I was reading James Wolcott's blog (
http://jameswolcott.com/). He quotes William Lind, who's a theorist on "Fourth generation warfare".
As a part of this, he makes the point that it is actually a sign of disfunction and possibly impending crisis in America that there is no political opposition to the war in America. By political opposition, I mean not the 300,000+ people who just gathered in Washington DC, but instead the lack of substantial opposition from the supposed "oppostition party"... aka the Democrats.
From reading this, it would sound that it is imperative for the health and stability of the American political system for the Democrats to start opposing this war.
The quotes in the extended entry.
From Wolcott. The link in his blog for this part goes to ...
http://www.antiwar.com/lind/?articleid=7375
Lind quotes perceptive comments from journalist Georgie Anne Geyer (once a regular on PBS, she has been largely invisible on the airwaves since becoming an outspoken critic of Imperial America) and former ambassador Charles W. Freeman. Quoting Geyer--"More telling was the lack of debate even in Congress over the war: 'This is not,' [Freeman] averred strongly, "just a political problem; it is a systemic breakdown in America"--Lind hammers the point home:
"That is just what Fourth Generation opponents strive for, a systemic breakdown in their state adversary. The danger sign in America is not a hot national debate over the war in Iraq and its course, but precisely the absence of such a debate - which, as former Senator Gary Hart has pointed out, is largely due to a lack of courage on the part of the Democrats. Far from ensuring a united nation, what such a lack of debate and absence of alternatives makes probable is a bitter fracturing of the American body politic once the loss of the war becomes evident to the public. The public will feel itself betrayed, not merely by one political party, but by the whole political system.
"The primum mobile of Fourth Generation war is a crisis of legitimacy of the state. If the absence of a loyal opposition and alternative courses of action further delegitimizes the American state in the eye of the public, the forces of the Fourth Generation will have won a victory of far greater proportions than anything that could happen on the ground in Iraq. The Soviet Union's defeat in Afghanistan played a central role in the collapse of the Soviet state. Could the American defeat in Iraq have similar consequences here? The chance is far greater than Washington elites can imagine."