I've written to a couple of big shot bloggers asking them to write about this, but they haven't, so I'll give it a shot.

At the SC Democratic debates, Mike Gravel was portrayed as some kind of loony tunes crazy uncle at the party. I didn't see the debate live (I've really come to hate the artificialty and the contentless questions. The contrast with the MoveOn Town Hall session is very striking.) But radar magazine put up a highlight reel , which I did watch.

Here's an excerpt from his first answer:

Well, first off, understand that this war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis. Understand that. Now with respect to what's going on in the Congress, I'm really embarrassed.

So we passed -- and the media's in a frenzy right today with what has been passed. What has been passed? George Bush communicated over a year ago that he would not get out of Iraq until he left office. Do we not believe him?

Now this is an absolutely central point at this momenet in time. The US in engaged in an indefinite occupation of Iraq. There is no chance of attaining the goal sought, but never stated, of establishing pliant secular client smackdab in the middle of the Middle East, to serve as a base for military and diplomatic activity. The plan, documented in Fiasco and Imperial Life in the Emerald City and countless other places, was to parachute in exiles, set up a fake democracy, and run the country through those puppets.

As Josh pointed out last week, this effort has failed. The goal cannot be attained. The reason the US forces are lurching from pillar to post trying to identify the enemy is that there really isn't any enemy that is preventing the goal from being attained. Once Al Sistani forced the US to hold real elections, the game was over. A real election will select an islamist government that will not want the US to be in Iraq, and certainly will not want to advance American goals in Israel.

Gravel is pointing this out. You would think that this would become a central debating point. this is the most important issue in the country at the moment. And it is actually asking a very important question--is the immediate American foreign policy goal a muscular imperialism driven by a trumped-up threat of global terrorism? Is US foreign policy going to continue to be driven by a nearly non-existent threat that, in any case, cannot be dealt with militarily?

But that question appears to be off the table. The response to Gravel's remarks is embarrassed laughter.

Later on, Gravel doesn't mince words on these questions:

We have no important enemies. What we need to do is to begin to deal with the rest of the world as equals. And we don't do that.

We spend more as a nation on defense than all the rest of the world put together. Who are we afraid of?

Who are you afraid of, Brian? I'm not. And Iraq has never been a threat to us. We invaded them. I mean, it is unbelievable. The military industrial complex not only controls ourgovernment, lock, stock and barrel, but they control our culture.

Again, the reaction is that he has gone out of bounds. These questions, these issues cannot be permissably raised. It is taken for granted by everyone else in the room that there is somebody to be afraid of, that there is an enemy that requires the possession of thousands of nuclear warheads, of fighter jets that have no targets, of aircraft carriers groups that have no threat to respond to.

Again, this is a very legitimate question. The press reaction to his raising this questions is to treat him like a crazy old man.

But is there anything he says in these two excerpts that is not well worth discussing? Haven't all the post war threats turned out to be much less dire than proposed? And isn't the current bogeyman--stateless guys in caves--at some point actually laughable?

It's like going into the Senate. You know, the first time you get there, you're all excited, "My God, how did I ever get here?"

Then, about six months later, you say, "How the hell did the rest of them get here?"

And I got to tell you, after standing up with them, some of these people frighten me -- they frighten me. When you have mainline candidates that turn around and say that there's nothing off the table with respect to Iran, that's code for using nukes, nuclear devices.

I got to tell you, I'm president of the United States, there will be no preemptive wars with nuclear devices. To my mind, it's immoral, and it's been immoral for the last 50 years as part of American foreign policy.

Williams: Let's use a little moderator discretion here. Senator Gravel, that's a weighty charge.

Who on this stage exactly tonight worries you so much?

Gravel: Well, I would say the top tier ones. The top tier ones. They've made statements.

Oh, Joe, I'll include you, too. You have a certain arrogance. You want to -- you want to tell the Iraqis how to run their country.

I got to tell you, we should just plain get out -- just plain get out.

It's their country. They're asking us to leave. And we insist on staying there.

And why not get out? What harm is it going to do? Oh, you hear the statement, "Well, my God, these soldiers will have died in vain." The entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain. And they're dying in vain right this very second.

And you know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain? It's more soldiers dying in vain. That's what's worse.

This is not, Brian Williams, a "weighty charge." It is simply the truth. The US is the only country that has used a nuclear weapon. It is the only country that has endorsed first use of a nuclear weapon against conventional forces. This administration has reestablished research programs for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

And this is all happening in an environment where there is no credible threat The most serious threat is probably an overthrown government in Pakistan--which is nowhere near any kind of existential threat. The US has no reason for a defense posture any more aggressive than Canada.

When Gravel points this out--when he says that he will take the nuclear option off the table--expressly because it would be wrong, and inconsistent with longstandingly asserted US principles of a commitment to peace and democracy.

Even if you think Gravel is wrong, these are both valid and pressing points in a world with no enemies beyond a few thousand impoverished extremists. The states who speak in threatening terms, like Iran, pose no credible threat. Iraq posed no credible threat. An Afghan government hijacked by foreign extremists did pose a credible threat. And that government was removed from power, although the extremists were left at large.

But there is certainly room to debate whether we really need to be on a permanent war footing, in a world where the most potentially threatening country is on of our largest trading partners.

But this is a debate that the media and the establishment candidates will not permit to happen. Gravel will continue to be mocked and marginalized--and the issues he is raising will be ignored.