In Washington today, at least 100,000 citizens marched against the war. Republicans, Democrats, independents. Young, old. Vets, pacifists. United in one thought: get out of Iraq.
It’s taken Tony Blair two years to figure out his country doesn’t want to be in Iraq, and he’s pulling troops out starting in May. Japan, which only has 550 soldiers in the country, will follow. Leaving pretty much only the USA. Which, statistically, is pretty much how it’s always been. And as far as we know, we’ll be staying for quite some time.
Members on both sides of the Congressional aisle, as well as media pundits, take Macbeth’s position: “I am in blood steeped so far that returning were as tedious as go o’er.”
But the truth is: they are quite pointedly not steeped in blood. The lion’s share of talking heads we see expounding about the war — be they Senators, members of the Bush administration, Fox News or CNN anchors, learned televisual pundits, whatever — have one thing in common: they are NOT in Iraq. They are not fighting the war they are suggesting we continue, at various levels, to keep fighting.
To keep fighting means one thing to average Americans: more dead Americans. Some Americans even understand that to keep fighting means we continue to foster the kind of anti-American sentiment that feeds bin Laden’s rationale. But whether you get that relatively basic fact or not, you cannot deny that the longer we stay in Iraq, the more American corpses will be shipped back to our shores. And for what, Mr. Bush? For what, members of Congress? It’s not your blood, is it?
