As usual, Chris speaks for me. It’s long but well worth the read. Particularly this point:

And so immediate withdrawal, while still the “best” option on the table, is far worse now than it would have been a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. Again, this is the reality. This is what we can’t escape. There is no good way out. There is no good way forward. Tonight, tomorrow night, and for nights uncounted to come, some innocent will die in agony because of what we’ve done.

Every day we don’t have “serious” adults and thinkers working on the problem, this is true. Every day we waste trying to decide if “it’s a civil war” is another life lost, another dead American soldier. As in Vietnam, it will be the outcry of the people that force our “leaders” to stop screwing around, to stop bickering over which policy is more or less domestically savory, to stop avoiding asking the hard questions. Crime is not a big enough word to describe what those responsible for this mess have done; I include Democrats on this list, especially those who would placate the hardliners in Israel in order to improve their chances in 08 over here. Iraq isn’t going to magically just go away, nor is the situation there going to do anything but deteriorate every passing day we “stay the course.”

Our friend and journalistic hero Chris Floyd has a new book out, and you should read it. My copy is on the way, but I’m sure it’s the equal to his excellent work on his site. If you’ve already read everything he’s written there, think about buying this book for your non-Internet friends, it’d make a great Saturnalia gift*.  Read more 

Once again, I must bow to the superior and godlike abilities of the master wordsmith who is Chris:

And the Stevens decision would indeed be a landmark ruling, a return to sanity – if we were still in an era where the institutions of American government and society were actually functional, and office-holders felt bound by law. But if there is no political will in the American establishment to enforce the ruling – to make it mean what it manifestly says – then it will be nothing more than a pretty ornament for the Republic’s coffin.

And where does that will exist? Not in Congress, not in the media, not in the streets – and certainly not in the confused, craven Democratic opposition. Yet the true nature of the Regime’s wide-ranging war on liberty has been glaringly obvious for years. I’ve been writing about Bush’s power grab in the Moscow Times and elsewhere since November 2001, when I noted that he had given himself the right to order the killing or incarceration of anyone on earth whom he arbitrarily deemed a terrorist – or even a terrorist suspect. This was reported openly at the time, with approval from the gung-ho corporate media and the American political establishment, with record-breaking poll numbers for Bush – and nary a peep from the Democrats. The first press reports of tortured captives quickly followed, again without controversy.  Read more 

I understand why Billmon and Digby get the props, but what I don’t understand is why more people don’t read Chris more often. His writing is high quality and he’s always talking about what really matters. You can practically feel the snark, which is always delivered in the very finest tradition of family-friendly insults:

 Read more