There’s Enough Idiocy in the World . . .

Without adding to it with statements like this, from Dave Weiner:

I’m not pro-war, but all the estimates of what it would cost to win the war I’ve heard are missing one thing. We can pay for reconstructing Iraq by pumping oil. We can also pay ourselves back for the cost of the war.

This is astonishingly half-witted, particularly coming from someone who appears rational much of the time.

How much oil do we pump to “pay back” the woman in Kansas whose son is killed? How much for his children, who have lost their father? What about the Iraqui women who will lose their children (they’ve already lost their sons and husbands)? What about the fact that Iraq lies in the heart of the fertile crescent, the richest and almost completely unexcavated archaeological treasure trove (that is, assuming it hasn’t already been destroyed by constant bombing)? Keeping in mind of course that at least 42% of the population is under 14.

And for what?

To quote Adam Engst:

I’m angry because it looks as though the United States is about to wage war on Iraq without direct provocation, without clear evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction, without strong international support, and without even having shown indisputable ties between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network.

I’m angry because the cynic on my shoulder keeps whispering that it’s all about oil, that it’s aimed at distracting from an inability to hunt down Osama bin Laden, and that it’s happening right now so it won’t turn into an election-year issue in 2004.

Go read the rest of what Adam has to say, and then be sure to read the remarks of Senator Robert Byrd, who rightly accuses us as a nation of “standing passively silent.”

In other words, we’re going to war for the sake of oil, macho posturing, and because, God help us, George W. Bush is bored with his Game Boy.