Iraq - The Unwinnable War
By Robert Moskowitz

When Henry Kissinger announces that the war in Iraq is unwinnable, it's time for even the most ardent "stay the course" fanatic to pick up his toys and go home.

The lesson we learned in Vietnam -- that no foreign occupying power can prevail over a committed indigenous citizenry that values its freedom over everything else -- should not have been lost on the draft-dodgers of the George W. Bush administration. But it was.

Even after the drubbing the Republicans received in the 2006 national elections -- a drubbing that was not even fully recognized because of the dirty tricks and cheating on the vote counting that the Republicans had cooked up to try and stay in power -- certain die-hard leaders, like Bush himself and others with their heads similarly in the sands, simply refused to recognize that the Republican party had shot its wad and done such a poor job that the American people wanted to give the Democrats a chance.

Of course, the mainstream press got it just as wrong as usual, writing that the Democratic victory was more a "throw the rascals out" backlash that succeeded only because right-wing Democrats were available to replace right-wing Republications who stood foresquare behind their steadfastly wrong President.

In fact, however, most of the Democratic winners in the 2006 elections espoused values and programs that were significantly to the left of their Republican opponents. The message from the American people: we're tired of elitism and selfishness and incompetence; we want a government that tries -- at least a little -- to do a good job for us ordinary Joes and Janes, and our families. For years, pundits have been wondering how the Republicans have been getting lower-class and middle-class citizens to vote Republican against their own best interests. In 2006, they stopped.

In addition to all the other things Americans said they wanted from their government, they made clear that they wanted an end to the War in Iraq. Chief among them, apparently, was a mandate to withdraw from what all the experts -- particularly those who don't fear for their jobs if they tell the truth -- were suddenly calling an unwinnable war.