Peter, I understand your sentiments. I don’t think the bases there are particularly valuable - not as dear as the cost, anyway. But we may as well get the oil. This war was a mistake - and even those who won’t admit it publicly know this, for the most part. Look at the polls. It was a mistake.
But the next president may be able to parlay this into a gain, at least in part. George Bush has failed to do that, I agree. But getting rid of Saddam and leaving the country in turmoil serves no purpose. Look - the american people are not buying this anymore - your rhetorical purpose here has been accomplished. As a people, we want out.
And I also think the fear factor is way, way way overplayed. We still bitch about TSA security measures, as if we are no longer afraid. We do not avoid public places. Most of us are not too concerned about the curtailment of rights, because it has affected almost no one - but if it did, there would be an outcry - and it would work. But I think we are a rabble that won’t be roused about that, not right now, anyway.
The american people simply are not afraid of their government - Johnson declined to run, because he knew he’d be defeated. Nixon was run out of town. Carter was not re-elected, nor was the supposedly Illuminati Lizardman George H. W. Bush. It’s not them - it’s us - it’s always us.
Have a little faith in your countrymen. We’re stupid, but brave. I don’t mean to be critical of the body politic - I just want to make the point that we shouldn’t be looking at W as a master, but as an employee.
The fact is that conventional forces aren’t very good at counter-terrorism. And, despite what are high numbers of casualties to us, terrorists aren’t very good against a force the size and ability of ours. We’re wasting time, I agree. But we have no real use for these troops. Except to pick off a few more nasty terrorists. But it’s a weird sort of stalemate, in the end. Let’s just get a friendly Iraqi government, and the oil, out of the whole thing. At least the Kurds like us now - a missed opportunity, so far.
I agree with your conclusions to a degree, but not with your argument. We should get out, but not until we can do so without having left all those dead bodies on the field in vain. I follow, as best I can, you ever-evolving points, but they always seem to get back to the view that we are somehow victims. That’s the part that bothers me. We are victims only of ourselves - of our own ambivalence. But the cure is not, it seems to me, party politics or the adoption of one extreme or it’s opposite.
about that part of the Constitution. It slips everyone’s mind.