When I have a lot of things I'd like to post about, I seem to have no time to post, and when I have lots of time to post, I seem to have run out of things to say. Of course, that could partly be because when I do have time, I use that time to go through my "backburner" topics queue, and thus end up with time left over and no more topics.
Suffice it to say that I hope to get at least a few of them posted soon before I forget what it was I wanted to say in the first place. Maybe if I'm real good and get my work done today I can get a post in...
One short comment - I heard on the radio this morning that there was yet another set of car bombs in Iraq that killed/injured hundreds. I could already hear the voices of the Republicans objecting that we don't hear the GOOD news, only the BAD news. Like, see, look at all these schools that were painted. Look at this province over here with no violence (well, and no people either - its mostly empty desert). And I just want to scream that NONE OF THAT MATTERS WHEN THERE ARE BOMBS GOING OFF EVERY DAY THAT KILL DOZENS OR HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE. I want to ask them, would YOU really care how good the schools were in your neighborhood if you had to worry about your kids getting blown up in a suicide bombing attack every day? Would you really care about ANYTHING except the bombings if that were going on? Of course not. But then, it isn't GOP children at risk. (And those "grown" children in the military tend to be from lower class families, not from the families of the GOP that run the country and the military). So they really don't care. Iraqis should just ignore the bombs that kill their loved ones each day and thank the U.S. for the great new coat of paint on their schools (which may sit empty as the more educated Iraqis have already fled the country).
If anything, the bad news has been UNDERreported, given how dangerous it is to report from Iraq. The disconnect from reality one sees is just incredible with the GOP. I guess the poll of the views of FoxNews viewers says it all. (Most of them think WMDs were actually found and that Saddam had a role in 9/11). *Sigh*
Reminder
12 years ago
4 comments:
I agree. It was awfully hard to feel smug about the 18-point failure reported late last week, when failure means a situation of instability and insecurity that lead to a thousand deaths a week. Much as I vehemently disagree with the war and Bush's methods for getting us over there in the first place, the 25,000-man "surge", and all the other shit going on, I can't quite justify us "coming home" until we clean up the fucking mess we made over there. Now is the time to come out and say "You know what? We fucked things up, but we want to make them right. What can we do?", and then, I dunno, we let the UN or somebody with an inkling of sense tell us what to do.
What's that old saying about the definition of insanity? How it's doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?
I think we really do more harm there than good and so we should just leave immediately.
Even if you take it as a given that we should stay to clean up the mess, staying right now means staying with Bush and Cheney in charge, which by definition means things will only get worse. Better we leave now than let them mess things up even further, which they are pretty much guaranteed to do.
But I don't know that Bush or Cheney should be in charge. I'd say "let's let the Iraqi government tell us what they need," but then I'd have to argue that they're the same jackanapes we had put in office, AND they don't seem to know exactly how to make things more stable, themselves. Maybe we should just come home and write large checks for reparations, instead, and let somebody like Norway or Switzerland or some other country with their act pretty much together manage things. It'll be like divorcing a man you know will just mess up your kids, but getting the courts to make sure he pays child support.
I don't think they should be in charge either, but right now, they are in charge - of the US government and US military. So anything that happens with Iraq that involves the US is going to be run by them. And I wouldn't trust them to run an ice cream shop with one flavor of ice cream.
Iraq needs to sort itself out. The various sects have been wanting to kill each other for centuries. That is not going to be solved by the US, not by the UN or Europe. That will only be solved by those sects deciding not to kill each other. That sort of solution only comes from within. It will be bloody and messy, but then, it already is. Others can provide help and assistance, but only if that inner decision happens first.
In any case, even if we could do something from the outside, as noted above, Bush and Cheney either would not do it or would screw it up, so it simply isn't going to happen with US involvement - so I think we need to just get out. Vietnam is much better today - and that only happened after we left and internally, they figured out that they need to have a more open, market economy or they would perish.
As long as there is an enemy to unite against (like the U.S. for instance) then I think nothing will get solved.
I can understand feeling responsible for Iraq (we broke it, after all) but we can't fix it and we just break it more by staying. And I really don't feel responsible for it - I voted against Bush twice, I was against the war from the beginning. Those who ARE responsible - the GOP and the half of the Dems with no spine, they are the ones responsible - I'm all for sending all of them over to live there... ;)
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