Mixing Metaphors

I'm mildly curious as to what bon mots (almost wrote bom[b]--guess that's sort of a Freudian slip) the Cheerleader in Chief will recite this evening...let's see...something tells me that "light at the end of the tunnel," "turned a [critical] corner," or references to body counts are right out. Hmmm...guess the only one left is "hard work" (.mp3 file).

Whatever It Is I'm Against It has a few metaphors--but I doubt Dubya plans on picking them up--their latest post asks "Is It Reigning Yet?"

As GeeDubya will remind us in 5 hours, today marks one year since he wrote (or possibly traced, I’m still not convinced he can read and write) “let freedom reign!” on a piece of paper, which he then put under his pillow, in the hopes that the Freedom Fairy, the little-known cousin of the Tooth Fairy, would take away the smoldering wreckage of Iraq and replace it with a Ruritarian utopia.

Patrick Cockburn, on the other hand, uses an artistic reference--From Turning Point to Vanishing Point:

A year ago the supposed handover of power by the US occupation authority to an Iraqi interim government led by Iyad Allawi was billed as a turning point in the violent history of post-Saddam Iraq.

It has turned out to be no such thing. Most of Iraq is today a bloody no-man's land beset by ruthless insurgents, savage bandit gangs, trigger-happy US patrols and marauding government forces...

The news now from Iraq is only depressing. All the roads leading out of the capital are cut. Iraqi security and US troops can only get through in heavily armed convoys. There is a wave of assassinations of senior Iraqi officers based on chillingly accurate intelligence. A deputy police chief of Baghdad was murdered on Sunday. A total of 52 senior Iraqi government or religious figures have been assassinated since the handover. In June 2004 insurgents killed 42 US soldiers; so far this month 75 have been killed...

To most ordinary Iraqis in Baghdad it is evident that life over the past year has been getting worse. The insurgents seem to have an endless supply of suicide bombers whose attacks ensure a permanent sense of threat. In addition the necessities of life are becoming more difficult to obtain. At one moment last winter there were queues of cars outside petrol stations several miles long.

The sense of fear in Baghdad is difficult to convey. Petrol is such a necessity because people need to pick up their children from school because they are terrified of them being kidnapped. Parents mob the doors of schools and swiftly become hysterical if they cannot find their children. Doctors are fleeing the country because so many have been held for ransom, some tortured and killed because their families could not raise the money.

Homes in Baghdad are currently getting between six and eight hours' electricity a day. Nothing has improved at the power stations since the hand-over of security a year ago. In a city where the temperature yesterday was 40C, people swelter without air conditioning because the omnipresent small generators do not produce enough current to keep them going. In recent weeks there has also been a chronic shortage of water...

Adding to the sense of fear in Baghdad is the growth of sectarianism, the widening gulf between Sunni and Shia. Shia mosques come under attack from bombers. Members of both communities are found murdered beside the road, in escalating rounds of tit-for-tat killings.

The talks between US officials and some resistance groups revealed in the past few days probably does not mean very much for the moment. The fanatical Islamic and militant former Baathists and nationalists who make up the cutting edge of insurgency are not in the mood to compromise. They are also very fragmented. But the talks may indicate a growing sense among US military and civilian officials that they cannot win this war.

In other words, all that hard work--for nothing at all.

Keeping to the theme, Christopher Allbritton takes issue with one of Rummy's (link from Needlenose)--

“We have to recognize that it's a tough, tough, tough world, and there are going to be bumps in the road between now and then.”

Bumps in the road”? Just earlier today, presumably before the Iraqi journalist was killed, an Iraqi member of parliament was killed in a car bomb attack. I can't even begin to tell you how many Iraqis have been killed in the weeks I was away. And how many more Iraqis, journalists or otherwise, will die because the Americans can't tell who's friend or foe? Those aren't “bumps in the road.” Those are signs that you went off the road without a map a long time ago.

Note: the journalist referred to in the paragraph above was shot in the head by a passing American convoy. Make sure to read the entire post, which is a far more realistic assessment than you're likely to hear this evening.

Allbritton goes on:

News flash: Iraq is a disaster. I've been back one day, and the airport road was the worst I've ever seen it. We had to go around a fire-fight between mujahideen and Americans while Iraqi forces sat in the shade of date palms on the side of the road, their rifles resting across their laps. My driver pointed to a group of men in a white pickup next to me. “They are mujahideen,” he said. “They are watching the Americans.” Indeed, they were, and so intently that they paid no attention to me in the car next to them. We detoured around two possible car bombs that had been cordoned off while Iraqis cautiously approached.

When I was in Ramadi, I found the morale to be lower than expected. It wasn't rock-bottom among the Marines of the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment, but it wasn't great. Most of the ones I talked to weren't confident they were doing anything worthwhile, and were instead focused on getting home alive. If a few Iraqis had to die to make that happen, well, war is hell.

I'm not sure who's winning this war, the Americans or the insurgents. But I know who is losing it: the Iraqi people. Those bumps in the road are their graves.

But this evening, we'll get the story from the hard work meister himself.

I dunno--maybe Dubya thinks he's such a hard worker based on his never ending campaign clearing brush out at the Crawford ranch--a campaign that requires weeks and weeks of vacation every year. Maybe he fantasizes that the brambles and briars are dangerous criminals like bin Laden or Zarqawi--out to git 'im--as he powers up the chain saw with a zeal and gusto that comes with taking real, positive steps to rid the world of the scourge of ter...

"Mr. President, I think that's quite enough for now--there's no need to chop up the dirt."

"Oh--guess you're right." He mutters at the ground, "you can run, ZAR-cowy, but you can't hide."

"Excuse me, Mr. President?"

"Um...oh, nothing."

And he ambles to the pickup truck...for the short drive to the house, where a wholesome dinner of fried chicken, snap beans, and hot cross buns awaits.

"Yep--it's hard work," he thinks to himself.