Thoughts on withdrawing from Iraq

It has recently come to light that there is a website where "US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan are invited to display graphic battlefield photos apparently taken with their personal digital cameras ... (in exchange for) unlimited (free) access to the site's pornography."

Over at Whiskey Bar Billmon posts Heart of Darkness, which uses this outrage and other arguments to speak eloquently for our withdrawal from Iraq.

I came across the Nation article on nonwthatsfuckedup.com, which meant I had to take a good, hard look at the psychopathic side of the American spirit, and consider its implications not just for the war on terrorism and the occupation of Iraq, but its role in the emergence of an authentically fascist movement in American politics, one which feeds on violence and the glorification of violence, and which has found an audience not just in the U.S. military (where I think -- or at least hope -- it's still a relatively small fringe) but in the culture as a whole.

(...)

As a nation, we may be so desensitized to violence, and so inured to mechanized carnage on a grand scale, that we're psychologically capable of tolerating genocidal warfare against any one who can successfully be labeled as a "terrorist." Or at least, a sizable enough fraction of the America public may be willing to tolerate it, or applaud it, to make the costs politically bearable.

I don't know this for a fact, but after a stroll through nowthatsfuckedup.com, or reading the genocidal lunacy routinely on display at Little Green Footballs or freerepublic.com - or your average redneck watering hole for that matter -- I'm not willing to rule it out.

Billmon has frequently posted with humor, wit and passion about the growing strains of fascism evident in our country and the post I refer to here is an excellent example.