Debating the Debate

So, once again, the Senate sneaks away, refusing to have a serious debate. The reality is, should we even care? It's obvious that the American people have made up their minds about the war as reflected in the polls that come out over and over again.

The question we might need to ask is, are we debating the right things, and looking at the situation through the right perspective?

Once again, the spinners and propagandists in the administration are trotting out their tired rhetoric about emboldening terrorists and questioning those they claim have "no stomach for this fight".

Is there one person in the Congress, much less the country, that has come out and said they are on the side of the "terrorists"? And as for having stomach for the fight? A complete red herring as far as I can see.

I have to wonder how the Democrats keep getting themselves boxed into this corner, when it seems to me that they could so easily reframe the entire question. Would we not be better positioned to fight "terrorists" if we redeployed troops to Afghanistan, forced Pakistan to make a choice on where they stand and get them to allow deployed troops into regions known to be occupied by Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, and took the "fight" to Iran and Syria by making strategic diplomatic moves that put them on record as to what side of the fight they are on?

To me, this is having as much "stomach" (if not more brains) for a fight than continuing with failed policies, propping up a government that is more interested in religious vengeance than governing a rational country.

The real problem, of course, which no one will willingly state is that Iraq has revealed, through our invasion and occupation the real battle that is going on in the Middle East, if not in the world, and that is the battle between religion and rationality.

We are confronted with people that really believe in the mythologies of their religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity - no difference) and it has clouded all attempts at creating a rational world in the Middle East as centuries old battles over beliefs and land continue to be played out, with our unwitting support

So, if we're going to have the stomach, and the brains, for a fight, we should start by acknowledging that it is not a war against terror in Iraq, it is not a civil war in Iraq, it is a religious war and a war against reason.

So please, spare us from the tired rhetoric and restating of what constitutes "progress" in Iraq and recognize the reality of the situation. Until we have leaders willing to do that we will continue to be mired in an unwinnable war and an untenable view of the world, and will fail to create real strategies for changing the face of how to deal with fundamentalists of every stripe and their desire to test the theories of questionable belief systems by imposing Armageddon on the rest of us.