Think the Phillipines, a century ago. It's really pretty disturbing to see respectable conservative pundits - we're not talking a junkie fanatic like Rush Limbaugh here - start manufacturing blanket excuses for war crimes (my emphasis):
<< Iraqification is a strategy for the long haul, but over the next six months, when progress must be made, this is our job. And the main challenge now is to preserve our national morale. ...
<< It's not that we can't accept casualties. History shows that Americans are willing to make sacrifices. 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. ...
<< The president will have to remind us that we live in a fallen world, that we have to take morally hazardous action if we are to defeat the killers who confront us. It is our responsibility to not walk away. It is our responsibility to recognize the dark realities of human nature, while still preserving our idealistic faith in a better Middle East. >>
He is obviously referring to things like this:
<< In Balad in the north, US troops [on Monday] killed 6 innocent Iraqis when they opened fire on a vehicle they thought belonged to guerrillas. >>
Moral hazard, indeed. It's awfully easy to be rhetorically tough with other people's lives.
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