Endgame


It's ironic, although in an unbelievably sad and tragic way, is that even as political leaders in this country follow Shrub's lead in flaunting their contempt for public opinion, not to mention the military, and even as "the Iraqi people" becomes little more than a lead-in for even emptier rhetoric (if wingnuttia gave even a nano-damn about "the Iraqi people," I'd eat my shoe)...anyway, even as all this plays out in an ever more absurdly dumbed down grading curve as to what "benchmarks" the Iraqi government might conceivably achieve--as if it actually mattered in the hellish mess Team Bush has made of things...in a certain sense, Iraqis DO have a means of exercising public opinion. And the US government would do well to heed it:

Tens of thousands of Shiites — a sea of women in black abayas and men waving Iraqi flags — rallied Monday to demand that U.S. forces leave their country. Some ripped apart American flags and tromped across a Stars and Stripes rug.

Um, that leaves the Kurdish north as the last remaining region of US support...which, by the way, was/is to use one of Secretary Rice's favorite expressions, more or less the "status quo ante." Except that instead of having an isolated and boxed in Saddam Hussein lording despotically over a stable country, you've got nascent civil war in the same, and the virtual certainty that, before it's all over, a religious theocracy with strong Iranian ties will consolidate power.

To paraphrase a dim-bulb-in-chief this time, I'd call that a "heckuva job, Bushie."