Enough Is Enough

Iraq has become such a glaring failure that it's done the impossible: it's managed to unite the Democratic Party in full-throated opposition to it.

Key Democratic leaders in the House and Senate have united to call on President Bush to begin pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq by the end of the year, citing an overtaxed military, billions of dollars spent and ongoing sectarian violence.

In a letter to Bush released Monday, the Democrats backed a plan for the "phased redeployment" of troops.

"U.S. forces in Iraq should transition to a more limited mission focused on counterterrorism, training and logistical support of Iraqi security forces and force protection of U.S. personnel," the Democrats wrote.

This is the entire letter and it was signed by the Ranking Members of every single relevant committee and the Congressional leadership. Joe Lieberman isn't part of that, but I imagine he wouldn't have signed it since he's too busy not talking about the war at all.

Maybe the Democrats got the memo that it was OK to come into the water now that the majority of American opinion has turned against the war. Maybe the Democrats have read stories from the front where incredibly brave soldiers lament that "it just feels like we're driving around waiting to get blown up." Maybe they're sick of seeing money that could impact the American people positively simply being tossed down the drain, or worse, knowingly transferred into the hands of members of the military-industrial complex. Maybe they understand that this latest set of troop movements back into Baghdad, along with the under-the-radar increase of overall troops, represent an entirely new war where US troops are simply peacemakers trying to stop religious violence instead of fighting terrorists. Maybe they listen to the leaders of the war on terror and know that they are completely out of their minds when it comes to Iraq (as a side not, the DoD has taken down the embarrassing transcript where Rummy makes a fool of himself by saying "I don't think the Iraqi civil war will be like the US Civil War." Thanks for the insight, dude; they won't be eating hardtack. But it's pretty damn interesting that the DoD is trying to scrub it).

I don't know what the reason is. But I haven't been prouder to be a Democrat in the last 6 years than I am today. They're finally portraying principles rather than betraying them.

UPDATE: The DoD did not scrube Rummy's comment. They moved it.

It's worth reproducing here:

Q: Is the country closer to a civil war?

SEC. RUMSFELD: Oh, I don't know. You know, I thought about that last night, and just musing over the words, the phrase, and what constitutes it. If you think of our Civil War, this is really very different. If you think of civil wars in other countries, this is really quite different. There is -- there is a good deal of violence in Baghdad and two or three other provinces, and yet in 14 other provinces there's very little violence or numbers of incidents. So it's a -- it's a highly concentrated thing. It clearly is being stimulated by people who would like to have what could be characterized as a civil war and win it, but I'm not going to be the one to decide if, when or at all.

Don Rumsfeld, continuing his metamorphosis from the Secretary of Defense to the old guy from the neighborhood who yells "get off my lawn!" to the kids.