If never before, NOW is the time to get the hell out of Iraq. They clearly want us out. WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?

MSNBC

Shiite rallies mark anniversary of Baghdad’s fall

Huge turnout follows calls by radical cleric for Iraqis to A-unify- against U.S.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Tens of thousands marched through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad’s fall.

The rally was called for by powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who commands an enormous following among Iraq’s majority Shiites and has close allies in the Shiite-dominated government.

A day earlier, the renegade cleric issued a statement ordering his militiamen to redouble their battle to oust American forces and argued that Iraq’s army and police should join him in defeating “your archenemy.”
[...]

In a statement distributed in Najaf on Sunday, al-Sadr called on Iraqi forces to stop cooperating with America.

“You, the Iraqi army and police forces, don-t walk alongside the occupiers, because they are your archenemy,” the statement said.

He urged his followers not to attack fellow Iraqis but to turn all their efforts on American forces.

(Cross-posted at Vagabond Scholar)

Len Hart, “The Existentialist Cowboy,” has a great post titled “Why the Bush regime is illegitimate” (hat-tip to Mike’s Blog Roundup). He provides a great overview of some key philosophical and legal foundations of America’s founding, and how the Bush administration has systematically attacked them. My favorite passage that he quotes is (emphasis mine):

The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the government.

[...]

That (it might seem) was a resource against rulers whose interests were habitually opposed to those of the people. What was now wanted was, that the rulers should be identified with the people; that their interest and will should be the interest and will of the nation.

- John Stuart Mill, On Liberty

The authoritarians of the Bush administration and their allies are not solely seeking power within the existing American system of government. They have been trying to undo the system itself. The Bushies and King George really aren’t far from the monarchists of years past.