It doesn't happen often, but today I may be a dittohead:

Fine, just blow the place up. Just let these natural forces take place over there instead of trying to stop them, instead of trying to use -- I just -- sometimes natural force is going to happen. You're going to have to let it take place. You can spend all the time you like with diplomacy, and you can spend all the time you want massaging these things with diplomatic -- you're just -- you're just delaying the inevitable.

Some on the left blogosphere (e.g. Atrios) have lumped the first sentence in the above with the "More Rubble Less Trouble" strategy advocated by the anti-Atrios Instapundit and other less visible wingers. I think the positions are distinct. "More Rubble Less Trouble" means more indiscriminant use of long-range explosives with the idea that this will work out better. It's both inhumane and incorrect (c.f. Cambodia, bitches), but it's not the same thing Rush is advocating.

Limbaugh's tone is petulant and nihilistic; he's "just fed up with it," expressing demoralization, wants to take his army and go home. He's clearly bitter and a bit passive-aggressive about the whole thing. However, his point seems to be we should withdraw regardless of the consequences. This is the only strategic direction we can take, and it's better to take it by choice than to be forced.

I don't post much about Iraq because honestly it feels like a big pointless downer. George W Bush is the only one in a position to make any kind of differences, and he thinks the lesson of Vietnam was "if we don't quit, we win." Cocksucker.

It's impossible to ignore the civil war now. When you move beyond sectarian militias, blow right past death squads and get into neighborhoods shelling one another, there's not much question.

Sadly I think it's probably all downhill from here. The only question is how ugly it will get for us before we are forced out, or how long the "lesson of Vietnam" will keep Bush prolonging the process with our presence.

You can see why he's on the rise and O'Reilly is on the fall. Should maybe end with "Good night, and good luck."

Glenn Greenwald:

That really is why we are in the situation we confront in Iraq. Because Richard "Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise" Cohen and his ilk demonized and caricatured the Howard Deans of the world as pacifist, amateur, naive, stupid, frivolous, dangerous French hippies even though everything Dean was saying was true and prescient and everything Cohen was saying was false and idiotic. And they're still doing that.

Atrios:

Someone finally gives Dean some props.

On a more depressing note, while hunting for something I came across this article Yglesias wrote. In May. Of 2004.

I can't believe we're still having the same goddamn conversation.

I strongly doubt that we'll see much of an uptick in accountability or integrity from the existing class of media figures and political pundits. They made their career choices a while ago; they live in that other world now. However, these people will probably continue to slide ever further into irrelevance.

I was against the war as far back as Fall of 2002, when it was clear that the Bush administration wanted it. I always thought it was a foolish exercise in hubris and greed. But my and millions of others protests were dismissed as "a focus group," and it went down anyway. And so here we are.

We've got to end the occupation. It's not working. It's not going to work. In fact, it's making the situation worse.

Ending the occupation doesn't mean trying to dodge any national responsibility. It doesn't mean isolationism. It doesn't mean "cut and run." It means making the only moral choice we've got left, and taking to first step towards bringing down the curtain on this misbegotten American Empire.

We have two options: we can end the occupation in a process we have some control over and attempt to foster a more effective (read: international) means for helping the New Iraq find a balance, or we can wait until we can simply no longer afford to maintain the empire, let the permanent bases we're building be overrun, lose many more lives, kill many more people, and have nothing to show for it but more blood in the sand, more debts and more enemies.

Go vote next week. It won't solve everything, but it will help.

Billmon has a soul-searching post up, provoked by the first post in months from Iraqi blogger Riverbend which is in itself a vital read. His post reflects on our moral responsibility for the depth of the carnage in Iraq, which is what I want to talk about for a second:

I opposed the invasion -- and the regime that launched it -- but I didn't do everything I could have done. Very few did. We may have put our words and our wallets on the line, but not our bodies. Not when it might have made a difference. In the end, we were all good little Germans.

I also opposed the invasion, but I want to point out the logical and moral trap that comes from "you can always do more." It's true. You can always do more, but you can't always win.

Let's take Billmon's point that we didn't "lay our bodies on the line" seriously. Let's assume that the 2.5M or so people who protested here in the US were all ready to throw down. Would lying down in traffic have stopped the war? Would a mass hunger strike? Would violent resistance?

I'm pessimistic about all those options. The only way to imagine Bush not being able to launch that war would be to re-imagine the last 12 years of political history, starting with how the aftermath of the first Persian Gulf war went down, and the lessons learned there. The truth is I have no doubt that at zero-hour, or even in the Summer of 2002, mass resistence from 2.5 million Americans wouldn't have stopped the war. In fact, it may have deeply worsened the situation.

At that time, it could have led to mass arrests, and those arrests would likely have been applauded by enough people. Political leaders would have been pressed to denounce the resistance. It would have made the vaguely fascist overtones of 2006 America look like the summer of love.

Two of the things I love about this medium, especially as it relates to politics, is that it infuses humanity and personality into the process, and that it is a decidedly literary form. This means there's a pretty low bar for entry, lots of room for expression, and the things you say stick around. It's a good blend.

On those notes, two links. First, a lovely bit of flash-powered parody:

War of the Words is the story of the so-called "warbloggers":

Theirs is a story of courage, determination, and above all, typing. They are the conservative bloggers, pundits, and commentators whose loud and prolific support of Republican foreign policy goals helped change the course of American history in ways that will be felt for many years to come.

They are the men and women--mostly men--who have come to be known as the 101st Fighting Keyboarders. And now, at last, their story can be told.

It's humorous faux-Ken Burns stylings belies the fact that what's going on here is quite unprecidented: shameless propagandists, shills, and plain old idiots with megaphones (that's you, Jarvis) are being held accountable for the things they said at a historically important time. This isn't talk radio or your Sons of the South underground newsletter, and so much the better.

Secondly, a recent scientific study showed the civilian death toll in Iraq as a result of the war to be over half a million. Of course this caused the warbloggers to collapse and begin speaking in tongues. Lindsay Byerstein has a delightful takedown of the responses. My fave:

8. Sure the study's methodology is standard for public health resesarch. But don't forget that public health is a leftwing plot.