The plan was to create chaos over there, and it's working so far.

We aren't leaving as long as there is oil there.

The only thing that will get us out of there is for us to decide to live over here without accessing Middle Eastern oil.

Which can be done.

Which will happen some day anyhow.  Within two decades certainly; within one decade likely.

Shall we destroy our nation and other nations fighting over a disappearing resource?

Or build our nation on a new energy footing?

Skip the war part?

Choose.

Choose.

Choose.

Too bad Olbermann isn't more highly rated. What are all the liberals watching? O'Reilley so they can yell at the TV?

whitehouse: grep -r 1,$s/Cut and Run/Operation Heroes Homeward/p

They will declare "victory," pull out troops, reap the political benefits, and be praised by the whore media

Count on it...

This is not to say that we shouldn't engage in logical analysis. Of course we should. But in directing our comments to the public at large--particularly those whose support is up for grabs at any one time--this is simply another line of argument for an expansion of Lakoff's perscription: we have to have a counter-narrative, that we keep pounding on over and over and over again.

One example of such a narrative is this:

After 9/11, Americans were united as never before. President Bush had a 90% approval rating.  He began by apparently going after bin Laden--the leader responsible for the 9/11 attacks--with the invasion of Afghanistan.  

But he bungled the war--ignoring the advice of military experts, and conducting it more to win political battles at home than to protect us from enemies abroad.  

First, he didn't commit enough American troops to Afghanistan, and let bin Laden escape. Then, instead of pouring more resources into capturing bin Laden, he started shifting them to an invasion of Iraq--an ideological enemy of bin Laden's.

Once again, we went in with too few troops.  The reason given--to destroy weapons of mass destruction that could threaten us--was soon shown to be unfounded, and eventually a fraud. Chaos ensued.  A quick victory was followed by growing insurgence, taking far more American lives than the initial invasion.  Withdrawal is inevitable, especially since the Iraqi people now overwhelming want us to leave.  

But Bush is still using the war on terror primarily to fight against Democrats at home. And so he and his Republican supporters are still attacking Democrats, quetioning their patriotism for talking about withdrawal, at the same time that they themselves are making plans for withdrawal.

It's time to put an end to this. It's time to withdraw from Iraq, and it's time to stop using terrorism as a weapon to divide the country.  When Republicans do that, they are doing the terrorists work for them.

I know it's a bit long-winded. Two or three sentences would be better.  But the truth is always a bit bulkier than the smoothest of lies.  We can still communicate the narrative by stressing pieces of it, such as: We started united, but Bush took his eyes off bin Laden, mislead us into Iraq, split the nation and now wants to withdraw, while continuing to attack Democrats for advocating the same thing.  We have to get out of Iraq, and we have to put an end to this divisive style of leadership.

It's always the result of war or economic upheaval. We've got the war, and the upheaval is coming (housing prices lag macroeconomic change).

There is no safe way to predict what is right. You have to stand on a principle to succeed.

Those leaders who stand firmly on principle will rise to the top. This has always been the case in the past.

But what principle? The 60s suck was the Nixon principle. Constant invention was FDR's. Aggressive nationalism was TR's. The Union was Lincoln's.

What one principle defines a way through both the war and the cost of the war?

It must be an optimistic principle, an inspiring principle, one that results in action.

In this case, I think it must be internationalism. That is currently very, very unpopular -- despite Iraq. But add the coming housing collapse and that will change.

Stand there now and you can ride the tide.