A March, A Ride, A Funeral

Last Saturday (January 27) my friend Robbie and I attended two different events, and in one sense, they were at opposite ends of an ideological spectrum. In an oversimplified nutshell, he thinks we need more killing to achieve peace, whereas I think we should just stop the violence and start working on the peace right now. But the more I've thought about these two events, one a funeral for a young man killed in Iraq, and one a peace march in downtown Austin, the more I've come to question the reality of "opposing" viewpoints. Yes, there are very real and important differences in our points of view. But there are also points of common ground, and I'm wondering if it might be worthwhile to explore those for a change.

I encourage you to read Robbie's post about the funeral of Captain Sean Lyerly, who died when his Blackhawk was shot down in Iraq. Robbie and the Patriot Guard Riders rode to meet the coffin at the airfield and escort it to the church for the funeral service. I can only imagine the emotional charge of being a part of such a display of power, pride and solidarity. There was much military fanfare at the funeral, with cadets from A & M, a large police contingent, the PGR's, a 21-gun salute, and a Blackhawk flyover. I have no doubt that it was a tremendously stirring tribute to a brave soldier.

At the same time that service was going on, I joined several hundred people in the streets of downtown Austin. My wife was walking next to me, pushing our daughter in her stroller, and my daughter was waving and flashing a little peace sign at the drivers and passengers in the cars forced to wait by the throngs in the street. As we moved down Cesar Chavez in a sea of colorful signs, banners, and T-shirts, I too felt a surge of pride and solidarity, a sense of connectedness to a greater purpose, a feeling that we were expressing a noble and worthy desire to end violent conflict as quickly and immediately as possible. I felt a sense of hope, of optimism, of peace, and these feelings were reflected back to me, both in the faces of my fellow citizen marchers and in the overwhelming positive response from the vast majority of people whom we passed on the way to the Capitol. I don't know what effect, if any, these demonstrations have on politics, on public opinion, on the war, on the troops, on the enemy. But I know what effect they have on me. The sense of unity and of community gives me hope that the peace, goodwill, and moral common sense of the American people will eventually be brought out to such a degree that war will no longer make sense.

I can't imagine anyone in America who wouldn't think that a soldier dying before his time, leaving behind a wife and a three-year-old son, is anything other than a tragedy. Somehow, to me though, this continued glorification of militarism just doesn't make sense. How our fighting men and women can still follow this president astounds me. All of the rage that's directed at people who are against the war seems sorely misplaced to me. I watched the video of Josh Sparling heckling peace marchers until some of them, unfortunately, took the bait of his goading and responded with rudeness and anger. Then he was paraded all over Fox News and the rightwing blogosphere as a media darling who just proved that anyone who doesn't support perpetual war hates the troops, hates America, hates God, and loves Islamic fascists who hate us because we're free. I'm tired of the way the pro-military people in our culture believe that they can dictate what my motivation for wanting peace is, or who I hate and who I love. They don't know me. They don't speak for me. They don't seem to make any attempt to understand me. But is "our side" doing any better?

Could we please wake up, people? President Bush keeps telling us we're fighting an ideological war. It seems to me that an ideological civil war has already broken out in this country. And if we call ourselves peace workers, and if we are "fighting" for peace -- whatever the hell that means -- then we've got to start working right here at home. We who believe in the immediate cessation of an immoral war have to start treating our "enemies" at home with compassion, dignity and respect. Christ did not raise up an army and smash the Roman Empire in order to achieve peace. In effect, he said, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." When we sink down to name calling, hateful speech, and vitriolic attacks based on anger instead of fact, we have already lost peace. I know it's infuriating to listen to the arguments that don't make any sense to us. I know people are dying because of our delusional obsession with military might as the only way to act in the world. But we can't wait for the "other" side to come around to our point of view, and we can't change their minds by spitting insults, or even "facts" back and forth. Nor can we do what is tempting; ignore them, hope they go away, and say to ourselves, "What's the use? There's no talking to those people." We have to take the harder path, the moral high ground, and return hate with kindness, abuse with compassion, outright lies with gentle demonstrations of truth. Continue to articulate a positive vision of what a more compassionate world, a more compassionate society, a more compassionate model of civil discourse looks like. We're not rolling over and playing dead, but we need to live, breathe, and act peace in each moment that we can remember the essential truth of ALL religion and, in light of quantum physics, all science as well . . . WE ARE ALL ONE.

I believe in my heart that Robbie is a good person in his heart. He writes things on his blog that absolutely make me cringe, and yet there are moments in which he writes things that reveal a good heart and a seeking mind. I have a firm belief that every person operates to the best of his or her ability, and makes decisions and choices to the best of his or her ability, with the level of consciousness currently available to them in each moment. Everybody's looking at the world through a different set of perceptions, beliefs, and cultural conditioning. The world looks different to each of us. But we have to realize that there is not a single human being on the earth that has a handle on Absolute Truth. Absolute Truth is beyond human comprehension. If we think we know it, possess it, that's proof that we don't. So, without giving up our deepest core values, I think it might be wise to relax the rigidity of our positionality, our all-black or all-white thinking, and find a way out of these deep, divisive ideological trenches from which we're gunning each other down like meat puppets on the Maginot line.

We have to make the first move, friends. Join me in asking ourselves at the end of each day, "What have I done to make this world more peaceful today? Who have I touched, and how? Have my actions been in keeping with my expressed principles? How can I do better tomorrow?" There can be no peace out there until I find peace in here. I'm pointing at my heart. And now I'm going to bed.

Comments

[Dan]

I agree with your point of view. But, to rip off the Borg expression, "debating the issue is futile". Or is it?

Growing up in post WWII and Korean War America, the height of the cold war, in San Diego, home of (at the time)one of the nation's Naval Training Centers and the Marine Corp Recruit Depot (bootcamp-still in operation), with all adult male family members either Navy or Marine veterans, I was in the middle of the military mindset. I even "played war" as an elementary school child with my father's actual WWII Marine back pack and canteen. Cub Scout field trips were to Camp Pendleton, the Ft Hood of the Marines. Then Viet Nam occurred when I was in junior high, high school, and college (hmmm!!).

My point? With constant exposure to the military life, parents employed in the defense industry, being a political science junkie constantly debating the same issues that come up on this blog, and having a very low draft number during Viet Nam, war was a big part of my life. Still, not withstanding those (including loved ones and respected parents and relatives) who felt the military an honor, and me not questioning their integrity, war and the military was evolving out as option for me and many in the "love generation".

The military mindset, even jacked up as it is with this war and the "we are the only super power" status of our nation, continues to wane as an option. This, to me, means that eventhough the rhetoric of the debate is similar to justifications I heard for WWII, Viet Nam, and Iraq, I feel the nation's "energy" leaning toward peace instead of leaning toward war, as it was when I was young.

I support our soldiers as human beings and have had direct experience in doing so with a family member in this war. I discuss with people in the military involved in this war our points of view, hear why they're involved, and then we go our separate ways. I have more heated debates about this war with those not involved in the military. And after all is said and done, I still disagree that war is a necessary option.

I continue to pray and put my energy into peace, and remember all people in the world including our soldiers and Iraqis alike when doing so. I think, eventhough we will still have military incursions and those who wish to "destroy America", full scale war is evolving out. Thank God.

[marks]

Chris:

Can you send me one of those "End the War - texans for peace" T-shirts? Very cool! And your daughter is unbelievably cute!

[marks]

Chris:

I checked out your friend Robbie's post. I also checked out some of the blogs listed next to his post.

There sure is a lot of hatred out there -- on both sides -- and the war only seems to increase it.

[just me]

Imagine the U.S. as a pacifist country. Imagine the U.S. military only a shadow of itself. No more bases overseas. Imagine the U.S. military more like that of most all European countries.

Now, don't imagine, but consider the state of potential and real violence in the world today as well, everything from Iran with nukes threatening to wipe Israel and the US off the map as well as Korea with their nukes and Russia out of control. Imagine countries engaged in active terrorist training undeterred by the U.S. as a world power.

Would you feel safe here in the U.S.? What about the rest of the "peaceful" countries who in reality depend on us to defend them if needed rather than build a strong military themselves?

Peace is of course what I want too, but it's not realistic to think we cannot be prepared for war and why get prepared for war if we're not willing to fight?

It's not easy, is it?

[rayleus]

Beautiful sentiments, my brother. You hit some of the points I was making in my 2nd comments to the Rabbi Learner post, although clearly you are (very successfully) more compassionate and objective. As you say, there are many perspectives, and boy how easy it is to see the shortcomings in others' perspectives (insert your favorite "judge not" Biblical quote here).
I love the idea of taking the subjectiveness of our place in time and space and taking a few steps back to apply it to politics and social philosophy. For example, a man and a woman are riding on a train, the man is sitting in the seat in front of the woman. The train is travelling at 60 mph. The man reaches around to hand the woman a book. The book has to travel a mere 3 feet backwards to reach the woman's hand. If asked, the woman would unquestionably assert that the book only travelled 3 feet backwards to reach her. However, a third person standing on an embankment overlooking the tracks sees the entire transaction take place over a 6 second period. Such a person, if they could accurately measure what they perceived, would assert that the book had in fact travelled 1/10th of a (mile minus 3 feet) during those 6 seconds. Does it make sense to argue about this discrepancy? Surely not. Both are correct. How is it possible that they both can be correct? Because there is no Absolute Space - or rather, because we human beings cannot perceive Absolute Space. We are currently spinning around in massive eliptical arches at thousands of miles per hour. But yet if you are reading this you are probably sitting perfectly still.
This is not to say that there aren't many Truths that we can investigate and come to a reasonable conclusion about. Not at all. My point in raising the subject was to illustrate how approaching science with an a priori understanding (one that acknowledges all observations will be affected by, and will be different according to, the perspective from which they are observed) is similar to the way we should approach each other in political, social, and religious understanding - we all come from different perspectives. If we argue and focus on the perspective, we miss the point of the commonality - we miss the opportunity to come to terms with the only portion of the issue that we can in fact come to terms with.
The challenge we face, however, is an increasing force that pushes us to focus on the extreme sides of the perspectives issue, distracting our minds from the points of commonality. This force is fueld to a great degree by corporate media. At best, one can say they are driven by ratings - to the extent they can galvinize an audience by constantly hitting psychological pressure points, then they get a larger audience and a more economically successful industry. However, attributing lower motives to certain media groups, or the industry as a whole, can be done on the strength of compelling evidence.
Divide and conquer politics has been around longer than the Greek Phillip II of 4th century BC, who is said to have coined the phrase. By sowing diviseness, our political leaders and their corporate sponsors can more easily conquer the American people. Keep us quibbling and distracted over gay marriage, or better yet how to fight global terrorism, then they can waltz right by us, robbing us blind, destroying our ability to function as a productive economy, and destroying our credibility as a nation capable of leading the world in the areas of democracy and human rights.
For these reasons, it is essential that everyone on both sides of this issue always remembers to give that a priori benefit of the doubt - that is, that we all want the same thing: a peaceful, prosperous, terrorist-free world for our children. There are very good reasons of perspective that cause others to have different views from mine on this issue. It is certainly reasonable to believe that a strong, aggressive military will help us fight and reduce the threat of terrorism. It is also reasonable to believe that since terrorism functions much differently than the standing armies of nation states, that a different sort of offense and defense is necessary. This seems to me, in essence, to boil down the basic premises from which both sides operate and which should be granted allowance to each other from both sides.
Now, when it comes to the business of how to reconcile these approaches to a common, agreeable approach, we have to do the detail work of sifting through the facts. And the more we drill down into the details, the more objective and accepting we need to become in order to avoid pitfalls. But we also have to be firm in sticking to our "core values" - which should be truth, justice, compassion, etc. The true test of whether one has a core value of Truth is whether one can adjust his view and adapt when an uncomfortable truth arises that contradicts their prior conception. To be unshakeable in the face of truth, holding to the older less perfect truth (or blatant falsehood) can hardly be held out as a value to be had. That's called obstinacy, and it doesn't bring us any closer to God's will (remember, the Truth shall set you free).
And this is exactly what I was thinking about last night as I was laying down trying to drift off to sleep: that we progress and evolve through synthesis, as explained very nicely in other articles on this site. The pro-war and the anti-war need to synthesize their views to take the best that exist in both and reject the lesser.
As one standing on the anti-Iraq-war side (not blanketly anti-war), I would ask the pro-Iraq-war side to consider carefully the following hypothetical: Imagine if Bush and Cheney had come forward in late 2002, early 2003, and told us that the diplomats of the State Department, Generals of the Military, etc., are in agreement that despite the short-term value that may be achieved by an immediate forcible removal of Saddam, that the residual effects will be too costly to justify. We will loose the friendship and goodwill of nations that arose to help us after 9/11, we will drain our economy, millions of Iraqis will be harmed (killed, maimed, injured, displaced), and we will possibly demonstrate that despite the mighty armour of our military might we still have an Achilles heel (as all superpowers do) in that through force we cannot control a foreign nation that does not want to be controlled by us. This should be a fairly easy hypothetical to consider since it reflects the views of an overwhelming number of State Department and military leaders during the so-called "build up to war". Bush and Cheney could easily have said "We will take the fight to the terrorists. We will hunt them all down. We will thwart them and make it difficult to function. And we will continue to deal with containing Saddam and using the full strength of our non-military options to remove him." Had Bush and Cheney come with this approach, would they have been met with a massive uproar of millions and millions of Republicans and other right-of-center-people that demanded an invasion and overthrow of Saddam? In my humble opinion, No. They would have supported such an approach, applauded the Republican leadership, and gone about the business of fighting against gay marriage and the "myth" of climate change. It was this fundamental lack of determination to invade Iraq that moved this administration into lying in order to garner support for what we believe to be outrageously ill-conceived plans (sorry for the misstatement, there were literally no post-war plans). These are not issues of minor triviality. If so, then we have entered an era where the hope of an end justifies the mean, even if the end is not achieved. So much for core values.
That being said, I welcome those of the right to point out where I may be wrong and need to revise my understanding and approach. Hopefully, together we can synthesize a united approach that can stand in juxtaposition to the cynical abuse of power that both Democratic and Republican leadership exhibit on a daily basis. (yes, Democratic Party, don't think I'm in any way letting you guys off the hook).
Now all that being said, let's apply to a larger level: if there is anything that we as a country are doing wrong in the world, let us identify it and work to correct it. Let us not be an arrogant nation that does what it wants with impunity. Let us not be a nation that justifies its iniquities by saying that since terrorists are fighting against us we cannot be questioned. Suffering a terrorist attack does not give us carte blanche to do whatever we want. It should not prevent us from reflecting on how to improve and correct ourselves. If it does, then to a certain degree the terrorists have won part of the battle. Don't forget, they can destroy us by helping us destroy ourselves. Fear not that which can destroy the body, but rather that which can destroy the soul.

[Sailorcurt]

I can only truly speak for myself but I feel that my sentiments are shared by many others as well.

I don't think you are an evil person or that you don't care about, or hate America or the Military.

I don't hate you. But I think your philosophies are dangerously misguided...the emphasis on DANGEROUSLY.

That sense of danger is what makes this issue so contentious.

I don't know if you were fortunate enough to never have been bullied as a child...or perhaps you were the bully...but the lessons learned from that experience are important. Sometimes, people do bad things to you whether you deserve it or not.

Sometimes those people become leaders of nations and get their nations to do bad things to other nations or peoples whether they deserve it or not.

Ignoring the potential for violence that is an inherent part of human nature does not make it go away.

Ask those defenseless people being slaughtered in in number of places around the world if "peace" is the key. Ask them if "disengaging" is effective when they are being murdered en masse.

The absense of war is NOT peace. That is what you are advocating...the absence of war.

The argument may be made that our forefathers got us into this position through their interventionism. OK. Even if that's right. So what. We are where we are...wishing that the past hadn't occured doesn't make it so. We are where we are. We have nations and peoples who see us as "the great Satan" and want nothing more than to beat us or kill us into submission.

The absence of war is not peace. If we withdrew from Iraq and the rest of the world tomorrow, those people who want to kill us would still be there and would be free to plan, plot, and execute attacks against us...here...in our nations and cities rather than in Iraq and Falluja or Baghdad.

You felt a great sense of peace in your anti-war march by your own admission. How strongly would that feeling have been if the march had been interrupted by a car bomb or suicide bomber? Would you have still felt safe and serene then?

There are people out there who want to kill us and destroy our way of life. Pretending otherwise doesn't exempt us from the reality.

In my opinion, your position is better stated: "Give surrender a chance". Not on my watch. I have kids and grandkids to consider. To my last dying breath, surrender is not an option.

If you choose to interpret that stand as "hate", well, that's on you, not me.

"The fact that slaughter [battle] is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but [it does] not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms."
-- Carl von Clausewitz

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse."
--John Stuart Mill

"The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
--John Stuart Mill

[rayleus]

I agree that the issue of danger is what makes this debate so contentious. But I'm confused by some of the conclusions Sailorcurt reaches. I don't believe the article took as a premise that those who are pro-war hate the anti-war faction. I think he was trying to say that even if we hate the other's viewpoint, for our collective good and out of common decency we should not misdirect that hatred towards the individual people who are espousing the view - most of whom have good reasons to believe what they do, whether you agree with their conclusions or not. Of those I know that are against the Iraq War, an extreme few hold the extreme opinion that we should be total pacifists and not offer any armed resistance against those who attack us. To transfer that opinion automatically onto all who are against this war is way off the mark. Most of us simply want the cessation of unjustifiable attacks. We want a foreign policy that has a viable strategy behind it. You cannot invade a country with no adequate provocation and then when the people of that country fight back you say "Aha!! That's just the proof we needed! How could anyone question why we invaded you now after they see the way you've reacted to our invasion?" I certainly hope we're not giving in to the delusion that by being in Iraq we are acting as a magnet to attract terrorists from all over because they are drawn to us like a moth to a flame and this will prevent them from coming to sneak up on us the way they always have because they are already distracted and engaged in Iraq. That's poppycock. Iraq was never a large producer of terrorists, and all the terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, etc., who want to do us harm are not the least bit deterred by our so-called show of force in Iraq - even if they do put some of their energy into sowing more chaos in that troubled land.

Many of those who oppose the views propounded by Sailorcurt believe that to invade a country that has not attacked us purely on a pre-emptive "well, what if they did" premise is itself very DANGEROUS. In fact, it's unprecedented for a self-respecting, supposedly non-imperalistic country to do so. And it sets an extremely dangerous precedent in the world. Is that so hard to understand? Apparently it is, because few people want to address those issues. I personally don't see that attacking a country in and around the general vicinity where the terrorists live is a very good blow against terrorism, or a necessary one. (we know where the terrorists are - they are north, south, east and west of Baghdad - actually they're north, south, east and west of any given point on the globe, but hey . . .). It's like dropping a bomb on an apartment building where a known criminal lives, even if you know there's a good chance he's not even there. Collateral damage be damned. I don't see that a person who expresses doubt or who outright disputes the premise that attacking country B in retaliation for something that no citizen of country B even participated in is a miserable creature who has nothing worth fighting for. But then again, I don't watch Fox News, so how else would I be able to make such untenable connections?

As a matter of fact, many of these people who supposedly feel that nothing is worth fighting for are right at this very moment out fighting for something they believe in - the cessation of what they consider to be unjustifiable aggresion through violent conflict. Of course, they are (hopefully) not using violence to fight their cause. Why would anyone be so quick to assume that they believe nothing is worth defending with arms? They would not defend their family from a hostile intruder? Pretty big assumptions. Yet they are decried in statements such as in the above comment as having no concern of preservation for themselves, their children, or their country. That just ain't right.

When these are the types of issues that are being raised and need to be addressed, then we really have not even begun to communicate. We are still in the process of cleaning the weeds out of our heads so we can even begin to hear.

Of course there are many people, including whole governments, that want to do us harm. Does anyone really believe we can fight each one of them head on until the last man is left standing? Is that a good strategy? If the concerns expressed in the above comment are the real concerns, then why did we invade Iraq instead of North Korea? Is everyone who is currently against a North Korean invasion a lily-livered, flower-waving, unrealistic dreamer? Or is our situation a bit more complicated then the narrow-minded black and white views that are being shoved down our throats constantly in the media?

I see nothing in the general pro-iraq-war platform that to me adequately addresses the very serious issues I raise. I have been waiting and waiting. Many others feel the same way. I do not attribute weak moral fibre to those who oppose the view, although it would be easy to impugn some of the opposition by saying they simply have a lack of interest in facts and get an emotional satisfaction over seeing someone (anyone) pay for those horrible crimes that live ever in our memories. No. I know many people who oppose my views. Of those who oppose that I know well, I know they have none of these low motivations. But they also have not adequately addressed my points. If anyone can, I am open to changing my mind as appropriate on various issues. I hope that others in the opposition who come to the table are willing and interested in doing the same.

[jcs]

I am delighted to see this discussion unfold in a civil fashion, and I think commenters on both sides of the issue wrote articulately and persuasively. These conversations focused on the core issues instead of on personal attacks are a tremendous step forward in progress. We are, after all, all Americans (I think!) and if we can't treat one another with dignity and respect, then what the hell is it we're trying to export to the rest of the world?

Thanks to all of you for playing. Oh, and Marks, you can order the shirts here:

http://www.texansforpeace.org/Store_Tshirts.htm

[Sailorcurt]

My comment about not hating anyone was actually in response to a comment, not the post itself.

Basically, it seems that we simply disagree over what poses the greater danger.

History has demonstrated that to NOT act pre-emptively in the face of a threat is dangerous. As Walter Williams stated it: "here's the way I look at it. If you hate my guts and have designs to hurt me, and I see you building a cannon aimed at my house, I am not going to wait for you to finish construction."

The fact is that, during the "invasion" we expressly tried NOT to harm civilians because of the reasons you stated. We were successful in that endeavor to an unprecendented degree.

How many of the civilians killed in Dresden, or Nagasaki, or Hiroshima or Hanoi that were killed during those conflicts had anything to do with the policies or actions of their governments?

And now, after the successful conclusion of that part of the campaign, we are actively engaged in PROTECTING innocents against the terror tactics of the "insurgents"...who, by the way, have killed significantly more innocent Iraqi civilians than we did in overthrowing Saddam's regime.

Be that as it may, whether we "should have" attacked in the first place or not, we are now engaged. To attempt to disengage before the Iraqi people and government are ready to take over is surrender. Period. It means we lose. It means our enemies win. It means that our enemies are heartened and empowered to continue the fight. It means that we went in, destroyed the very structure that provided what safety and security there was for the Iraqi people and then abondoned them to their own devices.

We didn't do that after WWII. What is our exit strategy for getting troops out of Germany? We didn't do that after Korea. What is our exit strategy for getting troops off the DMZ?
We didn't do that after Yugoslavia. What is the exit strategy to get troops out of Serbia and Croatia?

Pretty much the only places that we HAVE done that were Vietnam and Somalia. We all know how well those turned out now don't we.

Whether we agree or disagree on the correctness of our being in Iraq is irrelavant.

We are there.

Surrender is not an option.

Either we fight this fight now and win it, or (in my humble opinion) our children and grandchildren will still be fighting the same fight years from now and it won't be in Baghdad and Falluja, it will be in Chicago and New York.

[rayleus]

The dilemma of what to do now that we are in the middle of this is certainly the heart of the debate at this point. But first let's look at the pre-emptive strike justification.

In Walter Williams' analogy, what are just actions one can take? Should the person who hates your guts and has designs to hurt you be killed? Or should they be prevented from building the cannon? How do you know they have designs to hurt you? What if his aggressive rhetoric towards you arises from your unconscionable enroachment upon his land? Is he serious or blowing smoke? Surely, we must agree that by applying this type of questioning to the Iraq situation that some sort of threat was there and they could not simply be ignored. However, compared to other neighbors in the neighborhood, Iraq represented someone who was fairly low on the list of those who seriously intend to hurt us and had any serious capability. They were far more of a threat to our friends in Israel, something that also could not be ignored. But in th example, what if your attack on the neighbor was based on someone's accidental or deliberately false statement to you that he was building a cannon when in fact he was only building a telescope?

According to your pre-emptive philosophy, Iraq itself would have been perfectly justified in attacking the U.S. first, based on the serious threatening rhetoric and capability of the U.S. Of course, drawing that obvious conclusion requires objectivity, the lack of which is probably the single biggest threat to humankind (one of the themes espoused on this site as a threat to peace). Instead of attacking us, the Iraqi people held out hope that world pressure would bring the invasion-clique to their senses, or at least contain their violent tendencies. They hoped we were simply blowing smoke and would not dare invade their country in the absence of true provocation. What do you think the next people who feel threatened by the U.S. will do? Strike first, ask questions later. Thus, we face perpetual cycles of people striking out over and over out of fear that if they don't strike first they will miss their chance.

As for what to do now, wasn't the "Mission Accomplished" back around 4 years ago? Orderly withdrawal under the banner of victory was always an option. Characterizing this as "losing" and "cutting and running" is another word-game tactic of the pro-war faction. Even now they fail to adequate explain what the criteria for withdrawal is. The Iraqi security forces must have adequate control of the country? We don't even have adequate control of the country. Instead of playing word-games of whether we lost or won (remember, "winning" was originally defined as removing Saddam), let's take a hard honest look at what we've already lost and what we clearly stand to lose by remaining. Many experts have been arguing for month on end that our very presence was the primary motivator in inciting violence. Those who now feel we need to stay in order to avoid being labeled as "losers" - who feel that somehow by throwing more of our young men and women into the middle of this massive problem we'll magically solve the Iraqi's internal problems - should carefully consider the situation. U.S. forces control an infinitessimal fraction of that country. We have decimated our military to the point that it will likely take years to recover - and we are relegated to small, super-reinforced fortresses. What makes us think that by remaining in these isolated strongholds and sending more troops that somehow the civil unrest will ever stop? And wait a minute: Aren't the people who now claim that chaos will escalate out of control if we withdraw the very same people who claimed that we would be greeted as liberators and showered with flowers? Would the war party leaders continue to listen to a bad stockbroker who's repeatedly failed them to the point of bankruptcy? (note: "war party" includes many Democrats).

The problem is that we frittered away the good will of the Iraqi people by our lack of dedication to restoring their infrastructure - the destruction of which was totally unnecessary! They have been on to our game for a long, long time now and many of them are so sick of it they are resorting to terroristic violence. Our presence has fanned the flames of conflict between the previously peaceful Sunni and Shia. Many Iraqis prefer that we just leave, and believe that only after we do leave they can get down to the business of setting their country right. Don't they get a say in this matter?

Unfortunately, in my opinion, we entered that country from day 1 with a specific design to Balkanize it. Destroy the infrastructure to debilitate the people, make them more dependent on us, make them indebted to us for our rebuilding efforts (of course, assign all the reconstruction contracts to the "friends and family" corporate clique), and keep them weak and under more easily under control through the divide and conquer program of sowing fear and anger between the Sunni and Shia factions, leading to the establishment of smaller nation states that are PRESUMABLY easier to control and pit against each other. There is ample evidence that this was a key objective of this war and that despite feigning "not having a plan", the chaos and destruction we've been witnessing WAS actually the plan all along. I'd be happy to go into more detail on this issue should anyone be interested.

I find it a totally preposterous claim that the Iraqis who are attacking us now in the streets of Baghdad would somehow have EVER ended up on the streets of our cities and attacking us if we had never invaded their country. That is an incredibly hollow and lame justification for ravishing the country of a people the vast majority of whom held no negative view of us prior to our invasion. It is just another empty mantra piled upon us by the propagandists who work feverishly to control American thought. How long will we tolerate this concerted effort to prevent us from thinking discriminately? Why didn't we funnel all our focus and energy into routing out terrorists cells around the world?

The "What to Do Now" strategy is inextricably linked to the "Why are We Even Here" question. I think we need to seriously consider all legitimate options, take a very discriminating look at the situation, and advise those who led us into this ditch that they no longer have a seat at the table of debate. They should save their whimsical, pie-in-the-sky outlook for people that are interested in rhetoric and not results. I'm not against discussing the legitimate concerns of withdrawal in the current state of affairs. But when I see no serious attempt to address the concerns of Americans, Iraqis, and other people of the world who see our occupation as the main problem, then it simply smacks of more of the same shallow obstinacy that the right has somehow managed to convince many of us as being a core value.