It's easy to see why the Congressional Democrats are wimping out on Iraq -- they opposed the 1990 war and came out looking like . . . wimps. They had justification then, because we shouldn't be fighting wars over oil and reinstating feudal monarchs without the full commitment of the UN a la Korea. But people remember only the glorious success, and also the fact that Saddam ended up on a short leash, which clearly was good. Still, Democrats should never apologize for being conservative about going to war.

Yet when Republicans now use the labels that Nixon was putting on Democrats during Vietnam, Democrats lose sleep over it.

The nastiest line is, "Your criticism is costing American lives and endangering America." It's a purely fascist argument, but unless responded to, it tends to stick with a lot of people, particularly the stupid ones. They still vote.

I used to run into that kind of stuff in private conversations with Republicans all the time (though lately most are meekly silent). And I always responded, "It's the price of democracy, and you will never escape it, ever. You guys used to do it when you were isolationists, and you were right to give voice to those sentiments. And if you now have a war policy that you can't have near-unanimous support for, that's a war we should not be in. So shut up with the 'surrender monkey' stuff and start talking sense."

Democrats should also point to the main failure in the Iraq adventure -- loss of control of Afghanistan. When the Taliban sponsored 9/11, I said, Bomb those raghead mo-fo's further back into the Stone Age than they already are, invade, and keep a gun pointed at them till they shape up. I was for not giving sovereignty back until all the women were in miniskirts and there was a McDonald's and liquor store near every major intersection in the country, there was a big Afghan army under central command that was pro-West, and all the Taliban were either re-educated, neutralized or in concentration camps. They attacked us. We had the right. Now that we have blown that country off, it is once again the base of anti-American terrorist forces.

It would be helpful if Congressional Democrats could develop a party-wide consensus on a policy for ending the war. The Iraq Study Group Report would, I think, get the job done with unassailable bipartisan credentials behind it. It's the easiest way of isolating the neocons and shaming their surrogates in Congress, drawing more Republican support, and moving quickly to appropriate action.

But if they don't get tough on this in some fashion, it is just as Perlstein says -- 2008 is already in jeopardy.

I appreciate Ken Kaplan's quote in his comment here of Perle's earlier denunciation of international law.

The public has not paid close attention to the fact that the neocons have repudiated and ignored every rule and institution of international law in favor of the American Empire under the Commander in Chief acting in open disregard of our Constitution and Congress.

That hasn't been completely successful because we still have a huge bureaucracy charged by law with following most rules of international law, and a huge international business community which depends on their smooth operation. But when it comes to throwing our weight around as the Planetary Bully in Chief, no rule is too sacred for the neocons and their Leader.

And in pressing their cause, they have made the most dangerous area of the world much more dangerous, have alienated dozens of nations and billions of people, and have made our prospects in the world riskier. We scare people. And people don't like to be scared. They want peace and prosperity. And they are not without peaceful power.

If all our debtors decided to use the euro rather than the dollar, we would become just the biggest and best-armed banana republic on earth. That would solve the immigration problem, though -- our economy would be on an equal footing with Mexico.

So we need to remember the history of what these maniacs said and did. They need to be confronted with their words and their mistakes, and forced by moral suasion to admit how catastrophicaly wrong they were. And we then need to try not to repeat those mistakes, ever.

Democrats are world champions at wasting advantage and power. They could end the war if they formed a solid policy, but instead Bloviator Biden and other senior Democrats are going off on their own like a starburst.

They can't stop the surge, it's already too late, but they can stop the war and get us out by supporting the Iraq Study Group Report; thanks, cwnidog, I agree completely. And doing so will make it much harder for Republicans not to come on board, leaving McCain and Lieberman, and a few other Bush lackeys, to support the fantasy.

That makes it easier to get past the Permanent Filibuster. As to that, Democrats should give a weekly Filibuster Report, and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee should make every Republican up in 2008 answer to his/her record of stopping bill after bill after bill.

And maybe a Fristian "nuclear option" may be in order, or at least a return to the oppressive rules so recently imposed by the Republicans when they ran things.