Stop and Think

Pat Roberts, chair of the Senate Intel committee, has learned a valuable lesson from this whole unprovoked war of agression business.

"I think a lot of us would really stop and think a moment before we would ever vote for war or to go and take military action," Sen. Pat Roberts (Kan.) said on "Fox News Sunday."

Before we laugh too long at this guy, let's remember the gravity of the situation here. Our government unleashed a war that, in terms of civilian casualties, has brought the equivalent of ten September 11th attacks to bear upon innocent Iraqi civilians. That's not adjusting for population (which I find to be distasteful as it misunderstands the fact that each death is important for its own reasons.) That's the hard number, using the very most conservative estimates available. That's the dead bottom of the number of innocent people we might have killed in Iraq. The real number could be ten times that (that is, one hundred September 11th attacks,) we don't know.

Leaving aside the fact that people (including me, though I'm consistent) stated over and over that the September 11th attacks could never be justified, the only thing that could possibly remotely justify this foreseeable consequence of our war is if that war had been undertaken for rock-solid reasons of international security and stability.

Anybody who can look into their heart and say that the preceding condition has been met (and they do exist, in great numbers), good for you. For the rest of us, let us sit back a moment and digest the fact that the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence admitted this weekend on national TV that he voted to invade and occupy a country that no one ever asserted had ever attacked the United States, and that he voted without even thinking about it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Republican leadership.