all that stuff they can't tell us about... even if/when all those scared-shitless scenarios fail to come to pass ... and that I think a fair amount of "koolaid drinking" is de rigeur.

I don't trust the our intelligence apparatus to provide a "fair and balanced" assessment to our lawmakers. It willl be skewed to support the administration's goals ... and I think it takes genuine courage and intellectual depth to disregard their breathless "lives are at stake" warnings and worst case scenarios and/or seek other sources of information, other points of view.

I suspect most of our congresscritters have less cynicism about "the system" than you or I. They know it's flawed but likely genuinely believe "the system works."

The obviousness of how much the system doesn't work is all around us, see Iran/Contra for the original worse-than-Watergate

at the outset, Saddam freed his troops from any obligation to defend himself or Iraq ... it was a remarkable, compassionate act.

So much of our truly horrendous treatment and neglect of the Iraqi people since the fall of Saddam has REQUIRED an enemy and no end to "combat" ... Doesn't it really strain credibility that 4 years later we still claim to not know who's the "enemy" and who's not?

We are and have been in perpetual violation of international laws regarding the responsibilities of the occupying force ...

This "war" fiction (in which there is no recognized civilian populations, no "noncombatants", and everyone is a candidate to become collateral damage, where we are calling in aerial raids on baghdad NEIGHBORHOODS) is for DOMESTIC CONSUMPTION.

This is all part and parcel of the war crimes being committed ... the whole world is watching ... it's only Americans who are successfully being duped here.

because they are "supporting" the troops ...

I don't think this is a "what does defunding mean?" issue so much as "do we have to argue about everything/turn everything into a political football, even funding the troops?" I suspect for most people it's like making sure your kids have enough to eat and decent clothes to wear to school and school supplies ...

Bush's description of this as "political theatre" probably rang a bell for a lot of people not interested in something that was largely a non-starter ... assuming, correctly, that no one would really "abandon" our troops without a pot to piss in in that hellhole. There may even be some people who don't want this last-ditch "surge" denied a "fair chance"...

The Democrats in congress can fuck this up and have significant numbers of people turn against them if they're not careful. In this, disappointing as these various "retreat" statements may be, they are probably necessary to "live to fight another day" -- much as I hate to say it.

Yes, as myths go, the myth that could have or would have "won" in Vietnam "if only" has had an amazing gestation .... and is part of why even people who supported the war -- up to and including the 1970s -- now claim to have been "against" the war because we weren't fighting it "right"...

As I recall at the time, in frustration, the hardliners were quite seriously proposing using limited nuclear weapons after our mightly arsenal and a decade of casualties had failed to "pacify" those pesky peasants.

and, yes, we had a draft then ....

Even fully manned, pacifying Iraq would be next to impossible and/or involve unacceptable/illegal measures ...

Those armchair warriors love to pipe dream don't they? At leasti it keeps them occupied and off the streets.

this has always been a "fool's errand" with almost zero chance of success (given the neighborhood, given the history, given .... )

The history of "regime change" is one of "unintended consequences" and blowback ... Two or 300 hundred years ago, we might have openly attempted to colonize Iraq (which in many ways is exactly what we are trying to do now) ... but those tactics were brutal then and unacceptable now and times have changed ...

In Vietnam we were trying to maintain post-colonial status quo against a popular liberation front ...

These are VERY different conflicts but both, imho, were doomed to failure for much the same reasons, foremost, it's not "our" country, it belongs to "them"

and is part of why we "can't leave" ...

this includes "protecting the rights" of the Sunnis and rolling back de-bathification, which I suspect are Saudi demands ... Much of our dissatisfaction with Maliki is based, I think, on his failing to help us meet Saudi demands -- national reconciliation, I believe we call it.

It been interesting to me how often violent acts are not identified by the their obvious sectarian sponsors ... often Sunni ... I think both sides (or all 3 sides, if you make the Salafi a third party) are using hidden IEDs on the roadways .. but the gigantic car bombs have targetted Shiia civilians ... and Shiia have seemingly been responsible for the wholesale kidnapping and murder (and torture) of, I would presume, Sunni civilians.

We condemn Iranian assistance to the Shiia and turn a blind eye on Saudi assistance to the Sunni ...

So much dishonesty ... so much subterfuge ...

God only knows how much Saudi influence is involved in our "Iranian crisis" ... though we hear all too often that we are acting as Israel's cats paw.

granted it was written before 09/11. 09/11 was a godsend, an opportunity to move forward. It's chilling in it's naked intent ... very goldwater-eseque ... "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" ... a super-patriotic, "nation-saving" godzilla manifesto.

PNAC - Project for a New American Century -- Neocon manifesto.