It's important to keep these things in perspective. The cost of this necessary surge for the necessary war is still only about five percent of the necessary $663bn Pentagon welfare budget which was passed recently by the Congress* with hardly a murmur. That's well over a million dollars a minute! So 57 grand is nothing.
*current disapproval rate 66%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/congressional_job_approval-903.html

And how are we pushing the troops too far? Military casualties are relatively low. Heck, more soldiers committed suicide last year than were killed in combat -- that's how low they are.

I say give TomDispatch a big lump of coal, in the true spirit of Christmas.

"It's important to keep these things in perspective."

Now those are words to live by, but there is more to perspective than arithmetic. When you write that this is a "necessary surge for [a] necessary war," I can only wonder whether your intent is irony. Necessity depends on purpose, and no proper purpose requires our military presence in South and Central Asia, let alone an increased presence sufficient to engage in the 'counter-insurgency' about to be undertaken. Necessity doesn't serve your argument as well as you think. What is truly necessary is not being done.

But all that aside, I'm most astonished by your invocation of the spirit of Christmas while simultaneously suggesting that casualties are low because suicides are higher. That makes me glad that we're not in the same place, because I'm too old to act on impulses like those you have stirred up in me. May the ghosts of Christmas Past and Christmas Future pay you a visit so that you don't again write so glibly about human suffering that makes people better acquainted with it wake in the night screaming until they get sick of the endless recurrence and splatter their brains on the wall.

N E, well said, but rest assured that Don's comment is indeed ironic in intent. Click through on his home page link.

oops, well then in honor of the best of ghosts, here's this instead:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0

This has nothing to do with the troops. This is further trolling on the ACLU issue, which Don is now moving to other threads.

Has anyone, besides me, noticed how many so-called liberals are totally illiberal and impolite? If you ask me, it's scary that people claiming to be liberal can be so dogmatic, close-minded and rude. I've encountered it on other sites, and now here. It's an inability to discuss issues without rancor, name-calling and stereotyping.

On this site I would call it Un-Schwarzian, to coin a word. Very Un-Schwarzian, from what I know about Jonathan Schwarz. Now there's an open mind, one which I occasionally have trouble tracking, it's so open. It's like . . .well, you know what I mean. Some of you do.

Heaven forbid there be rancor.

In my experience, people who imply that they are more open-minded and non-dogmatic than others don't necessarily see themselves in such sharp focus. And the word 'polite' does not describe the practice of provoking reactions in order to comment smugly on them.

From the excellent 'Disquiet Reservations,' we find that even the great Nat Henthoff is, shall we say, perturbed by Obama:

"In an interview conducted by John W. Whitehead, long-time newspaperman Nat Hentoff says "Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had." Hentoff, a champion of the constitution, and a free speech activist, is disturbed about the double-nature of Obama's politics and his self-serving personality, saying "Obama has little, if any, principles except to aggrandize and make himself more and more important." Much of Hentoff's criticism is shared by people across the political spectrum, who are coming together to form a new political partnership in American politics.

"Unlike earlier in the year, it is no longer politically easy for the democrats to dismiss negative remarks about Obama as conspiratorial jabber, or unfounded attacks from the republican losers, or silly complaints by backward liberals. The claims that Obama defrauded the American people, and is carrying out the same wicked policies that were put in place by the previous administration are grounded in fact after fact. Obama is his own worst example. And as more Americans begin to scratch the label off, the president's popularity will continue to drop. Even Obama's supporters are having second doubts about which side their game-changer is actually playing for."

Oarwell

It's not easy to figure out Nat Henthoff. What does one make of a First Amendment supporter who is pro life, defended the second war against Iraq, and has recently joined the Cato Institute, which is, he says, "where freedom rings." Gee, that's what I've always thought about the Koch brothers. "Freedom" from taxation has worked pretty well for the Kochs, though of course they make heavy use of all the infrastructure provided by taxes paid by others.

Hentoff is getting on in years, so his statement that Obama is "the most dangerous and destructive President we've ever had" may be a sign of dementia. It's hard for me to think of a kinder reason for him to make such a ridiculous statement.

Let me step back from the great American tendency to reduce everything to distracting issues of personality. The Chinese just opened a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Xiangjing (China's westernmost province).

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL17Ag01.html

And the Chinese seem to be trying to buy up southern Kazakhstan too.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/KL19Ag01.html

I like the Chinesse strategy better than I like ours, which unfortunately seems likely to get nastier and nastier until we destroy the entire world in a giant militaristic temper tantrum.

NE: "It's not easy to figure out Nat Henthoff." Maybe not Nat Henthoff,, but Nat Hentoff is easy enough to figure out. I did that when he made it clear that free speech was for him, but not for PC fanatics, usually of color, who pick on white liberals and make them feel guilty.

Hey duncan, i got his name right the second time--that's pretty good for me.

Well, evidently you contracted the misspelling from Oarwell, who also used it. But my point was not the misspelling, but that I don't find Hentoff that hard to figure out.

You're ahead of me. But I don't even know what a "PC fanatic" is. Personal Computer? Political Correctness? whatever. to me hentoff is almost as interesting as christopher hitchens.

Piling on, you mean Xinjiang 新疆.

StO

Good catch. My word processing program doesn't work in this little comment square, and obviously I need it.

Those poor widdle babies, those poor widdle marines having to gun down those big bad mean nasty Afghan and Iraqi children.

Yeah it's so "antiseptic" to never even think about the blood of the soldiers and trigger-pullers.