Absurd Neocon Thinking

The Washington Post reports that the war in Iraq is costing $720 million dollars a day. By anyone's measure that 's alot of money. The American Friends Service Committee has a campaign that shows what the cost of the war would pay for- $720 million a day could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity. These are facts.

One of the original signers of the PNAC report titled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century , Frederick Kagan thinks it is money well spent. "Either you think the war in Iraq supports America's national security, or not. If you think national security won't be harmed by withdrawing from Iraq, of course you would want to see that money spent elsewhere. I myself think that belief, on a certain level, is absurd, so the question of focusing on how much money we are spending there is irrelevant." said Frederick W. Kagan, also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

You cannot separate the human cost of the war from the financial cost, so Kagan ties with Rep John Boehner (OH-R) for most insensitive statement of the week. "Kagan says "How much money we are spending is irrelevant" while Boehner suggest that the cost America is paying is for the war in Iraq is a "small price to pay".

Kagan will never know the human cost of war unless his wife Kim decides to sign up- they have no children as best as I can tell. But the Boehner family consists of daughters Tricia & Lindsay; I wonder how they are serving this country.

I wonder what, if anything it would take to change either Kagan's or Boehner's minds. And by the way, I think Kagan's beliefs are absurd. It's time to bring the troops home NOW!