The presence will remain in the Green Zone Embassy complex, and in the bases established in the past 4 years, if the US is not driven out entirely by Iraqis by that time.

The only questions that will remain will be why was it not stopped earlier, what kind of people we are, individually and collectively, and why collectively we allow conscienceless greed to rule this society.

The people who persisted in demanding from the beginning that the invasion was wrong, and the people who persisted in their opposition to the occupation and all of the steadily mounting death and maiming and misery and hatred caused by it's continuance for politcal and personal gain, and the people who persisted in unyielding demands for defunding and stopping it earlier, will have clear consciences.

Most of the rest will try to console themselves with 'ends justify means' rationalizing to be able to sleep at night. They'll be easy to know - they will be the ones that try to convince others that it was justified.

Some of the rest won't even bother with that rationalizing. They will smile and go on with their conscienceless lives in denial and not caring that they contributed to much death.

It will end. It might be too late for any hope of recovery of world respect and self respect. It will be too late for the people who were killed. But it will end.

As nearly a million lives have ended.

Actually, I read it more as an indication that members are feeling the heat and that's a good thing.

Footnote one: David Obey also joined the ranks of the "idiot liberals" and voted against the supplemental. Maybe we should take that as an unspoken apology.

It'll happen any second now.............. (tapping foot... tapping.... tapping)

As to people engaging in physical activism as opposed to blogging, most adults are busy making a living and trying to survive in this fabulous economy we've got going where everybody (the middle class and the underclass) are working their ass off and hardly making enough money to get by. Who's got time for street activism besides college students and the unemployed.

Perhaps our Democratic representatives are making the best of a bad situation, believing that this kind of capitulation is going to get them something down the road, but that doesn't make it any harder for WE THE PEOPLE -- who are supposed to be sovereign in this nation -- to swallow.  I suppose that the president will give the Democrats and us something in return for our continued cooperation on this bill and in the running of the government, but none of us know what that something is, so we can't say whether it was worth it or not.  I suspect only time will tell, but judging by the last seven years I'd say that no promised concessions or cooperation from this president can be trusted or worth what we have all sacrificed up to this point, in the final analysis.

I have never voted, nor ever payed any attention to politics.  

You must understand, I thought this was a romance, not a tragedy.  

Agreed, that this is the long term plan, but in the sense that they, too, are rolling with the punches.

In chess, the player who sees the most moves ahead will undoubtedly win.  In this respect, the American right has an extreme political advantage over any other group in existence, excepting the American government, itself.

Consider, if you will, that this advantage becomes consciously exploitable when a player knows exactly how many moves ahead his or her opponents are able to themselves see.

This quickly brings about another more important perspective, - the American right brings pieces to the table which no one else possesses.

One of these is the ability to see more branches in the tree; another, the ability to ascertain which branches others see.  

In my opinion, the extreme refinement of Republican rhetoric is a solitary piece, set solidly in the middle of our board.  

I'm sure you can think of others.

"Our board" because I am taking lessons...

The Democrats have a comparable piece, but its movements are comparably crippled.  (I really hope this is a conscious decision.)

Oh, wait...  What am I saying?  A more accurate metaphor would be our boards, plural.

I'm sure I fit quite a few demographics, but certainly no one's playing against my insignificant self.

a piece jumps off the table

Anyways, having begun the momentous task of educating myself recently, I would like to give insight into that particular process.  If I don't now, I'll probably forget to.

So here goes,

I had become somewhat worried about the Iraq war, and wrote a paper about it in school. (I'm 29 years old, and tired of being broke)  Assuming that I had a good grasp of the situation, I decided to write the next paper, an Argument Paper, proposing that we should remain in Iraq.  
I kind of drug my heels though.

Then I saw "Why We Fight".

It shocked, discouraged, and deeply, deeply, worried me.

In the month since then, I have diligently increased my knowledge of our political situation.  I am, unfortunately, only a bit less worried today than then, and that is only because our government's corruption seems to be decentralized.

In other words, it seems to be amazingly pervasive in issues regarding money (and with privatization, a great many things involve money).  But, it seems at least that a lot of individuals have their hands in the cookie jar.

What worries me is how much time it took me to form a coherent picture of this political landscape.

The present political situation is a freaking enourmous jig-saw puzzle, and the picture is ornate; one must have many pieces before it makes any sense.  The problem is that people simply can not, or do not, make the attempt.  

Even if they feel something is wrong, a glance at the enormity of the puzzle pushes a button in them, and they give up.

I have inquired into the political beliefs of the people I hang with, and only two had a clue as to what's actually happening in Washington.  

Even those who are politically minded think that our government has relatively minimal amounts of corruption.  Without the perspective of corruption as documented in "Why we Fight", it is fair to say that Iraq is a failed cause, - a gigantic waste, but it is hard to understand exactly what went wrong.

With a better understanding, the answer of what went wrong in Iraq is simply "Wu".

For the uninformed, I must stress again, there is simply too much information to sort through, too many possibilities to sift through, for the vast majority to "get" anything.

America is mightily confused.

Her head is muddled with drugs and old age, TV, and sedentary induced stupidity.

No corrupt officials, no freaky policies, and no military ventures are tied into any larger picture than the Bush administration by the politically correct mainstream media.

Where something cannot logically tie into Bush it ties into nothing at all, such as our permanent bases in Iraq.

Oh wait, that's not really in the mainstream media, yet.

But it's on the radar.

I suppose that if one were to use someone as a pawn, that pawn would need to be somewhat denser than the user.

I've heard, however, that he's not as dense in person as his public persona implies.

Sorry, I'm so ADD tonight.

Basically, what I'm saying is that even with all the press our problems have been getting, America is oblivious to the real problems of greed and deceit that are destroying her.

The only people who get the news are those who already have the bigger picture.  For everyone else, the news IS NOT an inroad to understanding the bigger picture.

Thanks for the great stats and quotes, all.

They stand in stark contrast to my generalizations.

(: