There has been a lot of internet chatter in recent weeks among Americans who style themselves as "leftists," primarily because they admire Democratic politicians who believe they could do a better job of slaughtering Afghans, Iraqis, and coming soon, Iranians, than the Republicans, and because "we can't just cut and run."

The crusade is undeniably popular, with politicians and their corporate sponsors as well as with voters, even though the voters have not, at least yet, received a benefit.

While fans may state different reasons for their support, as far as the voting classes are concerned, America does speak with one voice.

Unfortunately, it is a voice that willingly funds, and advocates crimes against humanity, and constitutes a much graver danger to ordinary Americans than any gaggle of scuffed-up old CIA assets ever could.

Staying in Iraq is by definition, pro-war, or more accurately, pro-colonization, since a war tends to imply some sort of parity, which in Iraq, there is not.

In their unstinting efforts to outdo the right at the popular new American game of Good Germanhood, some "leftists" have been reduced to making the argument that while it is morally reprehensible, it is pragmatic.

It is, after all, making quite a bit of money for those who are intended to make money from it, and even people who have not received a benefit support it.

Therefore, any politician who wishes to continue in politics has little choice but to support it, and those who support him have little choice but to go along.

It is indeed the official policy of both monied political parties, and the number who oppose it, always small, shrinks daily.

That old unbridgeable gap again: it is just as impossible for Americans to comprehend the idea that the oil, and the people, and the land, are NOT US property by divine right, as it is for people in the Middle East to entertain the notion that they are.

A few hardline obstructionists, enemies of freedom and terrorists like myself find ourselves unable to resist the temptation to ask the pro-crusade faction questions like: What would Americans think of it if Iran, just as an example, decided that it did not like America's form of government, and appointed itself the boss of the US and sent in Iranian gunmen and torturers and sexual predators to enforce its views?

What sort of arguments could Iran make that would successfully address any possible American objection to this?

How could Iran successfully put down the anti-Iranian "insurgency?"

What would be your level of enthusiasm, if your town were Fallujized, for the Iranians sticking around, under any pretext whatsoever?

Under what circumstances, and for what price, would you join up with the Iranian occupying forces to become part of the New American Army, and on their orders, kill those of your neighbors that you were ordered to kill, and inform the occupation authorities if you suspected a friend or relative of harboring anti-Iranian sentiment?