The brothers Kagan look like about the least physically qualified people for the military. At least they have the decency to be lazy fatasses. It would be really galling if they were in shape and refused to serve.

I have an idea(it won't go far and it will never become law) that there is a public way to expose the pugnacious behavior with no fight activities of the Kagans of this world. One of "Move On's"loyal House people should propose a bill that would require those who publicly strongly support the Iraq war but have not been in the service(either themselves or their close relations etc.) should be required to pay a supplemental surcharge on their income tax of 50% of their calculated tax owed.

Another thought; When military men make decisions based on political results the media should routinely ask them "are you will to fall on your sword (and not figuratively) if you are wrong. Like Hari-Kari in traditional Japan. Anyway those are my for fun thoughts at the end of a disappointing week for those of us who know that Iraq was a lost cause before the war began and haven't changed our minds since then.

...When you see the doughy smugness oozing off these bespectacled mama's boys, unfortunately, it's a perfect metaphor for modern America.

Cowardly, psychopathic dimwits posing as intellectuals, taken seriously, inexplicably wielding frightening amounts of power, only serves to reveal how f*cked up this country really is at this juncture.

These Kagan clan types relish death & destruction; they live in a mental ward fantasy world. Yet, there are no repercussions.

That they are not immediately apprehended & lead away to said mental ward is, as mentioned, a metaphor for the current sorry state of our nation.

The upper middle class, the wealthy, and the Jews all served in large numbers during World War 2.

But none of these groups are on the front lines in any significant numbers nowadays even though they are the ones who started the war, still support it, and profit from it in many instances.

Instead of broadly shared sacrifice as was the case during World War 2, the last few years have witnessed an epidemic of tax cuts for the rich, corruption, and profiteering unprecedented in US history, while lower middle class soldiers bleed, die, and get ripped off in a thousand ways.

Not to mention the terrible disaster that has befallen the Iraq people because of these vicious warmongers.

This is going to end VERY BADLY for all concerned if continues much longer IMHO.

The point of this article is well made. Further, I agree the Webb amendment has to potential to effectively reign in the expansion of our Mideastern military aggression.

However, Jim Webb relinquished any claim to hero status--war or otherwise--when he voted in favor of the recent FISA legislation. Simply put, he broke his oath to defend the Constitution. This more than negates anything he accomplished as a Marine. The man has seriously compromised his honor.

Using his status as a "war hero", when it is helpful to one's argument, is as wrong as was the rightwing's attempted apotheosis of David Petraeus.

I know they all read Salon because they infect the comments. No defense of the indefensible? Or are they all making Cheeto runs?

for bravely enduring bedsores on their asses, during a crucial operation to secure "more dead troops."

Bush says he listens to the Boots on the Ground. I guess those Boots are penny-loafers and the Ground is a berber-carpeted Townhome in some suburb somewhere.

To the Kagan's of the world, soldiers are really nothing more than game pieces in their Global Game of Risk. Soldiers die in war, they say, because that is what soldiers are supposed to do: die in war. They die in the wars they proposed and planned and pushed yet never partake. Penny-loafers are not meant for blood and bits of brain and body parts; they are for accelerating the gas-pedal of their German-made sedan as they rush to make their Oh-So Important Dinner Date with other Masters of the Universe.

These Great Thinkers swirl around in each others cocktail parties regaling each other with mutual Slaps to the Back and how intelligent they are as they sip on a chardonnay and browse through the Robb report as they imagine themselves as the Great Warriors here to fianlly save America.

I think if you were to just threaten one of these Great Warriors with serving anywhere near a military zone that their bowels would purge uncontrollably and their weak knees would turn to jelly until they collapsed into a heap of their own, putrid waste.

Glenn, you rock as always. Thank God you are on the Good Guys' side.

It really really delves into the depths of self-parody when any supposedly "serious" commentator can pen a nonsensical statement like;

("this amendment would actually require the Army and Marine Corps staffs to keep track of how long every individual servicemember had spent in either Iraq or Afghanistan, how long they had been at home, how long the unit that they were now in had spent deployed, and how long it had been home").

And expect it to be taken as a serious argument. Jeez, I'm a lifelong civilian with next-to-no familiarity with the military, and even I know that keeping track of this sort of data is something the military does as a matter of basic administration: and have done since the days when deployment details were recorded with quill pens.

Again: the opinions of these clowns are given weight, WHY?

In the Civil War, it was possible to get out of the draft by paying someone else, for free. If I could have a wish granted, it would be that Webb's bill would allow returing Iraq and Afghanistan vets to choose a neocon chickenhawk to serve in their place for the duration, until victory is achieved.

For free of course. Unless we make the deploying neocon pay the returning soldier for what they've been through.

Why do neocons all look as though they hide in the bushes near school yards to sniff children’s bicycle seats?

-- Kevinsf

Indeed!

And why do all of them have faces that, as someone once said of Tom Cruise, are "supremely punchable?"