How did we get here?

Reports indicate that President George W. Bush will issue his “The Decider” statement that the correct strategy in Iraq is for a so-called “surge” of troops to retake control of the situation in that troubled land. The new, Democratic leadership in Congress have sent a letter to the President indicating that they will not support any troop increases in Iraq. Some commentators, while admitting their intitial analysis indicates the “surge” is unwise, also claim that “it’s silly to argue that it has ‘already [been] tried and that has already failed.’”

However, according to The Washington Post:

Senior military and administration officials privately admit their deep concerns that the troop increase will backfire — and leave the United States with no options left in six to eight months.

They note that since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the U.S. military has repeatedly carried out temporary troop increases of more than 20,000, but violence has continued to rise.

Given the repeated number of offensive actions in different cities, including sections of Baghdad, that once the US troops left the area seemed to result in the same level of chaos as existed before, it is difficult to not question what lasting effect a “surge” that might be as small as 9,000 troops could truly achieve.

Insanity is endlessly repeating the same process and hoping for a different result.
   -Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

Insanity isn’t the only problem, though.

I remember one afternoon in Baghdad in the late 1980s when I was in a store buying a notebook and a lizard scurried along the wall behind the counter. The shopkeeper gave chase, taking off a shoe and trying to smash the little reptile with the heel—until the lizard managed to slip behind the mandatory photograph of the dictator. The shopkeeper froze, arm raised, terrified. The lizard survived. If the shopkeeper had smashed the picture, he might not have.

When Saddam was toppled by the U.S.-led invasion, all this fear suddenly seemed almost as ridiculous as the tyrant’s face on a cheap watch, which is why I rejoiced at the time, and why it’s so damn sad that last weekend Saddam Hussein was turned from a monster into a martyr by the manner of his execution.

Actually, “lynching” would be a better word, despite the $128 million Washington reportedly spent trying to present the captured dictator’s trial as free, dignified and fair. In the days since Saddam’s necktie party, we’ve had to listen to spin from Washington and Baghdad that is not only implausible but condescending—and absolutely irrelevant to the problem at hand. “There seems to be a lot of concern about the last two minutes of Saddam Hussein’s life and less about the first 69 [years], in which he murdered hundreds of thousands of people,” said Tony Snow, the former Fox News face who now mouths the White House talking points.

Meanwhile, instead of facing reality and trying to find solutions to our problems the right-wing bloggers are searching for ways to call anyone who questions the policy traitors, when they are not decrying the fact that Barack Obama has the middle name of “Hussein”.

It’s not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.
   -Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 – 1950)

My God, how did we get here?

How do we leave here?

How can we find answers when simply asking questions is a basis for crying “traitor” and flinging accusations of aiding the ever convenient boogey-man, “the terrorists”?

Yes, the far left is shrill, but their shrieks do nothing like the damage wreaked by the faux-outraged screams of the far right.

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Cross-posted to Random Fate.