"A criminal enterprise launched by madmen"

Paul Krugman picked out this quote from Matt Yglesias' post about confusing support of the troops with criticism of the missions selected by the Commander in Chief and his cronies.

The harsh reality is that this was not a noble undertaking done for good reasons. It was a criminal enterprise launched by madmen cheered on by a chorus of fools and cowards. And it's seen as such by virtually everyone all around the world -- including but by no means limited to the Arab world.

Krugman notes that Yglesias is both shrill and correct in opposing the tendency of many to rush past the faults, misdeeds and crimes of the Bush administration. As Krugman puts it:

Right now, there's a major effort underway to flush the sheer crazy/vileness of the Bush years -- and the cravenness of those who enabled it -- down the memory hole. We shouldn't let that effort succeed. The fact is that an American president deliberately misled the nation into war, probably for political gain -- and most of the country's elite went cheerfully along with the scam.

Yglesias and Krugman are both right. We must hold criminals responsible for law breaking. We are a country formed and based on the rule of law. It is the essential foundation of our country's existence and success. It necessarily includes criminals within government as well as without.

Yglesias made another point about the misdeeds of the last 8 years and their impact on the US role in world affairs.

But it's impolitic to point this out in the United States, and it's clear that even a president-elect who had the wisdom not to be suckered in by the War Fever of 2002 has no intention of really acting to marginalize the bad actors. Which, I think, makes sense for his political objectives. But if Americans want to play a constructive role in world affairs, it's vitally important for us to get in touch with the reality of what the past eight years of US foreign policy have been and how they're seen and understood by people who aren't stirred by the shibboleths of American patriotism.

The world is watching to see how we deal with putting our house in order and restoring the rule of law within the United States. President-Elect Obama's primary focus will likely be on restoring our economy and the people of the United States. But there must be some attention paid to the restoration of the rule of law. And the chattering classes who are so anxious to let bygones be bygones would do our country a huge favor if they would shut up.