Bwaah!!! Gimme Back My War
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what’s wrong with what we’ve done in Iraq. We’ve been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9/11.” — JON STEWART
Well, it’s not even Friday yet, but if anything good has come out of this week it’s that I’m now four-fifths of the way through grieving over the end of the Iraq war. I mean come on! A little sympathy is in order here. It’s bad enough that I won’t have the Mess in Mesopotamia to kick around any more, but then George Bush will be back at his ranch clearing scrub brush and looking for his legacy before we know it.
Regarding the war, I refer of course to the deal that Dubya and Nouri Al-Maliki have cooked up: The abjectly corrupt prime minister gets long-term coup insurance from the abjectly amoral president in the form of U.S. troops stationed at permanent bases and in return the U.S. gets first dibs at Iraq’s oil.
Single-malt Scotch is too expensive, so I’m working through this shocker by employing the five stages that psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross determined that a dying patient experiences when informed of a terminal prognosis.
On Monday, it was DENIAL (This Isn’t Happening to Me!):
This isn’t happening to me! The war was supposed to end with a whimper, not a business deal. I know that I was warned, but it can’t just be all about oil. It must just be a bad dream.
On Tuesday, it was ANGER (Why Is This Happening to Me?):
I feel like the last guy in the room to get a really bad joke. Am I a sap or what? Howcum the MSM is treating this story with such diffidence? Boy am I pissed off! So pissed off that I’m gonna call some right-wing bloggers bad names.
Yesterday, it was BARGAINING (I Promise I’ll Be a Better Person If…):
Well, the deal technically is not a treaty, which means the Senate doesn’t have to ratify it. That’s bad, but maybe the Iraqi Parliament will block it. I take back all the bad things that I wrote about you guys. Honest. And I didn’t mean to call all those bloggers bad names.
Today it is DEPRESSION (I Don’t Care Anymore):
Speaking of bad dreams, I had a nightmare that I was Ahmed Chalabai. Then I thought I had gone blind when I woke up, but it was just the cat sleeping on my face. Couldn’t stay off the Scotch. Can’t find my eyeglasses.
While tomorrow it will be ACCEPTANCE (I’m Ready for Whatever Comes):
Think that Wall Street will throw a ticket-tape parade for returning GIs? Nah. But I suppose that one out of two wars ain’t bad. At least things are going well in Afghanistan.
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Things aren’t going well in Afghanistan either though. The Taliban is back in control of more than half the country (54% according to UK Guardian) and is within reach of the capitol. You just don’t hear about that in the main stream news like you do with Iraq.
Afghanistan was nothing more than a bait and switch to take us to Iraq.
Wry humor is what makes life bearable.
Thanks, Shaun, for a good example.
*squawk* Bush bad! Iraq bad! Bad, bad! *squawk*
[sigh]
While the fringe goes crazy, the mainstream gets some relief.
“For the first time in a long time, nearly half of Americans express positive opinions about the situation in Iraq. A growing number says the U.S. war effort is going well, while greater percentages also believe the United States is making progress in reducing the number of Iraqi casualties, defeating the insurgents and preventing a civil war in Iraq.”
(Pew)
Lol preventing a civil war! Its been going on for years now. Its been anarchy and then some all over that country since 2005. Good god, and now we just turned our military into mercenaries to guard business interests over there.
I’ll squawk all I want about Bush being bad, he is. He’s blatantly using our soldiers lives to look after the interests of his biggest donors. Trillions of dollars and thousands of lives for what? The mainstream should get zero relief. The billion dollar fortress embassy has been under construction for years which means they’ve been planning this for years. The fact poor kids keep volunteering for this crap amazes me.
If I were you, I’d read the report. It’s real, not naive; we still want our troops out of Iraq as soon as possible. It’s just that a) possible does not mean tomorrow, or today; b) we don’t share in outright pathological hatred of Bush and all-too-often hatred of anything that could constitute a US success, particularly if it makes the USA look not only good, but better than other nations.
If anything, Pew is liberal (even when it comes to producing this report), but it produces high-quality reports and I examine these frequently.
A new funding fight is about to happen. Pelosi decided (or was pressured to decide) not to compromise on a pullout date in the next bill. That’s despite public antipathy toward Congress and having Murtha, of all people, admit the surge is more successful than the rabid anti-war people claim. Will there be funding before Christmas?