As Civil War Escalates, Polls Show Majority Of Americans Oppose War

Even though the U.S. continues to deny it, civil war is underway in Iraq.

After the insurgent bombing of a Shiite shrine, the existing fighting has escalated and spread all over Iraq. The AP reports that "Gunmen shot dead 47 civilians and left their bodies in a ditch near Baghdad Thursday as militia battles and sectarian reprisals followed the bombing of a sacred Shiite shrine. Sunni Arabs suspended their participation in talks on a new government." Over 100 people have been killed in the last two days, including some journalists.

The U.S. continues to urge calm, but they long ago stopped listening to us.

A new Gallup poll (predating the bombing) has the numbers on support for Iraq-

More Americans than nearly ever before now say the war in Iraq is a "mistake" for the United States, according to a new Gallup poll. That figure now stands at 55%, up 4% point since late January. Only once before was the figure higher, at 59%, and that was during the period of overall pessimism right after Hurricane Katrina hit...

And yet, the odd aspect of this is that, despite the majority having opposed the war for some time now (since at least last summer), very few in Washington are vocalizing that opposition. No major Democratic candidates will come out on a platform involving opposition to our involvement in Iraq. The most high-profile candidate on that issue was Paul Hackett and he was forced out of the race by his own party. In Congress, Rep. Murtha has been very open about the realities of this war and no one's paying attention to him as if he's radical like Cindy Sheehan sipping margaritas with Hugo Chavez. Murtha said Iraq was in civil war months ago (little doubts there now) and that we need to begin redeploying our troops immediately for their safety as well as to not further stoke insurgency fires. The majority of the country seems to be at that stance already, so why are the politicians still hiding? No doubt they are scared of the political ramifications... but that's how we got into this mess in the first place! Cowed Democrats helped get us into this war, all I ask is for some Democrats with balls to help get us out.

Chris Matthews even touched on this issue somewhat on Monday's Hardball-

MATTHEWS: Is this the Democrats squeamish about running an out and out war critic? ... [T]hey don't seem to have one now in the whole country. I keep thinking of the race in Pennsylvania, we always talk about, the Bob Casey versus the incumbent senator. Nothing on the war really. You know, you think about where the war is going to be fought.

Here we have the biggest issue of our time, we argue about it here all the time. Most Americans argue about it over the dinner table, I assume, it's casualties, it's cost, it's a trillion dollars and nobody argues about the policy in elections.

FINEMAN: I think it's mystifying at this point. We sat around here at this table and said this is one of the biggest decisions any president would ever make on the war in Iraq and it's either right or it's wrong and the Democrats need to find a way to frame a message and I think they need war heroes to do it.

MATTHEWS: The stunning thing is the latest Gallup poll, the oldest poll we have in the country, 56 percent of the people say they don't think the war is something we should be fighting. They don't like this war. They don't believe in it, they don't think it was smart, and yet it's still treated as a weird marginal minority weirdo issue, like, oh, you're anti-war, you're kind of out of it. It's a strange disconnect.

He's right about that disconnect.

I've said it before- The Democrats need to go for broke and fight on these issues. Fight on the war! Fight on the ports! Fight on warrantless spying! Fight, fight, fight! What do they have to lose?

[PS- Even Bill O'Reilly wants us to get out of Iraq. Et tu, Bill'O?!]