It used to be, way back in the old days (before Beverly Hills 90210), that you had to read between the lines to figure out how politicians were lying. Now all you have to do is read their own statements. For example, according to Bill Clinton, welfare reform will help our children; according to his own bureaucrats, it will throw millions more of them into poverty. And so on. The brazenness of it, and the contempt for our intelligence, is astounding.

The latest example: our so-called crisis with Saddam Hussein. The extreme belligerence of the U.S.--being commented on with horror around the world--is justified by Bill Clinton as, um, well, he hasn't, actually. We need to teach Saddam a lesson. Yep. And, uh, Iraqi aggression will not be tolerated. They are referring, of course, to incidents like Iraqi radar picking up enemy fighter planes zooming over their country, which might be construed in other quarters as trying to prevent more civilians from being bombed. But if it were Iraqi planes strafing Pennsylvania I'm sure we'd understand.

Meanwhile, there is actually some muted criticism (!) of Clinton's warmongering from GOP circles, to the effect that the U.S. actions lead to no clear way out of the crisis. What they haven't mentioned is that there is an extraordinarily simple, inexpensive, and effective way to end this "crisis."

GO HOME.

Next week, the justification will be something else. (Remember the Kurds last week? Iran? How quickly we forget.) But the war continues. Five years of U.S.-led economic sanctions have killed over 500,000 Iraqi civilians, an act of war that makes for boring news footage but far more damage than the bombing runs. What is the point? What is the "crisis" that justifies this? There is none. There can be none. The U.S. needs to take its expensive, murderous toys and get the hell out. Now.