The New Iraq: Before and After Zarqawi's Death
Before

After

See the Difference?

The ongoing experiment in governance by juveniles continues--Grand Vizier Shrub, sounding like a sophomore competing in a high school oratory contest, managed to finish his statement yesterday re: the successful targeting of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, without blurting out something profoundly stupid like "bring 'em on." Though, perhaps to avoid obvious embarrassments--like his pathetic pronounciation of "Abu Ghraib"--his handlers opted to limit Shrub's identification to "al Zarqawi."

Meanwhile, the various pashas and muftis in his administration--as well as the eunuchs comprising the press corps--trotted out the usual timeworn, threadbare expressions of fealty and unfounded optimism that greeted other "turning points" in the ever downward spiral of Operation Enduring Clusterfuck (see "death of Hussein, Uday," "death of Hussein, Qusay," or "Capture of Hussein, Saddam," etc.).

For public consumption, we've been treated to a charmingly framed, large format photo portrait of Zarqawi's corpse upon which to vent our rage, a nice medieval touch...sort of a modern equivalent of displaying his head on a pike along the London Bridge promenade.

(and, maybe it's just me, but the picture of Zarqawi corpse looks like it could just as easily be a sleeping Gene Simmons--in bad need of a decent shave. But I've never been a KISS fan, and I'll leave speculation to the real tin-foil hat types)...

Anyway, back on the reality front...for a price of almost 2,500 American lives, plus an extra 20,000 or so non-fatal casualties, plus over a hundred thousand permanently "liberated" Iraqis...and $300 billion dollars (and counting)...we've managed to eliminate three certifiably "bad guys," Uday, Qusay, and Abu Musab, and we've got one more in the dock (Saddam). Not exactly a bargain. And especially not exactly a bargain when it's obvious to anyone with a brain that none of these creeps was a direct threat to the United States. To top it all off, genuine threats to the United States are being ignored while Team Bush stupidly and obsessively clings to the notion that something can be salvaged out of the mess they've created.

Tossing a few plastic cups--or beercans--that sat for weeks on the floor doesn't constitute a cleanup anymore than killing Zarqawi will constitute any sort of victory (particulary when, as anyone who follows things knows, he could have been taken out four years ago, but wasn't. Team Bush wanted him around as additional "justification" for war). And watching the increasingly pathetic attempts to justify a perfect storm--the war was both a dumb idea AND they've managed to display epic ineptitude in their handling of it--one can only hope the adults manage to take control BEFORE Team Bush engages in any more lethal foolishness.

I mean, geez: the more I look at them, the more I think the Bush administration is the moral equivalent of putting Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold in charge of things. Seriously. And we've got to do better than that.