Reid and Pelosi and commentators like Colbert and Stewart are getting many plaudits for presenting the arguments for withdrawing from Iraq. Meanwhile, McCain and other Republicans argue for just one more push and the word "defeatism" emerges as a slap across the face of all those advocating any other policy.
The battle of words is becoming fiercer. The American and British people respond to these arguments but are mainly being persuaded by the number of their young men and women who are either not ever coming home or who are coming home maimed, injured and mentally scarred for life.
The arguments go back and forth, statistics are exchanged and distorted to serve arguments. Stiff, obdurate military leaders speak their piece of never accepting defeat and patriotism is appealed to, whilst the distress of mothers who have lost their sons and daughters are put on display and returning vets parade their opposition.
Yet few dare speak the underlying truth of what is the greatest reason for withdrawal. To do so questions the nature of the country that your nation and mine has become.
I am prompted by these thoughts by reading today the article from the ever-excellent McClatchy Newspapers on the sleight of hand being exercised by Bush in presenting the statistics of violent incidents in Baghdad.
U.S. officials exclude car bombs in touting drop in Iraq violence
U.S. officials who say there has been a dramatic drop in sectarian violence in Iraq since President Bush began sending more American troops into Baghdad aren't counting one of the main killers of Iraqi civilians.
Car bombs and other explosive devices have killed thousands of Iraqis in the past three years, but the administration doesn't include them in the casualty counts it has been citing as evidence that the surge of additional U.S. forces is beginning to defuse tensions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
By excluding these increasing forms of violence, and only referring to the statistics of bodies discovered resulting from sectarian death squads, the administration is able to inform their people that there is evidence that the surge is working in Baghdad.
Lies are now the norm. They permeate every official statement. They come fast and furious and are almost impossible to pick up and counter. It is now accepted as legitimate debate; the stuff of our politics.
The dramatic and deeply moving testimony of two such fine and erudite young people as Kevin Tillman and Jessica Lynch got their half day of fame. They moved in and out of our consciousness. Not just in the mainstream media but on our blogs like Huffington Post and Raw Story, where the headlines about the lies lasted just a few hours only, before they were replaced by the latest rant about some shock jock or statement by a presidential primary candidate. Replaced by our political equivalents of "white girl goes missing" and "celebrity goes into rehab".
It is not this, however, that compels me to write. It is buried in a single sentence in the McClatchy article:
Nearly all of that decline, however, can be attributed to a drop in executions, most of which were blamed on Shiite Muslim militias aligned with the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
McClatchy is concerned with pointing out that the statistics used by Bush are distorted. It cannot for its survival as a news medium point out the underlying shame of this sentence. They cannot point it out because it is the shame of our nations. McClatchy know that the people of our nations will not accept this mirror being held before them.
The executions that have so conveniently declined are a result of a reduced killing by the government that we support. The death squads that handcuff and shoot civilians in these sectarian killings are our death squads.
There is nothing new in saying this and I can feel the sense of almost disappointment that I am not writing of some more devastating revelation of the "wrongs" of what we are doing in Iraq.
It is not "wrongs" that we are committing. It is the darkest of evils that we are supporting and perpetuating in that country. We cannot ignore our ownership of these atrocities. We read stories of our troops standing by and being shocked by what they are witnessing as their ""allies" in the Iraqi Army handle prisoners. We know of the interrogation methods in the prisons and we know of the corruption and evil of the "democracy" that we have created.
If we speak of this in terms of our responsibility, we are taunted that we do not love our country, just as we are taunted that our demands for withdrawal shows that we do not support our troops. No politician dare speak of this and no newspaper may write of this in terms of what we, the people, are responsible for in Iraq and in our nations. The evil that we have become cannot be spoken out loud.
I have lived through the period of the Vietnam War. I never thought in my lifetime that we would commit the same mistakes again. That we have done so is because we have never allowed the truth of what we were at that time to be truly accepted into our history.
We need to face that truth. Unless we speak that truth a victory in terms of the passing of a vote or the impeachment of Bush or election success in 2008, or whatever else we choose as our measure, is meaningless.
That truth is that you and I, our family, our neighbours down the street, our governments that we elect and our nations in whom we trust are perpetuating evil. I dare say this not because I am a man of the left, an outsider, a rebel. I say it as a man who has done his best to be a good citizen, committed no crimes, been a hard worker and someone who has tried to repay his society that educated him and rewarded him well.
I used to recite the words:
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
As we forgive them that trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation;
But deliver us from evil
I want to be delivered from evil. It is an evil that I will not accept any more that is being done simply in my name. I will not refuse to take ownership of it. I will not blame it on others and thereby hope to cleanse myself of it. The UK is my country and these are my deeds. The USA is your country and these are your deeds. We must accept this ownership if there is to be any hope for the future of our people. Our nations must take ownership of their ability to commit evil.