Terry McCarthy, ABC News (Baghdad), talked with Charlie Rose last night about some important things.

He reminded us that the worst thing about the invasion of Iraq is that it destroyed the most secular society in the Middle East (after Turkey, which aspires to be European), and that before the war people didn't even know whether their neighbors were Sunni or Shiite. A third of all marriages were mixed. Iraq under Sadaam was despotic, all right, but it kept Iran firmly in check, just as we, with Gulf War sanctions, kept Sadaam in check.

He said that while 78% of Iraqis oppose the occupation, they are schizophrenic about it, because only 35% want us to leave before peace is attained. And if we do leave before then, we will see "ethnic cleansing such as we have never seen before."

He said things are falling apart now. Maliki fired the Sunni generals who suppressed Shiite militias, so now the Sunnis don't trust Maliki at all and consequently no deals can currently be made. And even Gen. Petraeus has told everyone from Bush on down that all he can do is keep things relatively together while the necessary settlement deals are made.

It is supremely ironic that the war's top soldier has to remind all the politicians what needs to happen now: a massive diplomatic effort, just as the Iraq Study Group called for six months ago.

The deal Democrats should be proposing with Bush is that they will give him his money for the war if he goes public with a sincere embrace of the ISG Report and commits to massive diplomacy. The half-measures announced thus far are piddling compared to the need.

Yes, there is a great deal of evidence that Oswald acted alone (if you don't count the money he apparently got from the Cubans on his trip to Mexico in September 1963). Peter Jennings, a reporter I respected, so concluded in an ABC documentary that corrected some misinformation from the conspiracy theorists.

And yet. . . there is the Zapruder film. It showed, unforgettably, that the last shot knocked Kennedy's head "back, and to the left," in the mantra of Oliver Stone's movie, "JFK". So far back and so far to the left, with his brains and skull section shooting out behind, with his wife climbing out onto the back of the limo to go after them, that it is just counterintuitive to believe that that shot came from anywhere else but the front, and to the right.

But the FBI did tests using melons that showed that the internal physics of the skull would respond that way with a shot Oswald could have made. And, Kennedy's head was inclined down and forward when that shot came because of the first one that pierced his throat. And there was no entry wound from the front. These are points Jennings did not make, and many have forgotten.

Until someone goes over those last five seconds of Kennedy's life in such forensic detail as to make "CSI" fans drop their jaws in awe, the Zapruder image will linger in the minds of millions.

Back and to the left, back and to the left, back and to the left. . . .

It just amazes me that it takes our so-called journalistic media so long to catch on to what is happening before their eyes. Their failure of competence continues. Salon is not exempt.

Bush is NEVER going to leave Iraq. The central goal of neocon dogma is perpetual occupation of Iraq, and domination of the region, and thus protection of Israel, with a permanent army. That was the plan since the white paper of 1996 drawn up by PNAC, the neocon group that became the core of Bush's defense establishment upon his election.

To accomplish that goal, it is essential that our military presence be needed. That means that reconciliation of the civil conflict is not really important, not even desirable, at least as long as it doesn't cost a lot of American lives. And we've only lost 3000 or so in four years of war. We lost more than that the first day on Guadalcanal.

So just keep your eye on the ball. Nothing the Bushies say means anything but "we're not leaving." Trace the events as this article does, and that's what all those statements mean. "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." But the Iraqis know that if they don't stand up, the Americans won't stand down, meaning they don't have to do the fighting and spending, so guess what: The growing Iraqi army can't fight. How do we know that? Bush or his stooges tell us so.

I predicted earlier that we would have to leave because we were running out of troops. I did not foresee that Bush was willing to cannibalize his own troops, by extending combat time in violation of our own guidelines so as to guarantee psychological harm, and by redeploying reservists and national guard far beyond any previous plan for their commitment. Our army could not defend the U.S. from an attack by Canada, let alone Mexico.

But the timing will work out. Just as America becomes defenseless, Bush will leave office and the Republicans will blame the disaster on the Democrats.

Why would he continue this failed plan to such a bitter end? It is faith-based. Bush, Cheney and the other neocons believe that the magic will work eventually.

But like some preachers of the gospel, they have to do a lot of lying in the meantime.