It's all over, for the unknown soldier - Jim Morrison
I can't think of better opening for this story than Lex Alexander's few choice words.
As The WaPo reports,
The article is long. It goes on to detail the disastrous effects of our liberation and it's a long list. But here it is in a nutshell. We spent hundreds of billions of tax dollars, that were badly needed at home. We lost almost 2,000 American soldiers, a number that will be surpassed by the time we get out. We damaged tens of thousands of American lives beyond likely repair. We killed tens of thousands of innocent Islamic civilians who had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11, to "avenge" the death of 3,000 of our own innocent citizens on that date.
And that makes us better than "the terrorists?" How? Isn't killing innocents terrorism no matter who pulls the trigger? That is why there are more terrorists now. They don't hate our freedom. Hell, we barely have any left. They hate our guns. They hate burying their dead children, and mothers and fathers and aunts and cousins, who had nothing to do with terrorists.
What have we gained? Absolutely nothing. We've stretched our military capability to the breaking point and destroyed the foundations of a volunteer force. They can't even buy new recruits. We've lost the good will of our allies across the globe. Bush's cowboy diplomacy has pushed anyone sitting on the fence, off to the other side and courts nuclear disaster as he pisses off nuclear capable countries. We have never been less safe from terrorism.
Iraq has never been worse off. They have no reliable electricity or water and they live in a desert. We've bombed their ancient cities, as Andrea Harris would put it, into glass ashtrays. They are afraid to leave their homes. Their new government is about to deliver an hastily cobbled together constitution based on Islamic religious law. Women will be back under the veil and lose half the rights they had under Saddam's totalitarian but secular government.
It's time for the fence sitters in the US to face the facts. There was no noble cause. They went in thinking they could take the place over and turn it into a corporate capitalist's Disneyland in a few months. They were selling futures in the markets right before we went in. It didn't work.
It's time to get off the fence and admit that this, if it was not a deliberate lie - was a really bad mistake. The White House gambled and we all lost. Get over it. If you helped make it happen, learn to live with the results. Those of us who opposed this folly from the beginning have to do that too. It's not like either of us has a choice.
Meanwhile, Frank Rich in the NYT advises that someone should tell Bush the war is over.
As recently as yesterday Bush stated in his weekly radio address, "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed." You'll notice he stopped using the word democracy though. So much for that purple fingered pipe dream. Rich notes it's all political bluster anyway.
Update: Welcome Sideshow readers and thanks for the encouragement Avedon.
OK, everyone who has ever complained that the media do not report enough "good news" from Iraq is kindly invited. To Shut. The Hell. Up.
As The WaPo reports,
The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq... The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.Like we didn't tell them that before they invaded Iraq?
"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."
The article is long. It goes on to detail the disastrous effects of our liberation and it's a long list. But here it is in a nutshell. We spent hundreds of billions of tax dollars, that were badly needed at home. We lost almost 2,000 American soldiers, a number that will be surpassed by the time we get out. We damaged tens of thousands of American lives beyond likely repair. We killed tens of thousands of innocent Islamic civilians who had nothing to do with the attack on 9/11, to "avenge" the death of 3,000 of our own innocent citizens on that date.
And that makes us better than "the terrorists?" How? Isn't killing innocents terrorism no matter who pulls the trigger? That is why there are more terrorists now. They don't hate our freedom. Hell, we barely have any left. They hate our guns. They hate burying their dead children, and mothers and fathers and aunts and cousins, who had nothing to do with terrorists.
What have we gained? Absolutely nothing. We've stretched our military capability to the breaking point and destroyed the foundations of a volunteer force. They can't even buy new recruits. We've lost the good will of our allies across the globe. Bush's cowboy diplomacy has pushed anyone sitting on the fence, off to the other side and courts nuclear disaster as he pisses off nuclear capable countries. We have never been less safe from terrorism.
Iraq has never been worse off. They have no reliable electricity or water and they live in a desert. We've bombed their ancient cities, as Andrea Harris would put it, into glass ashtrays. They are afraid to leave their homes. Their new government is about to deliver an hastily cobbled together constitution based on Islamic religious law. Women will be back under the veil and lose half the rights they had under Saddam's totalitarian but secular government.
It's time for the fence sitters in the US to face the facts. There was no noble cause. They went in thinking they could take the place over and turn it into a corporate capitalist's Disneyland in a few months. They were selling futures in the markets right before we went in. It didn't work.
It's time to get off the fence and admit that this, if it was not a deliberate lie - was a really bad mistake. The White House gambled and we all lost. Get over it. If you helped make it happen, learn to live with the results. Those of us who opposed this folly from the beginning have to do that too. It's not like either of us has a choice.
Meanwhile, Frank Rich in the NYT advises that someone should tell Bush the war is over.
As recently as yesterday Bush stated in his weekly radio address, "Iraqis are taking control of their country, building a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. And we're helping Iraqis succeed." You'll notice he stopped using the word democracy though. So much for that purple fingered pipe dream. Rich notes it's all political bluster anyway.
Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there. Now comes the hard task of identifying the leaders who can pick up the pieces of the fiasco that has made us more vulnerable, not less, to the terrorists who struck us four years ago next month.This time let's hope it's really Divine Inspiration and not James Dobson who will be guiding the hands and minds of the gatekeepers.
Update: Welcome Sideshow readers and thanks for the encouragement Avedon.
posted by Libby Spencer at 8:43 PM
1 Comments:
Oh, that would be James "Dogbeater" Dobson, would it not?
Worth Googling around. Hullaballoo has it. Ask about the Dogbeater's treatment of his very own Dachshund.
Illuminating.
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