A couple of weeks ago, two things happened which should have a profound effect on the future of the Democratic Party. First, at a meeting of the Democratic Leadership Council, speakers insisted that we stand behind Bush's war in Iraq, only criticizing him for his failure to achieve victory.

In the second notable happening, Marine Major Paul Hackett, an Iraq War veteran and anti-war Democrat, got 48.2% of the vote in the most Republican Congressional district in Ohio. That's double what the last four Democrats got in that district. It also dwarfs John Kerry's showing in 2004.

Now, these things should tell us something. The second should tell us that there is still support out there for real Democrats. It suggests that if we throw away the war as an issue, we're throwing away the 62% of voters who now oppose the war. The first should tell us that the big money interests that control the Republican Party also control the Democratic Party at the national level, and through the corporate media, control the presidential primary process. Pundits, ever since the 2004 election, have been trying to tell us Democrats what we have to do if we ever want to win an election again. Most of them say we should be more like Republicans. I don't think so. I think we should be more like Democrats!

Somehow, the big money interests convinced Democratic primary voters that John Kerry was our most "electable" candidate. I worked hard for John Kerry, as most of you know. I spoke forcefully at Kerry rallies. My wife organized 32 precincts of Brevard for Kerry. But I was appalled at his campaign. The truth of the matter is that by nominating a fraternity brother of George W. Bush, a Roman Catholic with an extreme pro-abortion record, and a pro-war Massachusetts liberal, we probably chose the only candidate who could possibly lose to George W. Bush. What with the economy in the tank, record deficits, a scandal-ridden administration, and a failing war of aggression, Bush should have been beaten by 75% to 25%. If Kerry had adopted the positions of Dennis Kucinich or Howard Dean or Carol Moseley Braun or Al Sharpton and defended them with consistency, honesty, and passion, he would have blown Bush away. His margin of victory would have been so great that even the electronic voting machines could not have taken it away.

Let's face it, we Democrats face a rigged electoral system, election-day intimidation, voter purges, and other skullduggery, not to mention the Republican-owned, programmed, and operated voting machines with no paper trail. We also face the most deceitful, manipulative, and corrupt national administration in our nation's history. Karl Rove is a master illusionist, and Dick Cheney is a crafty genius. Together they have turned an affable idiot into a two-term president.

But the very magnitude of their lies, echoed by the corporate media monopoly - that which gives them their strength - is also their Achilles heel. The very arrogance of their evil deeds can be their undoing. We have the antidote. It is truth. But we can't equivocate. We can't go half-way. We can't defeat those engaged in an illegal, immoral, unconstitutional war by saying it's a good war but we can fight it better. We must speak the truth. The war is wrong!

Of course Bush should be criticized for ignoring military advice and invading Iraq with less than half the troops it would have taken to provide security, prevent looting, restore essential services, and give Iraqi citizens some hope for the future. Of course he should be criticized for dismantling the Iraqi Army and then belatedly trying to rebuild it. But there are much more fundamental and important things that he should be called to account for. On these vital issues, our party is divided. The DLC and the Democratic leadership in Congress give Bush and his cronies a free ride, while Major Hackett and a few brave Democrats in Congress do not. Thank God for Senator Barbara Boxer, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. But where are the men? Is it only our Democratic women who have the courage to stand up and speak out for what is right?

Everywhere you look, there are ribbons which say, "Support Our Troops." And I agree. But most of those people who use those stickers don't have the foggiest idea what it really means to support our troops. I do. I'm one of them. And I want to give you my take on what it means to support our troops.

First, it does NOT mean blindly supporting the misguided policies which sends them into harms way for the wrong reasons. It DOES mean speaking out to demand the support our troops need most - that of their government. Right now, they're not getting it. Let me give you some examples.

The president threatened to veto any legislation allowing retired disabled veterans to receive compensation without having it deducted dollar-for-dollar from their retired pay.

The White House proposed a reduction in combat pay and allowances for our troops in Iraq . at the very time they were engaged in the invasion.

The logistics system (much of it privatized and run by Halliburton) isn't doing its job. Only a fraction of our troops have been supplied with modern body armor to give them a chance of surviving snipers or roadside bombs.

And then, there's Depleted Uranium. Over 130,000 veterans of the first Gulf War are dead or disabled because of exposure to depleted uranium. In many families, the only children without severe birth defects are those conceived before the war. In spite of mounting evidence that the use of DU results in massive civilian casualties, soaring cancer rates, still births, birth defects, and incapacitating illnesses for our own soldiers, it is being used again in this Iraq War.

Reserve and National Guard troops are being injured in combat and sent home to spend months in "medical hold" status in barracks without air conditioning and without proper medical care.

Of course, possibly the worst thing being done to our troops is to send them into the Iraqi quagmire in the first place. These young people are sitting ducks, the targets of an unseen but ever-present adversary. For the most part, our troops are up against the same thing we were up against in Vietnam - fighting the people who live there. That's never an easy task, and is seldom a justifiable one. One result is Abu Graib the tip of a very ugly iceberg. Soldiers who commit such atrocities and survive the war usually return home psychologically damaged, often irretrievably.

Our young men and women in the military deserve a well-defined mission based on the truth and in support of objectives essential to our national security and the safety of the American people. They deserve to be trained well for the missions they are to perform. They deserve to be supported with the best equipment and supplies available. They deserve to be paid appropriately for their service. They deserve to have their families taken care of while they are overseas. They deserve prompt and effective medical care when they need it. And they deserve to be returned home as soon as possible. That's what it means to support our troops, and they are getting none of these from the Bush Administration.

Those who give their lives deserve to be acknowledged and indeed honored, not swept under the rug. The White House and the Rumsfeld Pentagon have banned cameras from every site involved with bringing home our dead and wounded soldiers. Have you seen pictures of the wounded at Walter Reed Army Medical Center? Or the over 14,000 wounded in combat in Iraq treated at a single hospital in Germany? Nope. Cameras are forbidden. The Bush Administration has decreed that our fallen heroes remain faceless, so that a squeamish public will not start questioning the human cost of this imperial war.

Let us promise that this will be the last administration responsible for American troops fighting and dying on foreign soil to secure profits for big oil companies. That would be supporting our troops.

The truth is, they are not over there protecting our freedoms. Our freedoms are not under attack from the remnants of Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist party. Our freedoms are under attack by the likes of John Ashcroft. They are threatened by Condoleezza Rice. They are trampled by Donald Rumsfeld. They are disdained by Dick Cheney. And they are not even understood by George W. Bush. The battle to preserve our freedoms is not taking place in Baghdad and Tikrit and Fallujah. It is taking place in peace marches and demonstrations in Lafayette Park in Washington DC (where I spoke 3 weeks ago), in River Front Park in Melbourne, Florida, and on a lonely road outside Crawford, Texas. The front lines are right here!

Cindy Sheehan and the Gold Star Mothers for Peace are preserving the freedoms that the troops in the desert have a right to come back to. The troops getting shot at in Iraq are not protecting us. We are protecting them . and their honor . and their freedoms. We real Democrats are the patriots. We are protecting this nation by speaking truth to power.

Here is the truth that we proclaim. This war was not brought on by faulty intelligence. It was brought on by manipulated intelligence, doctored evidence, and deliberate deception. This war has nothing to do with national security or freedom or democracy or human rights or protecting our allies or weapons of mass destruction or defeating terrorism or disarming Iraq. It has to do with money. It has to do with oil. And it has to do with raw imperial power. It is based on a pack of lies. And it is wrong. Those who forced this war on an unwilling world are guilty of violating the U.S. Constitution, the UN Charter, the Nuremberg principles, and international law. What they have done is illegal, immoral, unconstitutional, and TREASON . and Democrats should say so!

Before this war started, we knew it would incense the Arab world, provide thousands of new Osama bin Ladens, and enormously increase the terrorist threat. And it has. We knew it would further endanger the American people and destroy our national security. And it has. . My sisters and brothers, this is not misjudgment, it is TREASON.

The cabal of neoconservatives at PNAC who planned this war (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Libby, Perle, Jeb Bush) even before W became president, told us why they wanted to invade Iraq. They said that whether or not Saddam Hussein stayed in power, we had to have a massive permanent military presence in Iraq from which to dominate Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and the southern Russian republics around the Caspian Sea and control the two trillion dollars worth of oil in the region. But they admitted that they knew the American people would not stand for it - unless there was (to use their words) "a new Pearl Harbor." 9/11 supplied that. The Bush Administration was warned. They were warned by the Clinton Administration during the transition process. They were warned by the intelligence agencies of 11 other countries. And they were specifically warned by an FBI agent that Mussaowi was planning on flying a hijacked airliner "into the World Trade Center." They seemingly ignored the warnings. Then, apparently, they took concrete steps to see that those airliners could not be intercepted. I used to be an interceptor pilot. I know the drill. I know the procedures. I know how long it takes. If they had done nothing, and allowed normal procedures to be followed, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive. What happened on 9/11 was not terrorism, it was TREASON.

I joined the Air Force to protect our borders and our people, not the financial interests of Folgers, Chiquita Banana, Exxon, and Halliburton. We've had enough corporate wars. No more Iraqs. No more El Salvadors. No more Kosovos. No more Colombias. These are not isolated incidents of stupidity. They are part of a long, bloody history of foreign policy being conducted for the financial benefit of the wealthy few. Such military ventures should be opposed by the Democratic Party. They represent a new form of colonialism. They violate our Constitution. They endanger our people. They waste our youth. They mortgage our future. And they are TREASON.

As a pilot who flew 101 combat missions in Vietnam, I swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States against all enemies -- foreign and domestic. That includes a renegade president. It is time for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, and the whole oil mafia to be removed from office and indicted for TREASON . and Democrats should say so!

We owe it to the men and women serving in Iraq to end the occupation, hand Iraq over the the UN, restore our credibility and honor, and bring them home. How? Simple. We apologize to the world, to the people of Iraq, and to our own troops and their families, and we make the following three commitments: (1) We give up any ambitions toward Iraqi oil. (2) We give up all control over rebuilding contracts. If Halliburton wants a contract, they'll have to bid just like everybody else, and they'll have to hire Iraqis to do the work for a change. and (3) We give up the 14 permanent military bases we are currently building in Iraq.

George W. Bush won't make those commitments, giving up everything they went to war for in the first place. So he must go, and his puppeteers with him. More than that, we must insist that any Democrat who wants to replace him be willing to make those three commitments.

Our sons and daughters are being killed. They are being maimed by the thousands. They are being poisoned and their children deformed by Depleted Uranium by the tens of thousands. They are being dehumanized, emotionally damaged, and psychologically destroyed. Those who return are prone to domestic violence, divorce, and suicide. And all for corporate greed and a pack of lies.

We Democrats must not allow this to continue! Our troops deserve better. They deserve better from our government than back-door drafts and platitudes about staying the course. They deserve better from us Democrats than a me-too, wishy-washy, go-along-to-get-along, Republican-lite party. They deserve a real opposition party, one that will speak out for them when they can't.

We Democrats can again be the party of working people, the party of immigrants, the party of the middle class, the party of our men and women in uniform, and the party of all those with a social conscience. We can again be the majority party. But we must stand up for what we believe, stand up for our people, and stand up for what is right.

It has been said that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. Well our Democratic leadership lately has fallen for NAFTA, the WTO, CAFTA, welfare reform, missile "defense," the 9/11 coverup, and Bush's war. I say it's time our party stands for something again.

We must stand up to the blood-sucking insurance companies, the for-profit hospitals and HMOs, and the giant pharmaceutical companies and stand up for a single-payer national health system. We must stand up to the job-exporting global robber barons and the WTO and stand up for good jobs at a living wage for American workers.

Most of all, we must stand up to the big oil companies and the neo-con imperialists and stand up for what's left of our troops by bringing them home . NOW. God bless America, and God grant us regime change in Washington, DC. Thank you!