Out when?

There are those, including on the left, who say it doesn't matter how we got into Iraq, we're there now and we must not "fail."

Right. Let's forget the phony claims about "threats," let's forget the lies about bioweapons, let's forget the extravagant fantasies about nuclear bombs, let's forget the emotionally-manipulative innuendo about Saddam Hussein and 9/11, let's forget most of all the craven political cowardice of those - such as John Kerry - who gave speeches about all the reasons not to go to war and then voted for it anyway. Let's forget all that. Instead, let's just look at the present moment, at what we have done, what we have created, in Iraq:

A foul and increasingly-bloody mess with only vague hopes and worn cliches of what to do about it.

Look, let's get real here: We can't forget the lies, not even for an instant, because what was born in lies can only be kept alive by lies. And the lies surround us, abetted by the lies we are telling ourselves about "commitment" and "staying the course." And I refuse, even for the sake of argument, to continue with them.

Because the truth is, we are not preventing bloodshed in Iraq, we are causing it.

The upswing in violence has made April the bloodiest month for the American-led military since the invasion of Iraq. At least 100 soldiers and five American civilian contractors have been killed. Dozens of foreigners have been abducted in a wave of kidnappings, with about 15 still captive.

New figures for the Iraqi casualty toll from this month's fighting emerged Thursday, with the health minister saying 576 Iraqi insurgents and civilians had died in fighting since April 1 - sharply lower than earlier estimates. ...

The compilation of Iraqi deaths by Health Minister Khudayer Abbas since April 1 was sharply lower than a U.S. military estimate of about 1,000 insurgents killed and about half The Associated Press tally of 1,170 killed based on statements from hospital officials, police and the U.S. military.

Abbas said 271 Iraqis had been killed in Fallujah since the Marine siege began on April 5. Doctors in the city had given a higher figure of 600 killed, Abbas said, because they had been pressured to do so by insurgents for political reasons.

The minister said he did not know how many were civilians. An official in the ministry, speaking on condition of anonymity, said 19 percent of the dead were women and children.

We are not preventing brutality in Iraq, we are a source of it.

Senior British commanders have condemned American military tactics in Iraq as heavy-handed and disproportionate. ...

The officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said part of the problem was that American troops viewed Iraqis as untermenschen - the Nazi expression for "sub-humans".

Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are."

We are not bringing "security" to Iraq, we're bringing suicide bombings -

A series of bomb attacks in the Basra area of southern Iraq has killed at least 68 people and injured many more.

The first blasts - apparently suicide bombings - occurred outside three police stations in Basra city centre during Wednesday's morning rush hour.

Many of the dead and injured were children travelling in passing buses on their way to school.

A fourth attack south of Basra is said to have killed three Iraqis and wounded five UK soldiers. ...

Iraqi Interior Minister Samir al-Sumeidi said the attacks bore the "fingerprints" of those who carried out the bombings in Irbil and Karbala - in which hundreds died in February and March.

[The death total in Basra was later lowered to 50.]

- and assassinations.

Baghdad, Iraq (AP, April 22) - Masked gunmen shot and killed a South African security contractor working for the U.S.-led occupation administration and severely wounded his translator Thursday. ...

The two men were shot at a neighborhood supermarket....

We are not bringing "democracy" to Iraq, we are bringing destruction, ruin, corruption, cronyism, and sectarian strife, producing an increasingly-likely civil war.

As the situation in Iraq grows ever more tenuous, the Bush administration continues to spin the ominous news with matter-of-fact optimism. ...

But according to a closely held Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) memo written in early March, the reality isn't so rosy. Iraq's chances of seeing democracy succeed, according to the memo's author - a U.S. government official detailed to the CPA, who wrote this summation of observations he'd made in the field for a senior CPA director - have been severely imperiled by a year's worth of serious errors on the part of the Pentagon and the CPA, the U.S.-led multinational agency administering Iraq. Far from facilitating democracy and security, the memo's author fears, U.S. efforts have created an environment rife with corruption and sectarianism likely to result in civil war.

[The full text of that memo can be found here.]

We have not made either ourselves or the world more safe, we have made it less safe -

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (AP, April 22) - Those responsible for Saudi Arabia's latest suicide attack will be "burned in hell," the kingdom's top cleric said Thursday, as investigators searched for clues to the deadly bombing.

Five people, including two senior police officers and an 11-year-old girl, were killed along with the suicide bomber in Wednesday's attack on the administrative building of the General Security, the Interior Ministry said. It said 148 people were injured.

- and we know it.

The number of those who think the military action in Iraq has increased the long-term risk of terrorism in the United States have increased to 54 percent now, up from 40 percent in December, the [AP-Ipsos] poll [taken April 5-7] found.

The people who say the Bush administration made the right decision to go to war in Iraq, 48 percent, are now about even with those who think the administration made a mistake, 49 percent. In December, two-thirds said the administration made the right decision.

We have not improved our image, we have only generated more hatred.

Paris (Toronto Star, April 21) - Arabs in the Middle East hate the United States more than ever following the invasion of Iraq and Israel's assassination of two Hamas leaders, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said in comments published yesterday.

Mubarak, who visited the United States last week, told French newspaper Le Monde that Washington's actions had caused despair, frustration and a sense of injustice in the Arab world. ...

"Today there is hatred of the Americans like never before in the region," he said.

We have not tamed terrorists, we have become a recruiting poster for them.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Christian Science Monitor, April 16) - Suspected Al Qaeda terrorists have waged a violent campaign in Saudi Arabia since last May's car bombings of a housing compound in the capital. Despite a stiff crackdown against them by authorities, the group continues to gather new recruits and enjoy logistical support from sympathizers, analysts say.

And we are not there out of concern for the welfare of Iraq or its people but out of our selfishness, our greed, our lust for power, our astonishing, destructive, shameful hubris.

We should get out. Now.

Just over a week ago I said that "out now" is not a viable peace slogan if only because it's physically impossible to remove - what is it now, 130,000? - troops immediately. I'm not taking that back. I'm saying we should commit - now - to getting out. Not "sometime," not "after we're through," not "once we've accomplished our goals," but by a specific time. "Set the date," as we put it back in the old days of our last blood-stained quagmire.

First a unilateral ceasefire. Then an announcement that US military forces will be withdrawn from Iraq no later than October 31 (six months from now).

Go ahead, call that "cut and run." I call it refusing to throw good lives (and money) after bad.

Go ahead, call it foolish. I call it facing the reality of what we've done and are doing.

Call it "encouraging terrorists." I call it ceasing to create new ones.

Say it's unrealistic, politically impossible. I say "an intelligent person fights for lost causes, realizing that others are merely effects." (e. e. cummings)

Say that even if it was accepted, the timing (withdrawal just before the election) would aid George Bush. I say that I'm not willing to have thousands more be killed, be maimed, be made homeless, be unjustly imprisoned, just to improve John Kerry's electoral chances.

What was born in lies has been kept alive by lies. It can only be undone by truth, the truth that our invasion was wrong, our occupation was, is, and will be wrong, and it can't be made right by piling up the bodies ever higher.

Set the damn date. And get out.

Update: I'd forgotten to include the link to the story about the CPA memo! Fixed.