The cost of war

This time, I have to disagree with Kevin Drum when he writes

In a nutshell, this is the great irony of the Bush Doctrine and the Iraq war. Conceived as a means of finally putting to rest "Vietnam Syndrome," it now looks as though it's going to cement it in place for another few decades.

Liberals everywhere should hail the handiwork of Bush and the neocons. For a relatively small cost, we've gotten rid of a truly odious fascist dictator and assured that the American public is less inclined than ever toward military adventurism. What more could we ask for?

Conservatives, on the other hand, should be somewhat less enthralled with Bush and the neocons....

I think Kevin probably regrets the words, "relatively small cost" -- the cost of over 1000 US dead and 10,000 Iraqi is a high cost, particularly since it was all based on lies and bad intelligence -- but I see his point. This will make Americans less inclined to rush to support a president's war of choice (although that support was never as great as the so-called liberal media implied it was, never more than 65% or so, compared with nearly all of our Senators, congressmen, and, oh yes, news anchors).

But I'm not sure that's such a good thing. Our reluctance to enter Rwanda after the debacle in Somalia resulted in an unconscionable loss of human life. Will we fail to intervene in the next Balkans flare-up, the Sudan (where our overstretched troops are unable to stop the madness), or when the House of Saud collapses and our precious oil is threatened by jihadists? Well, maybe the Saudi thing, but human rights, forget it.