Bring 'em home

On Sunday, the NYTimes, maybe the leading newspaper in the country, started catching up with what us great unwashed have been saying for years:

It is time for the United States to leave Iraq, without any more delay than the Pentagon needs to organize an orderly exit.

Disregarding the fact that is has been time to put an end to this illegal war and occupation since the day it started, I guess when The Gray Lady says it, it's official.

NYT goes on and on, worth a read, but nothing new, just the things we've been saying all along.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have used demagoguery and fear to quell Americans' demands for an end to this war. They say withdrawing will create bloodshed and chaos and encourage terrorists. Actually, all of that has already happened - the result of this unnecessary invasion and the incompetent management of this war.

This country faces a choice. We can go on allowing Mr. Bush to drag out this war without end or purpose. Or we can insist that American troops are withdrawn as quickly and safely as we can manage - with as much effort as possible to stop the chaos from spreading.

I think a good first step to 'stop the chaos from spreading' would be to 'rendition' Bush and Cheney to a secret prison somewhere where they can be held without lawyers, habeas corpus, the chance of a trial, or any Constitutional rights. Hey, it seems to be legal these days. Invite all the news services.

The world will cheer us for doing so. Well, except for Bush and Cheney's friends, like al Qaeda and Halliburton.

Update:

Robert Parry weighs in on NYT's editorial:

In an extraordinary full-length editorial, the New York Times has called for an end to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq, a step that some anti-war Americans may praise as a turning-point while others will be left wondering why it took the nation's leading newspaper more than four years – and scores of thousands of dead – to figure this out.

To its credit, the Times does acknowledge that its previous pro-occupation positions – favoring rebuilding what the U.S. invasion had destroyed and worrying about the dire consequences that might result from a U.S. withdrawal – were faulty.

The Times concedes that whatever horrors might follow the end of the U.S. military occupation, they are not likely to be avoided by an indefinite continuation; that it is time to admit that a grotesque mistake in U.S. national security policy was made in 2003 and readjust strategy to make the best of it.

There's more.