It's official -- we've lost in Iraq

Sorry posting has been so light. I just can't shake this cold so I'm going to start today by cross posting this from the Detroit News. I thought it was one of my better pieces lately.

When Henry Kissinger says Iraq is lost, then it's over. The man never met a war he didn't like. If he says it can't be done, we can't win in the sense of a military victory. Of course I never thought a military solution was feasible in the war on terror. I'm long on the record on that score, being one of the few people that was against invading Afghanistan.

Terrorism is an idea, not a place. It can't be ascribed to only certain ethnic groups. And despite all the rhetoric coming from the right blaming Islam, terrorism is not a religion. It's a lifestyle, practiced mostly by brash and idealistic youth and it's grounded in fighting for a cause they see as just and right. You can't fight that by bombing countries into oblivion and killing hundreds of thousands of people.

And it's not about taking away our freedoms, it's about fighting for their own. They don't want to take over the US and install Sharia law. There's no way they could do it if they wanted to. There's not enough of them. They just want us out of their countries.

That's not to say that I support their cause or want them to be able to impose their will on their own people. I don't think anyone should have to live under cruel tyranny but unless and until we're invited to intervene, it's not our fight. Invading countries to "liberate" them so that they may better serve our interests, will always be seen as an act of aggression and inspire some faction to fight against foreign occupation.

Try to think of this way. If the situation were reversed, and the terrorists had the big guns and the mighty military forces to physically take over the United States, in order to "liberate" us from democracy -- would you fight back? If your home was destroyed and your children and other loved ones were killed in the name of freeing you, would you love your liberators?

If we had given the reconstruction to the Iraqis instead of Halliburton, we could have achieved something great in Iraq. As it stands now, the American taxpayer has put out billions of dollars that has ended up lining the pockets of US megacorporations, and a large handful of corrupt politicians in both the US and Iraq. If we were delivering building supplies and medicines and food and most importantly jobs, instead of bombs, almost four years later, you can bet the the Iraqis would be loving themselves some democracy instead of wanting us to get the heck out of Baghdad.

If you don't read that blog regularly because you hate wading through the other bloggers, here's a few links to some of my other thoughts on the larger stories of the last week.

Gilmore takes secret law challenge to SCOTUS.

Should Fox News be classified as enemy combatants?

Privatizing propaganda.

Social Security, Health Care and Food Insecurity.

Why does Laura Ingraham hate free speech and fair elections?

The real class warfare is against the working poor.

Iraqis say Yankees go home.