By David Podvin

Conservatives believe America must fight the terrorists over there or we will have to fight them over here, so George W. Bush has deliberately transformed Iraq into the Middle Eastern version of a roach motel. The concept is that while Americans maintain occupation villains from throughout the Islamic world will flock to the country and – as the commercial famously boasts – they will check in but they won’t check out.

The strategy has two major flaws, the first of which is that it’s demonstrably stupid. Al Qaeda has more members now than it had on 9/11. Rather than being a graveyard for the jihadist movement Iraq has become an incubator, producing terrorist hatchlings by the ton. No matter what transpires in Iraq Bush’s enhancement of the al Qaeda membership roll will inevitably make America less secure. This disturbing little fact would deter normal people from staying the course, but if conservatives were normal people they wouldn’t be conservatives.

The second flaw of the plan is that it’s demonstrably evil. Misusing a sovereign nation to lure terrorists is one of the most barbaric ideas ever conceived. Many defenseless Iraqis are now being murdered by the jihadists whom Bush has enticed into their midst. The terrorists torment innocent people by burning them alive, decapitating them with power tools, and throwing them off tall buildings. Conservatives are modernizing the master race concept by encouraging our enemies to murder worthless Iraqi civilians, thereby sparing priceless American civilians.

The sadistic pragmatism is camouflaged by declarations of moral superiority. Even as they import the murderers and torturers who are savaging Iraq Republicans aver deep devotion to the Iraqi people, and accuse those who advocate American military withdrawal of facilitating genocide. Yet for all their loudly proclaimed humanitarian motives, the right wing is treating Iraqis the way fisherman treat earthworms.

We are witnessing a great historical abomination, postmodern barbarity that emulates Aztec human sacrifice. The ancestral Mexicans launched human beings into volcanoes to satiate their God’s blood lust. Iraqis are serving as sacrificial offerings not to Huitzilopochtli but to Osama bin Laden, the demigod whose mighty wrath has inspired Americans to forfeit their decency at the altar of expediency. In a Judeo-Christian culture as presumptively virtuous as ours surely there must be stalwarts eager to challenge such paganism.

Sadly, no challengers have emerged. Although the Democrats won Congress by promising to end the war they were just kidding. Deadpan humor can be a compelling comedic device, but it is a lousy governing tool. Consequently, liberals have again rendered themselves irrelevant on a profound moral issue. Just three percent of Americans support the Democratic approach towards Iraq, which consists of feigning opposition to the conflict. Hillary Clinton does not advocate military withdrawal, nor does Barack Obama nor does Harry Reid nor does Nancy Pelosi. They support “partial withdrawal”, a discredited tactic that ends war as reliably as it prevents pregnancy.

Republicans oppose any military withdrawal. They caution that should America leave Iraq we will be viewed as hapless prey by the world’s tyrants. But which tyrants? After seeing us withdraw which tyrant would say, “If I provoke the United States the Americans will merely carpet bomb my country, dismantle my government, appropriate my resources, torture my people, hang me, and then flee like pitiful little sissies. How contemptuously I laugh at those puny Yankees!”

There exists no such tyrant, except in the darkest recesses of the Republican psychosis. It is unclear which solar system conservatives occupy, but it definitely is not the Milky Way. Right wingers are marooned in a terrifying fantasy world where diabolical fiends who have Parkinson’s Disease promote stem cell research for the covert purpose of killing babies. Anyone trapped in such a nightmarish hellhole can be excused for having gone mad.

Nevertheless, the mentally ill should not be formulating foreign policy. That policy is supposed to reflect our oft-stated principles of honor and valor. The conflict with al Qaeda is America’s war, and Iraqis want no part of the jihadist-infidel collision. Honor and valor dictate that the United States fight its own battles rather than pushing bystanders into the line of fire. Encouraging our enemies to attack Baghdad rather than Baltimore may seem shrewd, but it is entirely inconsistent with America being the home of the brave. The brave do not declare war and then hide behind unarmed foreign peasants.

Given that wars are nothing but glorified thuggery, they should be waged only when national survival is at stake. One of the most transparently dishonest aspects of the Iraq War is the pretext that our survival depends on it. American strategy belies that claim. To avoid alienating Islamic allies, the administration has forbidden our military from attacking those Iraqi mosques that serve as terrorist encampments. And when jihadists congregated in Fallujah, our military was restrained from annihilating them because the heavy civilian casualty toll would have generated negative press prior to the 2004 election.

Contrast that publicity conscious approach with how the US military confronted the Axis powers: countless houses of worship were leveled, a million German civilians were killed, and two Japanese population centers were vaporized. During the Second World War America’s survival was actually at stake, the telltale sign being that the United States fought no holds barred.

The point is not that America should destroy mosques or inflict civilian casualties. The relevant observation is that when the United States faced imminent destruction the war we fought bore little resemblance to the current one. Far from being a noble if bloody exercise in self-defense, the Iraq War represents the vilest mutation of corporate welfare. Chevron gets more crude oil and natural gas. Halliburton gets more sweetheart contracts and taxpayer lucre. Iraq gets more grieving widows and crippled orphans.

Like Vietnam before it, the Iraq War is unnecessary and therefore odious. Killing a million civilians to save the United States is justified. Killing one civilian where America is not threatened is homicide. Iraqi citizens present zero threat to the United States, so there is no justification for endangering their lives. The Republicans who are prosecuting this war are murderers. The Democrats who will not end the war are accomplices to murder.

Having imposed anarchy upon Iraq the United States is morally indebted. We owe the Iraqis the weaponry they need to defend themselves. We also owe them the return of their oil. Most of all, we owe them our departure. Until we leave the jihadists will continue streaming into Iraq and the Iraqis will continue to be slaughtered. That bloodbath comprises the conservative plan to protect America, and a more despicable plan you will never find.

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