How's this for a marriage...Dick Cheney and Mel Gibson? They're both practiced at spewing obscenities, for one thing, as well as mistaking monuments with the stuff from which low budget movies are made. They both have their passion, and both are mistaken if they think it has anything to do with Christ. Well, if you don't believe me, just ask the former residents of Baghdad, that is, the Baghdad before Cheney and his Fortune 500 cronies took over.
To say that House Democrats don't support the troops only goes to show just how much closer this administration has come to the stuff of monarchies, and totalitarian states. If history can be seen as a series of mimetic events, the Bush regime shows, if nothing else, that what the president calls "poitical theatre" is witnessing its finest hour. Far be it for me, or anyone to eclipse or upstage the vice president's histronic claim that the House Dems are sending a message to "terrorists," but, hey, somebody needs to remind Mr. Cheney that there were no "terrorists" in Iraq until he and his homeboys chose to invade, and topple a formerly sovereign state. And , while we're on the subject of history, history may well prove that legislation passed yesterday, by the House, calling for pulling troops out by next year was too little too late. Iraq is one problem that won't be solved by throwing more coins into the war purse.
If, as they claim, Mr Cheney and Mr. Bush are looking for "stability in Iraq," then their only hope in finding it is in a concrete, and coherent exit strategy. What's more, if Mr. Cheney really wants to support the troops, he'll resign, go home to Halliburton where he belongs, and take Rove, Gonzales, and his other lapdogs with him.
Widely published, poet, playwright, essayist, and screenwriter; member of PEN American Center, and PEN USA. Jayne Lyn Stahl is a Huffington Post blogger.