War for the Good of the Economy

"Our right to kill others when our own lives are not threatened," obverves Linda McQuaig in the Toronto Star, "seems strangely absent from the ongoing debate over Iraq." Criticizing Bush's contention that an Iraqi war "could prove an indispensable tool for maintaining a buoyant economy," she writes,

Bush's suggestion that protecting the U.S. economy from recession would be grounds to justify an invasion of Iraq is remarkable for its sheer depravity.

It is one thing to argue that Iraq poses a threat to the survival of the U.S. and its allies (a case that has never been substantiated); but it is quite another to argue that the West has the right to kill tens of thousands of people in another country in order to keep the economy over here resilient.

At what point does the personal comfort level of Americans and their allies cease to be the most important thing on the planet, for which everyone else in the world is simply expendable? And we wonder why they hate us?

Apparently, the Larry Kudlow doctrine -- "better living through mass murder" -- has found an audience at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Try to act surprised...