Resignation

Cindy Sheehan has dumped the anti-war movement, evidently as part of a greater frustration with Americans' refusal to wake up and smell the colossally unnecessary waste of human life. I have to say, I don't quite get this. I mean, I get why she's frustrated -- it must be incredibly painful, etc. But the fact is, I don't really see what Democrats are supposed to do about it, nor really the public. Look, if the war is polling with negatives in the 70's, that means only the absolute ideological dead-enders are still behind it. And yet, in the Senate, the votes simply are not there to force Bush to pull out. All the Dems could have done would have been to refuse to pass much of anything, and to starve the military into the summer. And, I assure you, there is every probability Bush would have stuck to his guns. Personally, I'd have liked to have seen Dems take it to one more vote, suck it up through the holiday and take the bad press and push the brinksmanship a little farther, but this would only have served the interest of forcing senate Republicans to one more damaging vote; it wouldn't have ended the war.

Just as only a political solution will change the situation in Iraq (and one isn't going to happen without a civil, sectarian, internecine, and every other kind of war), so only a political solution here will end the war in Iraq. And while conventional wisdom, on every TV show and op-ed in the country, has it that the Dems pussed out last week on the appropriations bill, if you don't have the votes you don't have the votes. Republicans are going to have to break. And that's why the only thing to think about is really sticking to the September gut-check. And that's when it will be clear if Dems are a bunch of pussies. Because, as is evident, Petraeus and co. are going to say that the surge needs more time. And they need to be bent over a barrel.

By the way, I'm sure you heard that the Iraqi military we're so meticulously training is using that training in attacks on our troops?

September. If nothing gives then, I'll join Cindy Sheehan in total misanthropy. But unfortunately, I don't see how you manage a pullout before the '08 election. If in September the votes somehow materialize (which is hard to envision -- that means 17 Republicans are going to have to flip), it still is not responsible to talk about just bringing everyone home. An anti-war movement that suggests simply packing up and leaving, with no discussion of redeployment or political negotiation, is every bit as irresponsible as a pro-war movement that wants to stay forever in the absence of any real progress. This was long my major qualm about Cindy Sheehan; it remains my major qualm about the anti-war movement now.