Time to Start Listening To The People

Today is the fourth anniversary of the entry into Baghdad of the U.S. army, and as we are all aware, the people are out in the streets celebrating by telling us to go home.

The election results from our recent Congressional returns told a story that people in the country have learned. The numbers of supporters of the war in Iraq are small and growing smaller. The Congress has begun whittling away at that war, and managed in both of its houses to enact a beginning to get our forces out.

Voices in Iraq are raised today as well, leaving no mistaking the intentions of the Iraqi people. We are not welcome in their country, even in places where we were at one time liberators. Our continued presence is defiance of the wishes of America and of Iraq.

Demonstrators marched from Kufa to neighboring Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad. Those marching were overwhelmingly Shiite, but Sunnis — who are believed to make up the heart of Iraq's insurgency — have also called for an American withdrawal.

Some at the rally waved small Iraqi flags; others hoisted a giant flag 10 yards long. Leaflets fluttered through the breeze reading: "Yes, Yes to Iraq" and "Yes, Yes to Muqtada. Occupiers should leave Iraq."

"The enemy that is occupying our country is now targeting the dignity of the Iraqi people," said lawmaker Nassar al-Rubaie, head of al-Sadr's bloc in parliament, as he marched. "After four years of occupation, we have hundreds of thousands of people dead and wounded."

A senior official in al-Sadr's organization in Najaf, Salah al-Obaydi, called the rally a "call for liberation."

"We're hoping that by next year's anniversary, we will be an independent and liberated Iraq with full sovereignty," he said.

Al-Sadr did not attend the demonstration, and has not appeared in public for months. U.S. officials say he left Iraq for neighboring Iran after the Feb. 14 start of a Baghdad security crackdown, but his followers say he is in Iraq.

Iraqi soldiers in uniform joined the crowd, which was led by at least a dozen turbaned clerics — including one Sunni. Many marchers danced as they moved through the streets.

The occupiers of the White House give every appearance of being resolved to continue defying rather than representing the American public. The voices from Iraqis are telling the administration the same thing the U.S. voters already have. The war is opposed by those people the maladministration claims to protect. Their war is against our own and Iraqi interests, and will.

As Congress strengthens its resolve to uphold and defend the Constitution, it is increasingly obvious that it will have to go over and through the executive branch to represent the people.

That had to be done by impeachment in the Nixon years, and may require a beginning of that process once again. The supervision that Congress is starting under Democratic representatives is one big step on the way to returning this country to the rule of law.

A much needed beginning to overturning violators of our laws would be to turn out the Justice Department officials who have disgraced our country and trample on our laws. From that start, the investigators can work their way up through the layers put in place by the cretin in chief. When they are thoroughly in control of the country again, the justice officials will need to use our laws to rid us of criminals who hold the people - American and Iraqi - in contempt.