The Breaking Point
So, it appears that Iraq just might be on the verge of a civil war…which, I suppose literally speaking it has been now for almost three years. (Astute readers will note that this not coincidentally ties right into the time when Bush, Cheney and some others marched forward with their wet dreams of invading Iraq despite the fact that they had to obfuscate, lie and ignore experts to make it happen.) Apparently we’ve calmed things down with a daytime curfew.
Daytime curfew…hm. That sounds like martial law. Good times, good times.
This isn’t the latest in a rant of how pathetic the U.S. remains in Iraq; we are on a collision course with our own arrogance, and refuse to listen to our military leaders, who by law can’t complain but filter things through folks like Jack Murtha…who then gets labeled a coward by the actual cowards like Jean Schmitt and Shooter Cheney. I just can’t stop thinking about the long-term damage we are doing over there. Forget ousting Saddam; that was relatively easy and few argued that it wouldn’t be. I’m talking about leaving a dilapidated war-zone that has become a breeding ground for everything we are supposedly fighting against. (It’s almost as if Bush and Cheney want a long-term war to keep defense companies flush…nah, that is crazy talk.)
Of course, what is particularly sad about any war is the civilian casualties that occur as a result. I’m not a pacifist in general; I do think that, sadly, our cultures haven’t evolved to a point where war is always avoidable. (This one? Completely. Every death, both U.S. and Iraqi is on George Bush’s hands, even if he could care less about “those people.”) I get that innocent Germans died in the Dresden bombings, and that U.S. forces caused the deaths of numerous civilian Allies in WWII (which is the only war that most people can agree had to happen, in terms of U.S. involvement). But the numbers of Iraqi civilians, which Bush estimated blithely at about 30,000, is probably a low-ball estimate at best. Other numbers suggest way, way more than that – upwards of 130,000. We know that about 100,000 Iraqis died in the Gulf War. When is enough enough? Forget the means and ends of the war…how is it rationalized that this will somehow win the hearts and minds of Iraqis over to our side? The longer this happens, the more we ensure that virtually everyone will have a friend or relative that the U.S. had a hand in killing or maiming. That…is not smart. Plus, so many of these are children. It’s simply heart-breaking.
Every ten year-old enemy soldier
Thinks falling bombs are shooting stars sometimes
But she doesn't make wishes on them
When she wishes, she wishes for less ways to wish for
More ways to work toward it
IOU, Metric
By the way…anyone who still thinks the Iraq war was and is a smart thing to do is an idiot. They may be geniuses in other parts of their life, but their view and opinion on the war belies utter, complete stupidity at this point. There is right, and there is wrong, and clearly this was a disaster of virtually biblical proportions. You can’t support the war and acknowledge the post-war planning was shoddy, when it was blatantly obvious that this was the case pre-invasion. (However, those in the GOP are good at this – supporting a candidate or policy based on one thing that feels right to them, and deciding the other stuff is things they don’t support…but providing their vote nonetheless. These are the voters that routinely get used by Karl Rove and others like a sad, lonely person desperate for love gets used by abusers.)
My grandchildren will feel the effect of this stupidity. Anyone who feels otherwise just doesn’t want to look in the mirror and admit they were wrong. Simple as that.
Updated: If you ever needed a reason to hate Fox News, well...there's about a million reasons why that is sad. All they are is loathsome. But this graphic might just seal the deal...god, what fuckheads.