Memorial Day postscript

Tuesday, May 29, 2007 by Dave Winer.

In Monday's NY Times, I read a rousing op-ed piece by Paul Krugman, who quoted President Bush saying that Americans never go to war unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. Krugman said that no American president has ever had less right to say that. 

Gives you goosebumps, until you realize it may not be true.  

When I was writing my Memorial Day piece, I said that the war in Iraq is an insult to all other wars. I gave World War II as an example, but that is one of the few wars that the US has fought, except for the Revolution and World War I that you can say that about. If you stop and think about it, the US goes to war all the time for no good reason.  

For example, who but the US could you blame for the Civil War? That counts as a war, doesn't it? Lots of people died. It devastated huge parts of the country. You think 9-11 was bad, think again. The Civil War was much much worse. The clever part of the hype about 9-11 is that it disclaims that the attack came from outside the US. Well, that's a distinction without a difference. If the terror comes from within is it any less terrible? 

Krugman was right about many other things, but I think that those who hold the US up as a shining beacon of morals in war-going have been watching too many John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart movies. Maybe we should aspire to that.