Paul Krugman's latest column opens with the recent death of an Arab TV journalist during an attack by US forces.

Isn't Krugman an economist?

Doctors recommend balancing your daily Krugman spintake with an equal and opposite dose of Stratforeality.

Krugman claims that with a larger troop deployment to Afghanistan in early 2002, we could have captured bin Laden. Not true; by then, he was already in Pakistan, and a million US troops across the border in Afghanistan wouldn't have netted bin Laden. In this, Krugman completely misses the point. He seems to think the US should demonstrate its true might by producing bin Laden's head on a platter for the world's conspicuous consumption. No -- that victory belongs to Pakistan now. For all the chatter about "listening to our allies", the Democrats seem quite insistent on dictating the global time table according to domestic priorities.

Krugman blames the insurgency on insufficient troop strength immediately following the invasion. Those troops could have curtailed the looting, but they would not have prevented the insurgency. He seems to forget that the insurgency is comprised of insurgents, and in general, eliminating the former requires eliminating the latter. The US does not need to double or triple its troop strength to eliminate the insurgents; currently deployed forces could retake Falluja this afternoon, if ordered. When Krugman refers to "the prospect of a casualty toll that would have hurt [Bush's] approval rating", he neglects to mention that the casualties in question are Iraqi, not American.

For a Kerry supporter, his arguments are rather lacking in nuance. Despite his criticism of Rumsfeld's New Way of War, Krugman and the like minded are still missing a critical point, and it is one that Rumsfeld himself keeps front and center. To parafuse Sherman and McNealy:

War is hell. Get over it.

Taking On the Myth