Even Bush's GOP Allies Are Breaking Ranks

[dogday]

How best to support our troops in Iraq? By sacrificing more of them in a war that should never have been launched and has no end in sight, or by bringing them home? The latter is the best course for the U.S. and Iraq. Our military occupation fuels nationalist and religious insurgents and we should begin a phased withdrawal as soon as feasible, while increasing aid.

Although this position is shared by millions of Americans and many others globally, it has long been deemed beyond the pale by leading politicians of both parties. Now that appears finally to be changing, as an increasing number of Republicans are admitting that the emperor has no clothes — having lied his pants off about our motives for invading Iraq, and ever since about how great things are going there. Declining public support for the war and the latest outrageous claims by Vice President Dick Cheney have given these moderates an opening to challenge their own party's administration.

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"Too often we've been told, and the American people have been told, that we're at a turning point," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on NBC's "Meet the Press," as he disagreed with Cheney's absurd claim last week that the Iraq insurgency is in its "last throes." "What the American people should have been told and should be told it's long, it's hard, it's tough."

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, was even more blunt: "Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse," he told U.S. News and World Report, as the latest suicide bombings claimed the lives of dozens of Iraqis. "The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-scheer21jun21,0,459956.story?track=tothtml