It's called "blow-back"

...and it is by far the most costly aspect of this mistaken war, - though it is also the hardest to quantify. Our arrogance, our insistence on dominance, and our transparently false claims that we wanted only to bring them "freedom", have sown a hatred for our country such as the world has never before seen. Our children's children will have to fear the terrorists that we are creating right now in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Pakistan, Syria, Iran and on an on. Never forget that the day after 9/11, in Iran, ordinary citizens gathered in vigils in the streets to pay homage to our fallen. Such an outpouring of empathy with us may never come again. We've squandered lives and treasure, but that's the least of it. We've blackened our nation's honor, lost all our friends, and created our own worst nightmare.

look at WHY they want to end this war

Perhaps I'm naive, but it disturbs me that republican "elder statesmen" are now urging Bush to end the war on purely political grounds. The only disaster they're able to see, or communicate to him, is the disaster for their party. But the catastrophe for our country, for generations to come, they remain blind to. They don't acknowledge the fallen troops. or the half-a-million Iraqis killed. or the danger of "blow-back" terrorism. or the damage to our alliances. or the bankrupting of our treasury. It's just, "Save our party, Mr. President".

One small silver lining in this neoConservative nightmare...

...is that the public at large has been confronted with the full implications of "faith-based" reasoning, and pure, cussed, intellectual stubbornness. Our president epitomizes the mindset of non-thought, non-curiosity, and non-communication - a type of religiocity that literally threatens the future of humanity. He's more alike to Osama Bin Laden than he is different from him. As we legitimately worry about Islamic extremists, and their fervid desire to impose Sharia Law (sp?) upon us all, it's helpful to have in front of us, right here at home, the icon of fundamentalist thinking, and self-righteous unreality.

Could it happen here?

Many highly visible right-wing talking heads and politicians have made statements that equate calling for an end to the war with treason. That's the unsubtle meaning of "cut and run". Cheney claimed that anti-war groups are doing the bidding of "al Qaeda types". Anne Coulter, the right's most popular pundit, "joked" that Howard Dean was in the top fifty Al Qaeda terrorists. Police departments across the country have infiltrated peace groups under the patriot act, and people who have participated in peace marches have been put on the terrorist watch list. Animal rights monkey-wrenchers were given long jail times under new sentencing guidelines for terrorism, even though they had been careful NOT to threaten human safety. The US "Drug Czar" has called marijuana growers "terrorists". http://www.redding.com/news/2007/jul/13/drug-czar-gives-warning/ The President has asked for and received broadened powers to declare martial law entirely on his own authority. Many believe he has the means and the willingness to create events which would justify that declaration. And if you're STILL not concerned… Haliburton got a half-billion dollar contract from Homeland Security to build prison camps here in the US. The camps are to be used "to support the rapid development of new programs". http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/04/national/04halliburton.html?ex=1296709200&en=01728da2eba059e4&ei=5088&partner=rss

I supported the invasion

Flame this public confession if you must, but I am one who supported the invasion. I figured Bush and Co knew things about Iraqi nukes that I couldn't know. I knew the war would go badly, and that we would inflame hatred and increase terrorism. But the short-term imperative of disarming Iraq trumped other considerations. I believed Bush for two reasons: 1.) If he was lying, so I thought, his administration would crumble the moment the lie came to light. And 2.) NOBODY would lie about nuclear weapons... would they?

Four years and half-a-million deaths later, I am determined to bring and end to this catastrophic mistake, and to hold those lying SOBs to account. A NY Times editorial today called for the US to leave Iraq "without furhter delay". They're a bunch of hypocrites. But I thank them for their editorial.

SICKO is NOT about health-care!

It's much bigger than that. Moore is only using the health-care issue as the means to force attention to America's degrading national moral character - our incessant focus on the "me" rather than the "we", and especially our penchant to believe that the American people and the American "way of life" are superior to every other. Confronted with our empty arrogance, the audience last night howled with laughter and surprise. What else could we do?

This movie, as well as Gore's "Assault on Reason", and Carter's "Our Endangered Values" mark the beginning of the Left's return to broader questions of moral values and our move away from identity politics. Over the last 30 years, in our struggle to assure equality for women, minorities, and gays, we have made it appear that "me-ism" rules supreme as much to us as it does to those on the Right.

Our empathy, our commitment to the common good, and our humble willingness to search our souls forms the core our 100-year-old Progressive Movement. In that larger context, the necessity of equal treatment for all becomes self-evident. Folks, we are the moral majority!

Assume the impeachment nay-sayers are right . . .

Even if impeachment will never happen, it is an essential national service to demand that Bush be impeached - right up to his last day in office. Our unwavering demand lets the world see the moral distinction between America's people, and the powers that govern us. The impeachment movement gives those nations who used to be our allies reason to hope and to wait, and it gives the moderates of Islam reason not to become terrorists. Simply to demand that this president be held accountable - no matter the odds - is an act of moral courage and moral cleansing.

Support impeachment.

According to the papers...

"Congressional Republicans are increasingly voicing dissatisfaction with the course of the Iraq war."

There is something about that word "dissatisfaction" that just burns me. ..."dissatisfaction"? It's a f#cking catastrophe, you idiots! And the folks on the Right know it. They understand that we are nearly friendless among nations, that the treasury is bankrupt, that the ranks of the terrorists have swelled a thousand-fold, and that the entire Middle-East is careening off a cliff! Nice work.

glad they're finally "dissatisfied".

The number of potential terrorists is infinite

Since 9/11, the foundational neoConservative myth has been that there are a finite number of terrorists, and that we can "win" the "global war on terrorism" simply by killing every last one of them. Bin Ladin and his ilk recognize that such a simple-minded and idiotic belief has the potential to bring down the entire western world. As Donald Rumsfeld himself admitted: "We are making enemies faster than we can kill them." And no wonder! What do we expect when we kill half-a-million Iraqis?! Moderate feelings towards us?!

The key to finally unravel support for the war, and for destruction of our liberty, is to expose the obviously false idea upon which the entire neoConservative argument depends:
that the number of terrorists is finite.