Critics Need To Come Together

For anyone who is anti-war or simply dissatisfied with its progress (which should cover just about everyone), it's time for the alternative position to be clearly defined and agreed upon. Lawmakers need to fight for a new policy and actually get it implemented, rather than arguing while the administration continues to stumble down its lonesome road to nowhere. The administration certainly isn't going to change course anytime soon (until polling and Congressional election strategy compel it).

More from Rep. Murtha in response to President Bush's "Amazing Progress" speech today, and this from Gen. Clark yesterday. How do we combine these two?

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I do not think they are mutually exclusive. I think they are two facets of the same argument: that the war is not going to go the way it should with Bush running it the way he is. Murtha is facing up to tough questions about the impact of our mere presence on the perpetuation of the Iraqi Insurgency. Clark is facing up to the scary and destabilizing ethnic, sectarian, and nationalistic forces that our war has released in the region. The conclusion each man comes to is this: radical change is necessary, and it should involve some kind of significant redeployment.

"Defeatism" needs to be redifined in the debate as the position that there is nothing more we can be doing--that everything is going as well as it could be going. That position is insane, and it is the driving force behind current U.S. policy.