Getting Out of Iraq

The following note was distributed on each chair at last Saturday’s organizational meeting of the Pima County Democratic Party.

TODAY’S SCRIPT
First we take impeachment off the table
Then we take war funding off the table
Then when George Bush sends in more troops
We throw up our hands and explain
There is nothing we can do to stop him.

The circulator of that also asked a couple of questions: Why have so many left the Democratic Party to register as independents? How come they call us “spineless” and “brain-dead”?

It begins to look like “Today’s Script” is tomorrow’s action plan and that we’ll be in Iraq through 2008.

I think it’s clear that the vast majority of Americans want us out of Iraq. I think it’s safe to say that the sooner and more completely out of Iraq you want us to be, the more likely it is that you count yourself a Progressive.

If so, that makes me a Progressive.

But while Progressives mount campaigns to put pressure on Congress to get out, it seems appropriate that we discuss exactly how we propose that be done and what our post-exit relationship to Iraq ought to be.

More important, and so far as I can see not considered at all, is the question of what our moral obligation to the people of Irag is and how we should respond to that obligation.

Perhaps one of our most active Progressives, Rev. Gerry Straatemeier, MSW could lead us in such a discussion.