OK. You are among the 50% of the population who realized that invading Iraq was a stupid thing to do before we did it. You watched in amazement as your views were marginalized in the media and in Washington as the phony case for war was made 24/7 in the most shameless manner imaginable. You've watched as the completely predictable nightmare unfolded. You saw Karl Rove and his reptiles use the bloody shirt to win back the Senate in 02 and after the shooting started he managed to heave his boy across the finnish line in the bloodiest Republican re-election campaign since 1972.
You've spoken out, you've tried to convince everyone who would listen that this crazy scheme would end in grief. You've tried to see past the Pentagon propaganda, and the happy talk from the delusional bastards in the White House. And finally, as Iraq has descended into a living hell, as even the corporate media has been forced to begin to refer to its current state as civil war and three quarters of the public now realizes the folly of the enterprise we await salvation in the form of James Baker and the Iraq Study Group. The last exit ramp for George Bush on the road to hell. A life-line once again thrown to the 'ner do well son. Only this time, it isn't some dirt bag oil drilling company in Texas. Its the United States of America. And it looks like this time, the son has decided that he's not going to take that leg up.
He's gonna lock himself in his room and turn up the stereo.
Here's the deal, constitutionally, there is only one way that he can be stopped if he digs in his heals and insists on taking us all down with him. Responsible people in the Congress have only one tool to stop the madness. That is to cut off funding for the war. Of course the partisan Republicans in Congress, those who are more interested in gaining an advantage in the 08 elections than serving their country, will immediately characterize this as "abandoning the troops in the field". Which is untrue, because such a cut-off could be crafted in such a way to avoid such a thing unless Bush intentionally causes it. But no matter, they will certainly characterize it as such. And therefore the fear of this political weapon, this assault will probably be enough to prevent the Democrats in Congress from using the only tool they have to stop the madness.
That is where we, the people come in. It is up to us to make the political cost of not doing this, the cost of inaction, greater than the potential cost of having the Republicans make this charge against them. This will take a level of effort that we so far have not managed to demonstrate. But, morally, we must. The alternative is to do what Bush obviously wants to do. That is to limp along with the status quo, killing about 100 of our people a month for the next two years and leaving the problem for the next President to deal with simply because he is too cowardly and too arrogant to admit to himself and to the world the magnitude of the mistake he has made. And that is the best case scenario. That assumes that things aren't going to get radically worse. A very bad assumption in my view.
So, all of you who think that with the election of a Democratic Congress and the work of the Iraq Study Group that things are coming to a close and the hard work is done, guess again. We are going to have to get organized and focussed. There are lots of lives at stake. And nothing, absolutely nothing is going to change without a massive amount of political pressure.