Crossposted at Daily Kos.
I hereby reiterate the conclusion to which I came some time after the election: Pragmatism has ceased to be an option.
We, the Democrats and progressives and leftists and liberals who believe this war to be wrong, must appeal to our representatives in Congress. We must hammer them with insistent demands.
People are dying and suffering for nothing. This is no fucking chess game; this is a rock bottom issue of morality. Anyone who supported or supports this war supports murder and mayhem. And anyone who stands by and does nothing, says nothing — is also supporting death and destruction.
It is INDEFENSIBLE. No good can come of our presence in Iraq; it will simply continue as it has and eventually get worse. More people will die and suffer maiming, more children will lose their parents… and another generation in the Middle East will grow up despising the United States as a mortal enemy. And, frankly, I can’t blame them.
I, of course, have the luxury of wearing my broken heart on my sleeve, of speaking out vociferously against the war and agitating for immediate withdrawal of all coalition forces — because I am not a politician, much less up for re-election in 18 months.
Likewise, the Democrats have the dubious luxury of not having to make the decision — because they do not yet, unfortunately, have the numbers to force Bush to pull us out of Iraq, let alone impeach the motherfucker, which any RATIONAL legislature would already have DONE by now.
The sensible and prudent Democrats almost all advocate, among other things, international support achieved through making the UN a full partner in “help(ing) the Iraqis build a stable, peaceful and pluralistic society.” (from John F. Kerry’s Op-Ed Piece in the Washington Post, Tuesday, April 13, 2004.) Certainly it has become the only “safe” position to take in the face of our woeful lack of influence or power in Congress.
I am thoroughly acquainted with the perilous vicissitudes of retaining what little hope for making up lost ground in 2006 we may have, of how imperiled so many Democrats already are in their re-election bids.
Some, whom I have had the displeasure to witness on various blogs, are taking every opportunity to employ the kind of vicious, counterproductive rhetoric against the deluded pragmatism displayed by these Democrats, which Ralph Nader used to such great and terrible effect against Al Gore in 2000.
Such behaviour, should it affect the mid-term races the way it affected Mr. Gore and put the election within Mr. Bush’s reach, will do nothing to further the goals of these so-called “progressives.” If the previous term is any indication of the cutthroat hubris with which this Administration will use its power to complete its goals (by now transparent to everyone at a third grade reading level)… the next four years under Bush and a Republican dominated legislature may result in a disfiguration of the world as envisioned by the likes of George Orwell and company.
But there comes a time when pragmatic caution is not only regrettable but damned immoral. This is one of those times. Every Democrat in Congress should band together and in one voice, declare the war in Iraq to have been a dreadful mistake on their part — and deliberate deception on the part of the Administration.
The onus is on these Democrats and everyone who feels in his heart as I do — that this war is folly on a tragic scale — to speak the truth as loudly and as often as possible. And since they show absolutely no signs of neither being willing to do so nor even believing that pulling out is the only possible solution — it is no longer enough on our part to merely work to ensure a net gain in 2006. It is incumbent upon every man and woman of conscience to persist in demanding of our leaders that they unravel the Gordian knot tied so tightly and recklessly by George W. Bush.
I am not delusional. The Byzantine ways of war, while utterly unfamiliar to me as a civilian, are obviously complex, and unimaginable to me.
Which is why the raising of voices, the carrying of signs, the marching en masse to declare to the leaders of the world and the peoples of the world that we must end this conflagration NOW is so vital to a (relatively) positive outcome. Delay in our support for withdrawal further delays the decision-makers’ beginning the process of withdrawal.
How much sooner would the lamentable and catastrophic Vietnam war have ended had the protests begun years earlier? We are no longer the naive population we once were, blindly and trustingly acquiescing to the patriarchal edicts of our leaders. Ill-informed as we may be collectively, we have FAR more access to the truth now than we did then. We know enough, now, to speak up when we notice a naked emperor strutting down our streets. We MUST.
It is tragic and outrageous that these words must be spoken once again: How much longer, how many more people must die in service of George W. Bush’s insane folly? Must we surpass the official death toll of Vietnam before we collectively run out of snooze alarms? What will it fucking TAKE to stop this madness? How can you ask someone to die for a mistake?
Tell me how “we broke it, we bought it.” Because that desiccated argument is JUST what I’m DYING to hear.
away, but keep going in the direction you’re headed and you just might become eligible for membership in my uber-kewl sleeper cell. We’re getting jihad parkas (real Lands End ones) and possibly a treehouse if Zarq gets that bionic leg.
Read this and then tell me that Iraq has been liberated.
Blocking the bridge and surrounding the American armor were Jersey barriers: concrete half-walls that, arranged in the form of “chicanes,” or tight S-curve-shaped obstacles, force vehicles to slow and stop. Tank traps: massive iron bars welded together in crisscross forms so that they resemble the jacks a giant child might play with, typically draped, as here, in flamboyant swirls of barbed wire. Hesco barriers: huge square canvas bags reinforced with steel and filled with dirt or cinderblocks, the giant’s version of a sandbag, stacked in their scores and hundreds. Sandbagged bunkers. Steel watchtowers. Iron blast doors. X-ray machines. Magnetometers. Sniffer dogs. And the ubiquitous squads of men, some uniformed but more often not, armed with 9 mms and AK-47s and the clear willingness to fire first and ask questions afterward.
A year before the concrete elements of this new architecture had encircled the ministries, the public buildings, the military bases, and of course the hotels. Now, under the pressure of hundreds of suicide bombings and kidnappings, they had metastasized, acquiring extra layers and additional cordons, and moved in force into residential neighborhoods, surrounding the homes of government workers and politicians and businessmen and finally doctors and lawyers and anyone of any means or power, anyone who might conceivably, for reasons political or financial, be targeted for assassination or kidnapping.
http://tinyurl.com/4tvt2
MSO, I don’t know if you saw Gilgamesh’s diary, but it appears Berlusconi is the latest Bush ally to feel the heat for the mess o’ potamia.
Of course, we must never forget Poland, and we can never inquire of Argentina whether they might, or might not, be inclined to ‘cry for us’.
I think we can, and should, try to develop a plan of accelerated withdrawal from Iraq. Before doing so, we should carefully examine Iraq’s return policy.
Do they require that any return be accompanied by 4 to 6 permanent military bases? I don’t think so.
How about a guarantee that the Kurds will not be massacred? I think that is somewhere in the fine print.
But in any case, the time has come to call a turd a turd, and a compulsive purchase, a mistake outside the confines of our family budget…and take the whole thing back to the store and plead brash adolescent stupidity.
you’re not gonna’ hear that dessicated argument from me.
Here’s my problem with your analysis, though: You seem to be rejecting pragmatism not only in policy but also in political stategy.
I’ll give you the example of the recent overwhelming victory of the center-left in the Italian regional elections which has thrust the Berlucsoni government into an almost insurmountable crisis even as I write. This is an absolutely extraordinary example of how an oppostion party with no power and no media influence can win mid-term elections and devestate the ruling pary at the same.
What the center-left did was emphasize forcefully all those positions and policies which the various parties in the coaltion shared in common and deemphasized the aras where there were, and still are, fundamental differences.
In Italy, opposition to the war is a popular and non-controversial postition. So the center-left unified and hardened its position ahead of the elections by stating clearly and univocally that “we favor the immediate withdrawral of the troops.” But this could be done unproblematically because, in Italy, popular has always been, from the beginning, overwhelmingly opposed to the war.
On the other hand, the issue of artificial insemination and stem cell research– I won’t go into the details; it’s fairly medieval stuff—has divided the left between the centrists who follow the church’s traditionaist teachings in this area and those who are truly progessive. So, the center-left as whole decided not to take a strong and forhtright position on this
issue at all. It deemphasized it. This was stategically wise because adopting fomrally and univerally one posiito or the other would have alienated large parts of their own constiencies as well as large parts of the electorate which they needed to mainatin the coaltion intact. I say “as a matter of strategy it was wise and Machiavellian” as all genuiney successful political campains and electioneering must be.
That is, it must be necessarily amoral and dishonest. As a matter of policy, it’s a ridiculous and profoundly
illiberal position. But the left wing of the party knows that and will hold the center and the rest of the colation accountable when they actually do obtain office and have the opportunity to implement their own agenda.
It’s one thing how you get into power. It’s entirely another what you do after you have obtained it.
I understand your frustration and repulsion with the war and I share it. But we can’t do anything about it until and unless anti-war progressives get elected into office and the only way to get elected into office may sometimes be via dissimulation and deemphasizing of differenes, i.e. using any means and all means necessary to get into power.
between what is morally right and what is politically effective.
Morally right is our only hope for political success. More and more people in this country see that this war is (at best interpretation) a mistake. But no one is speaking for them. Now, many feel a discomforting queasiness, a feeling that the war is not right, but unsure what the alternative is. Our Democratic leaders must start making the public case that withdrawal is the rational option.
We are killing innocent people in Iraq, our soldiers are dying and too many who are coming home are maimed – physically, psychically, spiritually. We are creating hatred for the US, which will inevitably breed more terrorists. We are depleting our resources – spending money on killing and creating hatred that could be used for health care, education, infrastructure, alternative energy, etc.
It has to become OK to say this. Out loud. In public. Many ordinary folks already believe this who are afraid to speak up, because they hear no one else saying it and they are afraid that they are crazy to think so.
I think it is too late for “Pull Out of Iraq. Now.” But I have no problem with getting ’em out ASAP.
Not when it looks good politically (inl’t or domestically), but admit that we (or the Republicans) made a grave mistake, and then leave ASAP with humanity at the forefront of our action. America MUST drop all progress made in profiting on the war or/and the Iraqi people and their oil. We as a country should now accept the burden of this misadventure, while accepting that it is the Republicans fault…
Iraqi girl cries after her home was
destroyed by a car bomb.
—
Keep well Maryscott.
I am so with you on this point Mary Scott and have posted so both here and Dkos. I was only in my late teens during the end of the Vietnam War. But was so amazed to see people taking to the streets and battling for our country to end the obscene nature of that war.
I loved for your call of all the Dem reps to stand in front of the Vietnam War Memorial and call for an end to this lie. To this senseless loss of lives. IMHO WE should stand there with them, hundreds of thousands of us in support of the withdrawl NOW. I will stand with you side by side…we have waited far too long to give our opposition a TRUE voice. It must be to the magnitude that the MSM CANNOT ignore it. Where do we begin? Tell me and I will be there.