Recently Keith Olbermann of MSNBC�s "Countdown" in his monologue, entitled �Bush's Legacy: The President Who Cried Wolf,� weighed in on the course the administration will follow in pursuit of its aims in the Middle East, as laid down by President Bush in a nationally televised address to the country.

While Mr. Olbermann�s indignation and incredulity about the path of escalation over diplomacy chosen by the Bush administration is certainly deserved, there are some real weaknesses inherent in his line of thinking. We can start with how he separates the two-party duopoly from the course the administration has followed since . . . well, even before 9/11, and that he gives the mythical American people more credit than they're probably due.

The two-party duopoly has supported all that this administration has done from the start. They are not concerned about the lives of American soldiers, much less the lives of Iraqis. Put simply, both wings of the SINGLE party are committed to the maintenance and expansion of the American Empire. Their concerns are twofold. On one hand, they realize their "Project for a New American Century" has hit a major roadblock and, on the other hand, are deathly worried about the ramifications domestically and internationally of this massive failure of American imperialism. As Black Commentator put it awhile back; "The pirates are lost at sea and don't know how to find their way back."

I wonder if the war had been a "cakewalk,� as originally claimed by the desktop warriors in Washington, The New York Times and the Washington Post, would the American people (meaning mostly white folks, of course) have soured on the war? I would surmise, probably not.

As Scott Ritter, of UN weapons inspector fame, put it: "The American people are not against war, they're against losing." A comment that succinctly captures the White Supremacist mindset not only of the American elite, but also a major part of its white subjects who not having quite the same stakes at risk within the Empire will want to cut and run when things do not go smoothly.

I think it is this glaring weakness that is at the heart of the tepid and frankly inane so-called antiwar movement. A truly principled antiwar movement would be animated by a desire for restitution and justice for the victims of this war. That the American military is hemorrhaging badly (not a bad thing in my estimation) would be a tertiary rationale not the core motivation.

Regardless of failure or success, this war, like the war it is most frequently compared to, Vietnam, would not be any less a "Crime Against The Peace." It was begun on the basis of lies and is simply about lucre and power. For this offense against humanity, Nazis were executed or imprisoned for life following their trials at Nuremberg. This is a truism that I think is frequently lost within the debate, centered as it is on American losses, amongst the so-called Left in the US.

This brings me back to Mr. Olbermann. As indignant and on point as he sounds, the stance he takes in his commentary ultimately leads to a blind alley. He gives out free passes to some of the Republicans and essentially the entire Democratic Party, which, by the way, could stop this war on a dime at this point by withholding funding or initiating impeachment proceedings. The problem is that the Republicans would blanch at such moves and, in any case, the mealy-mouthed Democrats have already made clear neither de-funding of the war nor impeachment is remotely on the table. They're just trying to cover their asses and tamp down dissent on their Left.