Stay the course?

There seems to be no reason to believe the "surge" is succeeding. Indeed, there is every reason to believe things are getting worse. Car bombing is up 30%, according to one of our generals. More Iraqis were killed in March than in February. The last couple of days have seen incredible killings. Why are the Democrats (and most everyone else) putting up with this travesty. The majority of Americans want the troops home. The troops want to be home. The Iraqis want the troops out. Now even the Saudi King has said we are involved in an illegal occupation. Furthermore, the Saudis are so fed up with our failure to do anything reasonable about the Palestinian question they are intervening themselves. If Bush/Cheney will not stop this absolutely now completely useless killing they should be impeached or forced to resign. What in the world is wrong with us?

I don't understand the Republican argument that specifying a deadline for withdrawing our troops is bad because it tell everyone when we will be leaving so they can just wait us out and such. I thought the whole point of setting a deadline was to force the Iraqis to pull themselves together and step up their own efforts. I suppose the reason Bush and his lockstep Republican supporters are opposed to the deadline is because they cling to their absurd claim that we can still "win," whatever that might mean. There is just no way we can possibly win either in Iraq or Afghanistan, short of reinstituting a draft, creating a monstrous army, and starting WW III. Aside apparently from Bush/Cheney is that what everyone really wants? I don't believe even they want that, but they obviously want to continue this ridiculous "war" long enough to turn it over to someone else and then blame Democrats for the abject failure it is going to be. They don't seem to care how many more lives have to be lost as long as they can try to escape responsibility (they will never truly be able to ever escape from the reality of the tragic mess they have made of things).

Is there any Presidential candidate in either party (or even an Independent) that is willing to stand up to the the Israelis and tell them they must stop their imperialistic and genocidal behavior towards the Palestinians? Why do we continue to allow Israel to dictate our foreign policy as if their interests are identical to our own (when they clearly are not)? Their hysteria over Iran is pushing us the brink of an absolutely disastrous world war. They must know that even if Iran did have a nuclear weapon they would not use it agaist Israel (knowing if they did so they would be immediately blown off the face of the earth). I believe their fears about their neighbors in the Middle East have to do with their guilt over what they have been doing to the Palestinians for so many years. If they didn't think they were guilty why would they need to be so fearful of eventual consequences? There is no doubt that the absolutely basic problem in the Middle East is the Israeli/Palestian issue. Until it is addressed and somehow solved there can never be peace in that area of the world. As we have been cleverly conned into publicly and blatantly choosing the Israeli side of this problem we no longer have any hope of convincingly arbitrating it. Heck of a job, Bush!