The Troop Pullout Will Start Before January 1

Who says? Everyone who takes the voice of the people seriously. Which is, of course, everyone interested in politics except the President himself. One of the Little Mommies—Karen Hughes or Condi Rice—will have to tell GWB that whether he likes it or not, the troop pullout is a fait accompli because it’s what the people want. In any case, the withdrawal will probably have begun before Prez Bush is informed of it. He’ll be injected with a load of anti-depressants, handed a speech to read, and that will be that. But the interesting thing will be the rhetoric the White House adopts to say that the withdrawal of troops is not a withdrawal of troops. And that we are staying the course even though we're pulling out. For five years, the White House practice has been to call failure by another name: Success. One can only assume the pullout speech will claim that since victory has been achieved in Iraq, the troops can now come home. Admittedly, everything the neocons have been saying about our troops needing to stay in Iraq if Iraq is to be stabilized is true. But the thing that the war merchants, including John McCain, have never understood is that the majority of Americans don’t care whether Iraq is stabilized or not. The attempt to make the American public feel guilty about abandoning Iraq has failed. What the American people know is that we are vulnerable to terrorist attacks now. That will not change whether our troops stay in Iraq or not. The idea that, yes, we attacked Iraq for our own selfish reasons but now that we are there, we must stay, has never resonated with most Americans. What the majority of US citizens feel is that we were lied into the war, the American Congress never declared war, it’s the Bush administration’s war, 2,130 of our soldiers have died for no good reason, the war has cost over $200 billion, and so what if Iraq is in shambles. Let’s cut our losses and get the hell out is the considered opinion of the people. An immoral administration that lies, cheats and deceives can hardly get any political mileage out of guilt-tripping the people into concern over stabilizing Iraq. Right or wrong, at this point the majority of Americans really don’t care. And all those pious sermonizing politicians who moralized about bringing freedom and democracy to the heathen in Iraq are now only interested in getting votes in 2006 and 2008. What will the new partyline be? Bring the troops home before they’re forced to convert to Islam? That might sell.