James Taranto is on fire today:

But then we read this Reuters dispatch, about a group of what the "news" service calls "intellectuals"--that's Reutervillian for frauds and idiots--who, as Reuters puts it, "have come out in defense of Cuba"--which actually means in defense of Castro's communist tyranny and against the Cuban people, who have suffered under it for nearly 45 years.

The "intellectuals' " statement reads, in part: "A single power"--that would be America--"is inflicting grave damage to the norms of understanding, debate and mediation among countries. . . . The harassment against Cuba could serve as a pretext for an invasion."

Well, a stopped clock is right twice a day--and this actually is a pretty good idea. Why not at least consider having a little Iraq-style war to liberate Cuba? "We do not want the blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed in a war," declares the dictator. Neither do we, and war is hell, but in the most profound part of his speech last night, President Bush pointed out that war is a lot less hellish than it used to be, thanks to good old-fashioned Yankee ingenuity:

In the images of falling statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred of years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, Allied forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation.

Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war; yet it is a great moral advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.

The death toll from a war to liberate Cuba would be far less than that of Castro's regime itself, especially if you include all the Cubans who've perished in the Florida Straits trying to swim for freedom. Postwar reconstruction would be a far easier task in Cuba than in Iraq, since there are millions of well-educated Cuban exiles and Cuban-Americans living within an hour's flight of Havana. And President Bush ought to be able to win support for such a move across the political aisle. A free Cuba would mean fewer Cuban immigrants and thus fewer Republican voters in Florida. What Democrat would oppose that?

There's only one thing standing in the way. In 1962, to resolve the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK promised the Soviet Union that America would never invade Cuba. Well, "never" is a long time, but America should be true to its word. So if you happen to see the Soviet Union, please tell it to let us know ASAP if it has any objections to the liberation of Cuba.