I need one person @ UT,

to dispense fat-weight loss advice.

Amputate Shooter's head.

Actually, I'm quite aware of the role of American oil companies in the Middle East, specifically in the early part of the 20th century. Bad policy, supporting their efforts, on our government's part, absolutely. And I would totally support the splitting up of Iraq into its constituent ethnic regions (I assume you would too, given your point about how it was created as an unworkable single state for the benefit of oil interests).

However.

I don't support leaving American troops there. If the Iraqi people end up splitting the country up, or fighting an intractable civil war, or electing a representative government, or living under a new Shi'ite theocracy, or living under a new dictatorship, or WHATEVER, that is their future, and their problem. I would pull our forces out tomorrow if it were up to me, wish the Iraqis well, and bid them adieu.

As a matter of fact, if I were in charge, my "new Apollo mission for the 21st century" would be fast-tracking ALL alternatives to oil consumption so that we could pull out of the Middle East ASAP, share that technology with all interested foreign countries, and hopefully within a few years send the Middle East back into a pre-oil economy. See how long those governments last then, without the oil money teat they've been suckling off of for the past 100 years or so. The region's decent into irrelevance would be a joy to watch.

Isn't it funny, how the republicans rant about Democrats "wanting to raise taxes?" I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard that; I'd be talking ship-to-shore if I did. You see, Thomas, when the republicans are in power they trim taxes, especially for the well-off. That lets them invest the dough (it says here). Think of all that "liquidity" Uncle Greenspan provided from 2001 until 2007; did any of it end up in the pockets of the "man on the street?" Anyway, back to brass bal___, er, tax: when the r's are "in" a LOT gets left undone, like infrastructure, health care, education, helping veterans of the economic wars they start, etc., etc. So WHEN THE DEMOCRATS GET "IN," WHAT IN HEAVEN'S NAME CAN THEY DO? THERE IS SO MUCH OVERHANG OF UNFUNDED NEEDS THEY HAVE NO CHOICE? When and how does this reality ever seep into Joe Six-Pack's -- er -- thinking??!

There's WMD in Iraq! The people support us staying the curse -- oops! course. We'll get out when we're asked. The sun rises in the south. No; the south is gonna rise again. We're headed south. Am I confused? Or deaf? Are you?

that it's better for their young men (and women) to lie around the house, eating up all the food in the refrigerator (or worse, doing what Portnoy did to his family's liver dinner) and not cutting the grass or weeding the garden, and then sneaking off at night to have sex with their slutty girlfriends, and wasting gas and wrecking the family car into the bargain? Americans believe that kind of behavior is better than joining up and making a man and a mensch and an officer and a gentleman and going and throwing some shitty little Arab country up against the wall and telling them to "suck on this"?

No, I don't believe it! Furdermore, what about the guys already over there? They should come home with no victory!!?!? Victorious interruptus you would give them?

I'm sorry, but those must have been outlieing left-wing polls.

Besides, if they stop the War, we will all lose our jobs!!

You can't go on TV and say Americans don't want War! Not wanting war makes you a draft-dodging, cowardly, America-hating, HIV-positive HIPPIE!

Do you really think they should go on TV and insult their audience? Not gonna happen.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, 'the American people', as in the sentence, 'I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.'

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words 'the American people' provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

-Harold Pinter

There is a creepy average, in the 30s, in these polls, of people who still support the war and continuing American military presence in Iraq. It is an unfortunate tribute to the propaganda waged by the Bush Administration and its enablers, but it also speaks to how stubbornly uninformed these folks are. Of course, none of them read Salon, much less the author's works.

Hey, if you know them, you've go to beat some sense into them. There is too much at stake.

and it won't be going away. He is the presumptive nominee because he hugged up to the left wing of the Democratic Party. They wanted "pure" left, right down to a virgin on the Iraq war. Clinton's vote made her "unpure" in their eyes. Of course, the were NEVER happy with the Clintons anyway.

Obama has been flip-flopping so much since last year that's it hard to figure out where he really stands and what is written on his teleprompter for political convenience. He has pissed off the left-wing with his now "refinement" comment about visiting Iraq and "refining" his position on Iraq. The left-wing wants our troops out NOW. Not in a year. Not when it's responsible to do so. Not when the Iraqi government suggests. Now. If Obama goes back on that, there will be hell to pay in the Party. (Like there isn't enough hell to go around right now!)

Obama has also been less than honest about FISA, partial-birth abortion, and any number of other issues important to the left-wing, and many "centered" Americans. He is not looking like the "new" or "turn the page" candidate anymore. He's looking remarkably like every other political opportunist.

Should Obama fool some of the people some of the time this November, he will not fool all of the people all of the time. He will be a one-term wonder who happened to make history before he went off to make himself richer.