Bob Herbert (Times Select link):

There is no shortage of weaselly politicians and misguided commentators ready to tell us that we can’t leave Iraq — we just can’t. Chaos will ensue. Maybe even a civil war. But what they really mean is that we can’t leave as long as the war can continue to be fought by other people’s children, and as long as we can continue to put this George W. Bush-inspired madness on a credit card.

Start sending the children of the well-to-do to Baghdad, and start raising taxes to pay off the many hundreds of billions that the war is costing, and watch how quickly this tragic fiasco is brought to an end.
…
Among the regrets voiced by the president at the press conference was his absurd challenge to the insurgents in 2003 to “bring ‘em on.” But Mr. Bush gave no hint as to when the madness might end.

How many more healthy young people will we shovel into the fires of Iraq before finally deciding it’s time to stop? How many dead are enough?

This isn’t the first time Herbert has pointed out the lack of shared burden only prolongs the war in Iraq. He’s right. Many critics of the war have asked why Jenna and Barbara Bush aren’t serving, not to mention the countless military-age sons and daughters of politicians who support the war and the hawkish pundits who support these politicians. But the lack of shared burden goes far beyond the number of families who do or don’t have loved ones in harms way.

There has never been an effort to pass the economic burden of the war onto the people who support it. Instead of raising taxes to finance the hundreds of billions of dollars this war is costing the public, it is being passed on as debt for future generations to pay. Those that made the decision to send our troops to fight are the ones receiving the biggest tax cuts. Herbert makes an incredibly sharp observation by saying that the war would come to a quick end with a tax hike targeting the wealthy, while simultaneously asking more of our nation’s privileged youths to join in the fight.

The American people have never been asked to take on the burden of this war. It has been left to the tiny minority that is our warrior class, as Herbert calls it. It hasn’t cost anyone money and the physical losses suffered by our troops have not affected a wide swath of American society. Shift the financial and the human costs of the war and we’ll see it end promptly. Just don’t hold your breath waiting for this to happen under this administration and this congress.

Technorati Tags: , ,