Paul Krugman Is An Insensitive Idiot

Did I mention that I think that NY Times editorialist Paul Krugman is an idiot?

Yeah, I re-read my headline, and I guess that I just did…and in Sunday’s NY Times Op Ed piece, Krugman provides an ample example of why I hold this belief--AGAIN. I think that I mentioned Krugman’s mental capacity earlier this month in a slightly less polite manner.

Here is a sample of his latest blithering:

“One of the more bizarre aspects of the Iraq war has been President Bush's repeated insistence that his generals tell him they have enough troops. Even more bizarrely, it may be true - I mean, that his generals tell him that they have enough troops, not that they actually have enough. An article in yesterday's Baltimore Sun explains why.

The article tells the tale of John Riggs, a former Army commander, who "publicly contradicted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld by arguing that the Army was overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan" - then abruptly found himself forced into retirement at a reduced rank, which normally only happens as a result of a major scandal.

The truth, of course, is that there aren't nearly enough troops. "Basically, we've got all the toys, but not enough boys," a Marine major in Anbar Province told The Los Angeles Times.”

Why can’t the NY Times and its editorial staff take a few days off once in a while from the arduous task of endlessly bashing the military and its Commander-In-Chief, President Bush?

It is Memorial Day, after all, you know? We’re supposed to be honoring our military and our veterans, not endless debating their value and the decision making ability of its leadership.

The press keeps on trying to armchair quarterback our military’s operations, even though virtually none of the writers have ever set foot on a military base, except possibly to buy cheep beer or go to an air show.

Apparently the media really doesn’t want us to conduct any military operations overseas, they just want the better paying government jobs made available for “working families.”

If one single soldier is injured or killed, and if one single civilian is killed or displaced, then our actions are considered to be “the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Let’s take Iraq as an example.

We could have avoided any US military casualties and just gone in and Nuked the shit out of Baghdad and Fallujah—turned most of Iraq into a giant silicone glass parking lot for a new Super Wal Mart and a big BP gas station.

Once the first mushroom cloud had disipated, the media would have melted down in a fit of eye rolling, salivating, hand-wringing. I agree that that method of prosecution of the war would have been overkill, but hey, the Times and Ted Koppel wouldn’t be doing a monthly body count over the US troop losses right now and the debate over troop levels would be mute.

Instead, we conducted a precision air attack that lasted a few weeks and softened everything up before our ground forces went in. As a result of being so sensitive to avoiding civilian collateral damage, we now have to sit around while the Saudi and Syrian “insurgents” and former members of Saddam’s Bathist Republican Guard “chicken shit” coward brigades take pot shots at our military and kill hundreds of innocent civilians. And yet the media blames our military for the current state of affairs in Iraq.

Following the air strikes two years ago, we also could have vacated our military out of their cushy deployments in Germany and South Korea and covered Iraq up with troops--probably gotten a half million personnel into the region within six months of the initial campaign, but we didn’t. And again, the media would have screamed bloody murder. “Abandoning our Allies” the headlines would have read. “Look at all of the disgruntaled solders” would have been the lead in for the evening news.

Yes, with an all voluntary Army you still have some half hearted, even half-assed participants. Some join just looking for the enlistment bonus and the college tuition. Some are really mean bastards that like drowning cats and shooting stray dogs. Fortunately, the majority are proud, honorable Americans that wish to serve our country and understand that in order to function as the world's police force you are required to break some things and kill some people.

What the men and women serving in the armed forces and the families of those lost in our efforts should not have to endure is a hostile press that diminishes the apparent value of their contribution, all in a politically motivated temper tantrum.

The media just doesn’t get it when it comes to the military, and they don’t play fair when it comes to their news coverage and editorial commentary.

I’m really sick of it, aren’t you?