Trying to squeeze any sort of peace on earth out of our government in Washington has been a steep uphill climb for years. For the most part we no longer have representatives in Congress, because of the corruption of money, the weakness of the media, and the strength of parties. There are not 535 opinions on Capitol Hill on truly important matters, but 2. Our supposed representatives work for their party leaders, not for us. Luckily, one of the two parties claims to want to work for us.

When the Democrats were in the minority and out of the White House, they told us they wanted to work for us but needed to be in the majority. So, in 2006, we put them there. Then they told us that they really wished they could work for us but they needed bigger majorities and the White House. So, in 2008/2009, we gave them those things, and deprived them of two key excuses for inaction. We took away the veto excuse and the filibuster excuse.

Lawless detention is the least of it. State secrets and warrantless spying scrape the surface. Drone attacks and ongoing torture begin to touch it. But central to the power of an emperor, and the catastrophes that come from the existence of an emperor, is the elimination of any other force within the government. Signing statements eliminate congress. Not that congress objects. Asking congress to reclaim its power produces nervous giggles.

Iraq now (sort of) sovereign
(Sort of) pregnant woman makes medical history

As of June 30, all U.S. troops have left Iraq’s cities – except for Baghdad where municipal borders were redrawn so a U.S. base doesn't have to move, Mosul where some troops will remain as "advisers," and other cities we haven't heard about at this point.

A year from now, the U.S. will still have upwards of 50,000 ‘non-combat’ troops in Iraq – a rather bizarre concept to any soldier who has been in a combat zone. Not until the end of 2011, two and a half years from now, are U.S. troops finally scheduled to be gone, and even that distant deadline could change.

Such a lengthy timetable is simply not good enough. The presence of U.S. troops in Iraq is what fuels the instability and violence. Keeping tens of thousands of military personnel there for at least another 18 months will insure the killing and wounding, the political instability and the economic chaos will continue that much longer.

“From now on, the war they started is ours.”

Seemingly these words of an Iraqi soldier, noted in a Guardian U.K. story, were uttered in pride. This was on June 30: National Sovereignty Day, the day U.S. troops withdrew from Iraqi cities. Sorry, but it sounds more like someone enthusing over a case of venereal disease.

Oh national sovereignty! Could its inadequacies as a concept – as a means of dividing and governing the human race – be more painfully exposed than in Iraq on its day of faux-celebration? Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki got his chance to strut and reclaim some of the old glory from the, ahem, Saddam era. Fireworks went off. Troops marched in review. Trucks hauling scud missiles were part of the day’s show-and-tell.

“The war-ravaged state’s new military and police force rolled around the giant war memorial that its executed president built,” the Guardian article explained.

“Yesterday’s parade started and finished near Saddam’s crossed swords. . . . Iraq’s new leaders seemed willing to stake a claim on their country’s former glory, but not by stirring too many ghosts of its past.”