This morning, while walking back home after dropping the car off to have it's brake's fixed, I heard an interesting quip from Sam Seder of the Majority Report, while discussing the debate on the floor that happened several days ago, he off hand-idly said, and I'm paraphrasing, that "staying the course" was simply passing the buck.

I had never really thought of it in that sense before, not that I had ever bought into the sound-byte rationalization of "staying the course", I thought it was an empty solution for a false argument. A knee-jerk catch-phrase that on the surface sounded strong and steady, but really was just simple and stubborn. I say "false argument" because it's the plan for winning the war on terror, but Iraq is not a war on terror - it's not even a war, it's simply an occupation - a very illegal and unsuccessful one at that.

The war, as by definition, was over when our fearless leader, sporting an accentuating crotch-piece, announced that major combat operations were over - we stopped bombing their facilities, we had overthrown their government and seized it's leaders, we gained control of their land. That's the end of a war - what you do after is an occupation. Why is the debate being framed around the "war" in Iraq? Because no one likes to loose a war - no one - but people understand that an occupation, eventually, has to end, it's only natural and only right.

But I'm getting sidetracked - the point I wanted to make is that "staying the corse", which has been our militaries' curse and our government's fail-safe plan since day one, is - in reality - 'passing the buck' or dodging responsibility and letting that responsibility fall on the shoulders of others.

"Staying the course" means continuing to under-equip our soldiers and, by default, putting the soldier's family in charge of buying proper protection and fed-ex'ing it to Iraq... hoping it gets there before their son or daughter is killed by a basic road-side explosive.

"Staying the corse" means an unsteady decline in power for the Iraqi people - as of recently, they are with one hour with electricity for every six without. Much worse than only months before.

"Staying the corse" means a continued stop on all reconstruction funds for what we destroyed in a televised 'shock & awe' event.

"Staying the corse" means lower oil production levels, which raise demand and cost, which is quite the opposite from what we were promised going in.

"Staying the corse" means thousands more of our soldiers will die guarding trucks for Halliburton down the same dangerous roads day in and day out.

"Staying the corse" means more signing statements by Bush that legally allow our government and military to not follow human rights laws - giving the world a red flag that the US can and has been: beating, punching with fist, slamming against walls, use of tranchants, kicking, stretching of torn ligaments and muscles to cause affixation, external electric shocks, forcing prisoners to urinate on themselves, forced renunciation of religion, false confessions or accusations, applying urine and feces to prisoners, making verbal threats to the prisoner and their family, denigration of a prisoner's religion, forced feeding, induced hypothermia and exposure to extreme heat, dietary manipulation, use of sedatives, extreme sleep deprivation, mock executions, water emerging, water boarding, obstruction of the prisoner's airway, chest compression, thermal burning, rape, dog bites, sexual abuse, forcing a prisoner to watch the torture of a loved one... (Note: No, I did not just pull those forms of torture out of thin air, keep an eye out for a book by Steven Miles, titled 'Oath Betrayed' - filled with over 35,000 documents, obtained through a freedom of information provision, that outline all the cases where these forms of interrogation have been used by our country).


I could on all day.

But "Staying the corse", perhaps worst of all, means the continued chipping away at our rights and privacy under the context of an endless and PR-based war on terror - and "justified" by a worsening occupation in Iraq.