War supporters, put up or shut up! (long)

Alright, so you believe that George Bush was right to go into Iraq. You believe that Saddam Hussein was a threat and that he had to be taken out. You believe you can bring democracy to a country which has never enjoyed it and that the shining example of a new democratic Iraq will change the balance of power in the Middle East. You believe that this democratization will insure the safety and prosperity of Israel. You believe that if we leave before Iraq has become this shining example of democracy that the terrorists will have won.

These are all powerful beliefs and if you truly believe in them you must be willing to "pay any price, bear any burden."

If you truly believed in this war, you would be calling for the head of Donald Rumsfeld. You would be calling for more troops to be sent to Iraq so that the job you say must be done can actually be done. You would be calling for the resumption of the draft so that our military--which is already stretched to the limit--gets an influx of fresh troops. In short, you would be willing to sacrifice your own sons and daughters so that your vision of a democratic Middle East can be achieved. You would be willing to forgo tax cuts so that the troops we deploy to Iraq can be the best equipped army in the world without crippling the U.S. economy.

Most importantly, you would have been making this arguement from the very beginning. We know you were thinking about it, the PNAC, layed it all out in great detail. The problem was you couldn't sell your vision to the American people. So you lied.

You told us that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, you told us that Saddam Hussein had collaborated with Al Queda to attack the World Trade Center, you told us that the Iraqis would welcome us as liberators--and when you were called on these lies--you viciously attacked the character and patriotism of those who dared question you.

So come on, war supporters, stop chanting "support the troops" and "Stay the Course" because this course is leading us straight into quicksand. If you truly believe that this war must be won then you must be willing to do what is necessary to win it. If you are not willing to call on Americans to make these sacrifices, then, stop lying to us. Acknowledge that this war has been a poorly conceived and even more poorly managed disaster and join those of us who have opposed it from the very beginning in trying to find a way to get our people out of there in a way which salvages something of our national dignity and some possibility of a decent outcome for the Iraqi people.