Is there no shame at The Nation for its intellectually fraudulent "antiwar" stance?

Do your editors seriously continue to pretend that Obama is calling for "a speedy end" to the war? Didn't that become your standard after your antiwar position led you, somehow, to support more war in the person of John Kerry?

Now, will The Nation agree to sacrifice the people of Afghanistan (among others) in its far-too-clever support for the latest standard bearer for imperial bloodlust?

John Pasco

New Britain, CT

There were others, even more strident and courageous voices on the Iraq War, but they were vilified by the media and we the so-called informed electorate followed the "French are stupid, lapel-pin flag"crowd. When Pete Stark had the courage to speak the truth, the courageous Congress abandoned him like brave rats leaving the ship. Senator Obama has not shown stellar courage by joining the nutty fringe crowd led by Pelosi on FISA. His courage shown on Rev. Wright has not been terribly inspiring, and his tinge of arrogance on global trade is frightening. I understand that he has to sell some of his principles to be elected, but what the hell were they?

James Pinette

Caribou, ME

Propaganda is not only telling lies, it is also hiding the truth. Occasionally, the truth springs up and embarrasses those who would deny it. The Iraq war is one of those truths that the liberal media has been hiding. Wednesday the Wall Street Journal had an opinion piece stating: "All of the most important objectives of the surge have been accomplished in Iraq. The sectarian civil war is ended; al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) has been dealt a devastating blow; and the Sadrist militia and other Iranian-backed militant groups have been disrupted. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government has accomplished almost all of the legislative benchmarks set by the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration. More important, it is gaining wider legitimacy among the population." ("The New Reality in Iraq," July 16, 2008)

In other words, the war is virtually over.

This has to be an embarrassment to Mr. Obama, and the progressive left, whose key point is to pull the USA out of Iraq regardless if we were winning or losing. Obama never said he wanted to win the war, just that he wanted to pull all troops out. It appears that Obama's rhetoric is about a year behind the times.

So the question to ask is, Since we have won, and the violence and deaths have dropped precipitously, would Obama still be for a pull-out if it would lead to Al Qaeda taking back control? Would he turn a victory into a defeat by creating a vacuum that would allow the terrorists to move back it? And will he take responsibility for the blood bath that is sure to l happen if we pull out too soon?

One of the dirty little secrets of the Vietnam War is that the USA had defeated the Viet Cong and the communist North. However, because the Democrats cut off all funding for the war and thus did not honor our agreements to defend the South should the North start up again, the South fell and a blood bath occurred. It is estimated that during the ten years of the war, 1 million Vietnamese were killed, or about 100,000 a year. During a two-year period after the war, the communist North killed between 1 and 3 million Southern Vietnamese, and the communist Khmer Rouge in Cambodia killed between 2 and 5 million Cambodians. A reference to the deaths of Cambodians is found in the film The Killing Fields. (See ""How Democrats Lost Vietnam... And How They Plan On Losing Iraq" or "What happened when Democrats in Congress cut off funding for the Vietnam War?")

Will history repeat itself and will Obama, once elected, and with the help of a Democratic Congress, pull out US troops, regardless of the consequences? In thirty years, will another historian paraphrase the words of Lewis Fanning, who went so far as to say that "it was not the Hanoi communists who won the war, but rather the American Congress that lost it"?

Robert Exton

San Francisco, CA

This is a well-reasoned analysis of the potential pitfalls of Obama's stated tactical platform on Iraq. It is critical to note that this platform hasn't changed with recent events.

This is important because it is paramount to the discussion to recognize that the will of the American and Iraqi people is for US forces to leave Iraq. It is not reasonable to assume that Obama represents a "paradigm shift" or that he is in any way "essential to ending the war in Iraq." Nouri al-Maliki's recent elaboration of this point is a clear opportunity for Obama to recognize this fundamental flaw in his Iraq platform.

Obama's tunnel-vision on Iraq is similar to his repeated bolstering of personal responsibility when speaking to a Black audience. This is obviously a defensible argument, but he has failed to buttress these remarks with the necessary recognition and elaboration of institutional, structural and interpersonal racism in America. Personal responsibility and individual pathology are critical in a race discussion, but in no way relevant to public/government policy. In the case of Iraq, Obama's rejection of public-private linkages in war is trumped by his utter silence on and lack of recognition of the civilian death toll in Iraq.

A paradigm shift would necessitate a change or departure from likely events. It seems likely that Obama's Iraq platform is merely a commitment to a likely status quo, one that would exist in the time he may enter office. The other way of stating this is that his policy is the likely conclusion of the Bush/McCain doctrine.

This is affirmed by Obama's diminution of his resistance to the recent "surge." Not just the political Bush/McCain surge, but the reality that the surge was a masking for the recognition that Iraq's destruction and plunder had already reached a crescendo; the punctuated levels of killing, plundering, forced migrations, structural degradation, etc. were exhausting themselves. Obama certainly can't articulate the truth of the surge strategy and its reframing of a lower, but still unacceptable, rate of civilian deaths without exposing his own platform as merely the next step in the Bush/McCain bag of reactionary tactics. Given the current situation in Iraq, Obama's platform hardly seems revolutionary; in fact, it is opportunistic and emblematic of a strategy that provides perfect cover for the long-term resource interests of the US in Iraq.

I applaud this article for hitting on some of the fundamental tenets of our burdens in Iraq: massive reparations, apologies, adjudication of war crimes and criminals, and recognition of strict liability of the US for the refugee crisis, sectarian killings, civilian deaths etc.

This opinion echoes the sentiments of what appear to be a growing number of "progressives," particularly Norman Solomon. The crux of this Obama rationalization is characterized by personal responsibility for the electorate, coupled with an inoculation of the candidate for reciprocal responsibility. This is a tenuous position as the balance of the responsibility should arguably, disproportionately burden the candidate that will be at the wheel of public policy and power that affects so many lives. For example, Obama has literally been prolonging the occupation with his funding votes, but this is not even a point of discussion or argument. Obama is not an innocent bystander.

This framework seems a tacit recognition of the failure of "least-worst" politics and what amounts to a one-party system in the United States. A paradigm shift is not inoculating candidates and the State from responsibility and passing it on to ourselves. A "progressive" should not delineate an inordinate amount of risk in a candidate and yet still deem their election as "essential." Viable alternatives exist without the risk. A true progressive is one with the courage to facilitate and vote for candidates committed to true progressive change.

Jason Adams

Hudson, WI

I am in general agreement with this editorial, but I believe the electoral process is the only leverage ordinary people have to effect policy. Special interests with money own most of our elected officials, but the people can take away their jobs. Congress had a mandate to leave Iraq in the last election, but ignored the wishes of the people. Since Congress ignored our wishes on Iraq in the last election, our only recourse is to vote them out of office. Many members of the House come up for re-election this year, and their records should be examined for possible replacement. If I had my wish, I would go with a unicameral Congress and eliminate the Senate. But since the states might no like it, I believe their terms should be limited to four years, with half being elected every two years. I do not trust these people, and they need to be put on a short leash!

Pervis J. Casey

Riverside, CA