Hi Glenn,

For a long time, given their scientific vintage, I championed the Lancet studies, which I assume to be your source for the casualty-rate claim. (Or are you relying on others?) Now I feel uncertain after doing some additional reading. The new issue of The Atlantic contains what I initially found a persuasive case by Megan McArdle for ceasing to rely on that research. But PRWatch, from the Center for Media and Democracy, hosts an article that seems to raise questions about McArdle’s analysis (without mentioning McArdle directly). In any event the issue is quite contentious and it might be worth acknowledging the controversy (since it isn’t a fake controversy of, say, the ID-versus-evolution kind). I’m going to ask McArdle for her thoughts also.(Article URLs: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200804/war-statistics; http://www.prwatch.org/node/7034)

But this story is still unfolding. By going after the wrong "them" (as Richard Cohen so succinctly put it), we have let those truly responsible for the rise of Al Qaeda and the attacks on 9/11 completely off the hook:

http://www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

And we continue to do so. To this day, none of these "liberal hawks", so sure about Iraq's malfeasance, have said word one about the Saudis.

And so they continue to attack us.

That's one of the very few honest things I've heard from R. Cohen in about seven years.

And, please, no monkeys need issue from anyone's orifice(s). All the chimps do is put on flight suits and strut around... like on Lancelot Link.

Glenn, this is neither here nor there, but please thank whoever it is that got rid of Slate's horrible "cookie 756" feature. Coming to this place was like visiting a porn site, and never being able to back out of it. Not that I have personal experience or anything, just saying.

Glenn -- How do you feel about Gulf I? Or our intervention in Bosnia, or lack of intervention in Rwanda? I agree with you almost 100% of the time, and I was certainly horrified that we were even considering invading Iraq, much less actually doing it, but your statement that we should never attack anyone who has not attacked us or threatened to attack us would preclude us from any of those actions, so I wondered where you stood.

it is probably true though that the number of people in the military who have CHANGED THEIR MINDS is greater than the general population but that may only be because more were wrong to start with and because failure in Iraq has thwarted, at least in the short term, their political goals at home.

The title summaries alone were enough to gag a maggot.

"I never imagined a spoiled, feckless cokehead who deserted the Armed Forces during wartime and never did an honest day's work in his life could possibly screw up a pre-emptive war "plan" that would have made Eisenhower himself blanch."

It's been said before here more than once, but these ludicrous excuses ought to be the final proof it's necessary:

Every single person who failed to oppose the Iraq catastrophe on the simple straightforward ground that pre-emptive war is wrong, immoral, unconstitutional and stupid, should be made to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up about everything from now until the last American is home from Iraq, the budget is balanced and bin Laden is in an American civilian prison like Attica.

Talk to you assholes in about, oh, 50 years.

There is no question in my mind that many, if not most, of the senate and congress voted for AUMF in Iraq was that to do otherwise would brand them as "weak," "soft on terror," "against the military," and usually "a traitor."

That vote might have not been principled, but essentially correct in strict political survival terms. You won't get any of them to admit it, though.

“Hundreds of thousands” claim likely true, but hard to pin down"

I agree. But in any case, the 80,000 figure should be high enough by itself.

BHO needs to choose Webb as his VP. An unbeatable ticket.

Tying that into this issue of media chicken hawks: they exist within a pretty wide media community of people who think just like them.

Obama's leadership skills makes me imagine a scenario in which he calls out Russert et al. on national TV about this stuff, and he promotes a culture of critical debate.

Once the mainstream media's cheese moves to "who can be most like Jeremy Paxman", clownish, fatuous, fork-tongued sophists such as Jonah Goldberg will be exposed for the asses they really are. Until then, they'll keep making money and bon-vivanting using family connections, vanity, and fear as their key levers of influence.

But I posit that such a cheese-move starts at the top. The media culture we have in the US right now is a direct result of the intoxicating effects of power. The weak go right for it. A strong leader resists corruption and sets the tone.

So, an Obama-Webb ticket would be unbeatable, because of the promise of real leadership cleaning up the Augean stables of our media culture, and because an actual veteran and not some tough talking chicken hawk would be able to set the tone for defense discourse in this country.

Maybe not -- perhaps wishful thinking, but I'm fairly convinced that the media will follow the leadership of a new executive in DC. Which ironically if Obama is elected and stays true to his message, may lead them to be less slavish to power in the long term.

The Defendant: Your honor, I only killed 30,000 people, not 300,000! This is a bum rap!

His honor: Case dismissed.

In the case of a unnecessary war - a war for oil, empire and Israel.

1 is too many.

...The biggest flaw was actually believing an idiot like George W. Bush would be a competent war president. Everybody who jumped on that bandwagon is the mother(s) of all morons.

If you are ignorant enough to think the likes of Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush is going to wisely navigate you through the ups & downs of a war, then you are definitely ignorant enough to believe the Iraqis would greet us as liberators & it would only cost 20 billon dollars, etc. etc.