I think we all need to be clear on something - the Iraq war, despite any spin, apology, or whatever, was not acceptable.
The reasons were profoundly bad; the war happened due to corporate and personal greed, the unbelievable arrogance and lust for power of a few elite players, ideological fanaticism that drew a political party through the looking glass into Wonderland, and political cowardice that dragged another party, and the rest of the nation, through the looking glass behind the fanatics.
Read on ...
The political mechanics that started the war were worse; we have witnessed a pathologically dishonest presidential administration and majority party together dishonest as none have ever been before, dishonest to the extent where the national government has taken on Orwellian characteristics. We have been dragged into negativeland, where up is down, black is white, hate is love, war is peace, greed is compassion, and lies are truth.
We have witnessed what might be the most regressive, backwards government since the 19th century.
We need to be clear on some things together.
It is not acceptable for any representative of the anti-Iraq-war movement to have expressed support for that war, for any reasons.
John Kerry and John Edwards supported the war, for the worst reason: political cowardice. They have demonstrated that, in the face of the most dire challenge presented to America by malevolent leadership possibly ever, with some of the worst consequences for us, they have no character. They have demonstrated that they serve themselves first and foremost. They supported the war ... because Bush was popular. That is the only reason why.
The international press howled with leaks from within the intelligence community suggesting that American intelligence supporting the claim of "WMD in Iraq" was a politically-directed fabrication.
The UNMOVIC team repeatedly denied that the Bush accusations were true.
The documents authored by the various starters of the war in the administration proved clearly a decades-long agenda of starting a war in Iraq.
The proponents of war themselves were the least trustworthy of operators, each and every one having not only glaring conflicts of interest in the matter, but openly demonstrating total mendacity on the matter of why the war should start.
The war was bad.
No supporter of the war has any business pretending to represent the group of people in the public - the public being the last defenders of justice in America in this matter - who rose up in the streets, started grassroots organizations, and together brought a shout of "NO!" from all over the world, on a glorious day. We the public, we millions in all these cities across the world, we cannot be represented by craven careerists.
The Iraq war issue is already disappearing from the talking points and campaign agendas of the now leading candidates. They won't rock the boat. They won't take a controversial stand. They won't cross the line Bush has drawn with regards to what can be discussed and what cannot be discussed, "patriotically". In short, they won't represent us, the people who opposed this evil imperialist war with all our hearts and minds together.
So why the hell should we support them?!
If you opposed the Iraq war like I did, and you have any integrity, you must demand that any candidate you support in this season repent openly of any support for this war - he must come clean to us, level with us completely and openly about why he supported the war - and you must demand, along with me, that the candidate take a position on the war which exposes the evil, the character failures, the pathological dishonesty, and the incompetence of the Bush administration with regards to the Iraq war.
There can be no capitulation to the false Republican "patriotism" this time.
Demand that your candidate, whoever he is, take an immediate and public stand on the Iraq issue, right now. Not just the sunny and nebulous "where to go from here" stand on Iraq, but the difficult and morally redeeming "the war was wrong and happened through lies" stand on Iraq.
Anything less is evidence that the candidate does not have the character to represent us with integrity.