Where do you stand?

Seems to me there are three camps in America: Freedom Marchers, Common Sensers, and the Skeptics.

FREEDOM MARCHERS:
If you are for the war, you are convinced Saddam was in cahoots with bin Laden, that he had the means and intent to rebuild his WMD programs, and that it was only a matter of time before he struck at us or at our vital interests. You support the President. You see the successful imposition of western-style democracy in Iraq as the first step to pacifying a strategic region of the world, thereby mitigating the threat of terrorism. You are committed to seeing this through to a successful conclusion.

COMMON SENSERS:
If you are disenchanted with the war, but think we cannot pull out and leave Iraqis to their fate, you are in this unhappy camp. You doubt the President can turn this around, but see calls for an immediate pull-out as an unacceptable "cut and run" exit plan. You are hoping someone will come up with a plan that makes sense, and soon.

SKEPTICS:
If you opposed this war from the start, or have recently come to see it as a great screw-up and immoral adventure, then you are probably demanding an immediate withdrawal, or at least an early date for a planned exit. You see the occupation as part of the problem, not part of the solution. People in this camp tend to think Bush is a liar who wanted this war because he has some dysfunctional obsession with his father's failure to finish off Saddam, or because of a secret agenda to establish American hegemony in an oil-rich region. Some of us simply hate war -- others support the use of American military force in Afghanistan but see the Iraq war as a misguided distraction from the fight against Islamic Jihadism.

The debate is a bitter one. It cannot be otherwise. We went to war still grieving and angry about 9/11, without clear war aims, and without consensus among the American people. The case for war was thin at best, and now we are paying the price.

As it becomes increasingly apparent that the Bush administration has no plan beyond "stay the course", even the war's early supporters begin to fear that "more of the same" is all that they can expect.

It is time for a change.

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