Iraq Z

So I'm a little confused about the whole iraq situation.

before i go any further let me, in the interest of full disclosure say:
I am a liberal. Not a crazy, tree hugging one, but i definitely lean more to the liberal side of the political spectrum.
On the one hand, i think it is the job of the government to take care of ALL people, not just the wealthy, but i also don't think that people should just be given a hand out. if the government is giving you money to help you survive, you need to be making every effort to find a source of income for yourself.
I believe that there is such a thing as global warming, I think that a big cause of it is big gas guzzling cars, but I DO drive an SUV. I carpool everywhere I can, try to walk whenever possible, etc, but still, my car gets really bad gas mileage.
I believe in a woman's right to choose, but i don't think abortion should be some sort of last chance birth control. if you're gonna bone, get a condom, on the pill, patch or shot, whatever...to paraphrase President Clinton's view on abortion, it should be Safe, Legal, and Rare.
Just to make sure that no one accuses me of being some goddamn treehugging commie hippie liberal, I wanted to lay those facts out there. I am definitely middle of the road, politically.

Now that i've got that out of the way, I just really don't understand the foreign policy of this country. I know that the president is the only person who has the constitutional right/responsibility to set a foreign policy, but congress and the courts DO have checks and balances for a reason. mostly to keep a president from becoming a psycho autocratic ruler who can just do whatever he wants. but congress and the courts haven't been using those checks and things are just going frickin HAYWIRE.

in november the country issued a clear mandate to the government. we do not support the war in iraq. That mandate was certainly more clear cut than the one President Bush claimed after the 2004 election (that would be his "clear mandate" of a whopping .1% victory) The majority of democratic congress people who were elected ran on not much other than that. but they haven't done anything to put a check on the president's war. they have had a few chances now to try to change the course of events in iraq, and in each case they have backed down.

and just to put this out there, i am completely torn on the issue of the war. On the one hand, I never supported the war, I thought that "wmd" was complete bullshit, but now that we have completely FUCKED this country (a sovereign nation that never attacked us, by the way) I feel like we have a responsibility to help fix it. but clearly, what we have been doing to try to fix it isn't working. more people die every day, (not always americans, but contrary to what you hear on the TV, turns out Iraqis are human beings too.) and it has become increasingly clear that what we are doing IS NOT WORKING. So we need to try SOMETHING else. I can't say WHAT else we should. I don't have access to any of the information that is necessary to make an informed decision on how to fix things. but other people, Congress, the military, the cabinet, and the president himself, DO. It is all of their responsibility to try to fix this mess somehow.

Thats all...sorry if this was a bit long winded or less than clear and concise. it was brought up because i have a friend shipping out to Iraq in less than a week, and I thought by now we would be starting to bring people home, not sending more out.

Anyways, If you think i'm completely off base tell me. If you think i'm right tell me. Just please don't either a.) call me a terrorist, or french, or any of the other things you right wingers like to call anyone who disagrees with you, or b.) just say "fuck bush" or "pull the troops out yesterday" or anything you left wingers like to throw out when you don't have anything helpful to say. I'd love to have a logical, sensible dialogue with people about this issue, so let me know what you think.