No End in Sight

If there's anyone left out there (and I doubt there is, outside of Dick Cheney's bedroom) who doesn't think the Iraq invasion and "reconstruction" was the most poorly planned and executed military adventure in modern history, they should watch this film, which lays it out pretty plainly.
It's both maddening and sad, because there's no way to go back and undo all the needless, thoughtless damage done, all the misery that has been caused; we can only try to clean up the mess now as best we can.

Garrison Keillor: Belated Memorial Day Speech

I enjoyed this weekend's episode of A Prairie Home Companion, which described the best Memorial Day speech ever in Lake Woebegone, one acknowledging that silence was the best tribute that could be offered by civilians, who can't really understand, to veterans who could never explain it to them.
This Salon article is in a similar but bolder vein.

Cindy Sheehan's Goodbye Letter

from yesterday, Memorial Day, on the Daily Kos.

Quote du Jour: Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY)

All 435 reps will get a chance to talk for 5 minutes on the Iraq resolution, but here's one snippet:

The president has had generals tell him that this war should end and an escalation is not the answer. But when he gets advice he doesn't like, he simply fires the generals.

He has had a commission of experts advise him that a diplomatic political effort with all of Iraq's neighbors would be the most effective way to enable the U.S. to move its combat forces out of Iraq responsibly. However, the president does not like that advice, so he has chosen to simply ignore it.

When the president needed Congress to approve military action against Iraq, he cared about the perspective of the Congress then.

As Congress begins to conduct oversight of the combat operation, the president wants to ignore the voices of dissent that come from this very body.

The cameras of history are rolling. And I hope and pray that, at the end of this debate, history can record that this body, starting with this resolution as a first step, has taken the appropriate action to end a morally wrong war that threatens to irreversibly stain the fabric of Congress if we do not exercise our constitutional authority and our patriotic responsibility to balance the president's power.

Quote du Jour: Chuck Hagel on the nonbinding resolution on Iraq

“This is not a defeatist resolution. This is not a cut-and-run resolution. We are not talking about cutting off funds, not supporting the troops. This is a very real, responsible, addressing of the most divisive issue in this country since Vietnam.
Sure, it's tough. Absolutely. And, I think, all 100 senators ought to be on the line on this.
What do you believe?
What are you willing to support?
What do you think?
Why were you elected?
If you wanted a safe job, go sell shoes.”

(from yesterday's Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing)

I can't say I've always been a Chuck Hagel superfan (as Republicans go, he's no Arlen Specter) but I have to admire his stance on this resolution, not because it's more than a symbolic gesture compared to Chris Dodd's substantive one, but because by co-authoring it with two Democrats, he's basically (unless I'm missing something) putting the last nail in the coffin of his hopes for the Republican nomination, if he hadn't given up on that already.

The Ehren Watada court martial case

Kevin Sites article: Conscientious Rejector?