Mainstreet America is now dead set against the war in Iraq, says alexander cockburn |
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There are limits to protest. Don't try to picket Bush or Cheney, even if you're in a wheelchair. Chances are the cops will
Taser you and haul you off. But you can wear an anti-war T-shirt in pretty much any mall in America today and not even get spat on.
This is not the early 1960s, when anti-war demonstrators faced brickbats and curses from the multitude, and only the merest handful of senators and representatives dared stand up and be counted. This is the early 21st century, when mainstreet America has decisively turned against the war in Iraq.
At the start of October - even after General David Petraeus's suave performance on Capitol Hill, hyping his 'surge' - only 27 per cent of Americans want Congress to okay the $190bn Bush has requested for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last week, the Washington Post summed up its latest poll thus: "Most Americans do not
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Only a quarter of Americans want Congress to OK Bush’s $190bn request for the surge on Iraq
and Afghanistan |
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believe Congress has gone far enough in opposing the war." The way things are headed, in two or three months we'll have 95 per cent of the American people wanting to pull-out from the war in Iraq, and 95 per cent of Congress obediently voting funds to keep the troops there.
On Capitol Hill, they want to attack Iran too. Joe Lieberman, the Senator from Israel (albeit officially identified as the Independent Democratic junior senator from Connecticut), recently put up a bill encouraging the Bush administration to place Iran's Revolutionary Guards on the US government's official blacklist as a "terrorist organisation." This legislation was clearly hatched as a way for Bush to attack Iran without seeking Congressional approval. It cantered through the Senate with only 25 opposing. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama voted for it. The House approved a similar measure with only 16 Noes, of which 12 were Democrats.
The only Democratic presidential candidates shouting for the troops to be brought home are all outsiders: Kucinich, Richardson, 
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