The Washington Monthly

If an already unpopular President escalates this already unpopular war and the escalation fails… Well, that isn’t political good news for the Republicans.

 Nor is it good news for Democrats who enable them. It isn’t enough to give them the rope to hang themselves, so to speak. That rope is our own brothers and fathers and husbands. (Not to mention all of our money.) In the end, when it comes time to assign blame for the disaster, people will rightly want to know who opposed this mess? Who tried to stop it, and who let them get away with it?

I mean, if you’re really willing to let this horror continue, with more multitudes dying and suffering, just so that the Democrats MIGHT gain some political benefit in the future, then you are just as bad as the warmongers, cynically using the military and the war for your own domestic politics.

Morality? As Kevin said, Bush is Commander in Chief. We can’t stop it anyway. Moral culpability for this war stays with its prosecutors.

No, it does not. It also belongs to those who permit it to happen.

Look, the biggest criticism of the Democrats in DC(per the conventional beltway “wisdom”) is precisely their failure to provide any meaningful opposition to disastrous policies. In particular, the accusation that we don’t believe in anything, and we are willing to go along with anything Bush does because we give up too easily.

You think that throwing up our hands and saying, “well, we can’t stop it, so let’s let them do it some more” is going to magically make people see us as NOT responsible for this mess?

I call bullshit.

Don’t give them an inch. Oppose escalation. Demand withdrawal. Remain consistent, and clearly establish that there is a moral difference between the GOPers who cry for more war and the Dems who oppose them.

And if you waver on this because you are unreasonably afraid of paying a political price, (I say unreasonably because there is NO price to pay opposing an unpopular war) you prove THEIR point that we have no spine and no moral beliefs… and therefore we have no moral basis to criticize the GOP’s future wars.

Again, if domestic politics (and not basic human decency) is the only thing that motivates you, consider that constant opposition to the war and its expansion or escalation IS the smart move politically. Take a moral stand now, so that you can in the future.

Why do you think Hillary’s lost so much support from rank-and-file Dems? Why was support for Kerry so lukewarm? It’s the war, and their initial support for it making their later/future opposition look like so much opportunism.

What was that line about the only way for evil to triumph? Something about the good doing nothing?

If the Dems let them keep doing what they’re doing, KNOWING that it is futile, then they ARE just as culpable. Even if you really can’t stop it, people will remember that you didn’t even try. I sure will.

Take a stand. Show some guts, fercryinoutloud. Nobody respects a quitter- you don’t quit a political fight just because you think it’s unwinnable in the short term because in the long run you’ll lose even bigger. You’ll lose the respect that people have for those who stand up for the right thing, even when they know they’ll lose. Especially then.

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