“The knuckle-dragging and/or pantywaist wingnuts and neocons appear to still believe in this war at face value, i.e. for its supposed ability and intention of promoting "freedom" and "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here", blah blah blah. These people are stupid and/or delusional beyond belief and anyone who engages them in serious debate is effectively as stupid and/or delusional as they are.”

You thoughts in this post superbly summed up what most war/neocon haters/bloggers have been saying in bits and pieces. I hope you are posting it in as many blogs as you can. I agree that seriously debating these nuts and hoping that you would have any chance of opening their minds is delusional. That doesn’t mean that we should shun all of their tactics.

As difficult as it is for liberals/leftists/Dems/libertarians to agree on anything, we do need to adopt a mantra for those whose minds can still be opened whether in the M$M, military, government, congress and public on why hoping a doomed-to-fail-before-it started war can’t succeed without paying a terribly unfair price. If we paid that price, would there be any “winning.” Left?

Our ACTUAL best and brightest would be even more effective if they unified their efforts through a coordinated, well thought out plan to reach minds that can influence those on the right who still value a democratic, humane role for our country.

I swore off ever again responding to shooter and his ilk because their minds are closed. I know yours isn’t and I believe that there is one withdrawal plan that I support and that senator Joe Biden has enunciated for over a year- federalized decentralization and partition. It is the best of the worst and the only one that could work if the U.N. and neighboring countries would support it. If it did significantly reduce the civil war, we would also need a Marshall-like plan to have any chance of making up for what we have done to the Iraqi people and infrastructure.

American ignorance, arrogance and and love of winning comprise the disease and why accurate and professional observers like Glenn find so much wrong with our government and culture and unfortunately, of those ill from the disease, many don’t or can’t realize they are sick.

Here’s some of the kind of winning thinking that plagues Americans and America and all of us “liberal” commenters could add many more:

I’m a winner, America is a winner, Christians and Jews are winners, the M$M are winners, our balance of power trilogy of government is a winner, our two-party election system is a winner, our candidates who honor pollsters and attack opponents with untruths are winners, our intellectual scholarship particularly in foreign policy is a winner, our any complex problem has a simple solution mindset is a winner, our capitalistic dog-eat-dog winner take all is a winner, the position of president is a winner regardless of who is holding the position is a winner, our best in the world military is a winner, our wounded and dead are hero winners.

Competition when it is a zero sum game diseases the winners and losers. We love combat on the football gridiron until there is a serious injury and then we rationalize that when you play the game you assume the risk of injury or even death.

Now transfer that thinking to Iraq and low and behold, you get millions of displaced, hundreds of thousands of deaths, emboldened Jihadists, a civil war that unleashes centuries of revenge and a game that can’t end because then you have to accept the consequences and admit you are a loser- not a winner.

Would we have let this Iraq tragedy happen if we had the foresight to understand we have become an empire with a mentally ill emperor and advisors who love to watch their gladiators kill the philistines and terrorize the spectators?

The drug to combat this illness is simple. Cultivate the value of learning to love ourselves, open minds, humility, love of learning, love of nature and humanity, give up the need to have to put someone down so that you can build yourself up and learn that the true value of competition is to challenge yourself and honor your competitors.