i don't want to bury my kids!
—washington journal caller with 2 children in armed forces

even if we begin withdrawing today, 4000 americans will have died in iraq before we're out—4000 lives lost supposedly to avenge 3000 killed 6 years ago, not to mention countless innocent iraqis, whose country had nothing whatever to do with those first 3000 murders.

it doesn't add up.

amy klobuchar (d-mn), on the senate floor this morning, said, with so many brave men and women willing to risk making the ultimate sacrifice for us, surely the senate can find the courage to vote up or down on the withdrawal question.

but lindsey graham (r-sc), who got into the senate by building on a masquerade of moderation in the clinton impeachment hearings, stood and repeated the new cliché about the "new strategy"—which is nothing but standard counterinsurgency—and claimed we're winning the war by uprooting al qaeda in al anbar but failed to mention they've simply shifted focus to other places, as effective guerillas always do when confronted by troops.

and when the showdown came, 47 patriots blocked a vote on including the amendment in the final bill.

i would've said "blind patriots," but one was the majority leader, who had to vote "nay" because of a procedural technicality that allows only someone who voted against cloture to call for another cloture vote on the same measure. how complicated, eh?

only 4 gops voted with the dems: collins (me), hagel (ne), smith (or), and snowe (me). the so-called independent democrat voted with the 45 bush supporters.

after the gop victory, my own senator, "darlin'" arlen specter (r-pa), expressed his indignation that the majority leader had abandoned comity by forcing the senate to debate all night. i guess he'd have preferred to be in iraq, kept awake by explosions.

everybody in washington can argue strongly for their positions. often the arguments rest on assumptions of what will happen if we do this or that.

one problem with that is nobody really knows what will happen.

whether we stay or leave, things could get better or worse or stay the same. no clear causal links exist between actions and outcomes, so no meaningful prediction can be made.

another problem is that no american politician can make a credible claim of either objectivity or competence on the issue.

so, if any folk really have solutions that will work, nobody can be sure they know what they're talking about.

so what am i saying here? throw in our cards, throw up our hands, and give up?

well, yes, sort of: we don't have what it takes to agree on the proper course of action in iraq, so we should turn the decision over to a relatively neutral international body such as the UN security council, and we ought to agree in advance to follow their recommendations.

i've said that before, and i haven't heard a better idea yet.

it shouldn't've come to this, you know. letting the UN decide the matter shouldn't be the last resort. war should be the last resort. we've turned common sense upside down.