We will not support any candidate for national office who does not make a speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign. We urge all voters to join us in adopting this position. Many worry that the aftermath of withdrawal will be ugly, but we can now see that the consequences of staying will be uglier still.
We will not support -- until, of course, we do.
Well, not us. We will never vote for the War Criminals who destroyed Iraq.
But some will. The paragraph at the top, the one in bold, we didn't write that. The editors of THE NATION wrote it, they published it November 10, 2005, "Democrats and the War."
In that same editorial, they wrote:
The war–an unprovoked, unnecessary and unlawful invasion that has turned into a colonial-style occupation–is a moral and political catastrophe. As such it is a growing stain on the honor of every American who acquiesces, actively or passively, in its conduct and continuation.
The war has also become the single greatest threat to our national security. Its human and economic costs are spiraling out of control, with no end in sight. It has driven America’s reputation in the world to a historic low point. In the meantime, real threats suffer terrible neglect. These include more terrorist attacks, jeopardized oil supplies, rising tension with China, the spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and even natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina. All are pushed aside as this Administration pours the country’s blood, treasure and political energy into a futile war. In short, ending the Iraq War is the most pressing issue facing America today. Until it is ended, a constructive national security policy cannot be forged.
What changed? The war and the "colonial-style occupation" continue. And THE NATION's supporting Joe Biden who not only voted for the war, not only attacked those who opposed it, he also overturned the votes of the Iraqi people in 2010 when they voted Nouri al-Maliki out as prime minister but Joe, via The Erbil Agreement, tossed aside the votes and gave Nouri a second term -- a term that led to the rise of ISIS in Iraq.
THE NATION's an old, dirty joke now. It made such dramatic statements and it never followed through. Back in 2007, Bill Van Auken (WSWS) observed:
The transfer of congressional leadership to the Democrats may have failed to stop the war or produce any significant changes for the masses of working people in America, but it has yielded definite benefits for the privileged layer of upper-middle-class “left” liberals for whom the Nation speaks. Many of them have filled coveted staff positions on Capitol Hill or seen the fortunes of the liberal think tanks with which they are associated rise. The Nation’s editor, Katrina vanden Heuvel, has with increasing frequency been admitted to the ranks of pundits appearing on television talk shows.
This left wing of the US political establishment is being promoted for definite political purposes. America’s ruling elite fears the eruption of mass movements of social protest and, above all, the emergence of a genuinely independent political movement of the working class in opposition to the two-party system and the profit interests it defends.
The job of these “left” PR agents for the Democratic Party is to politically suffocate any such movement and to contain social protest, diverting it back into the harmless confines of the Democratic Party.
Bill was right in 2007. He's right today.
THE NATION tosses out a lot of words and a lot of pretense. It has no follow through.