I'm starting late, not by choice. I couldn't log in. Blogger was down. I ended up calling Kat and she had the same problem. She said Cedric did as well. (Betty didn't and was able to post.)
I was trying to think of what to write tonight and went for a walk. At one section of the sidewalk, I counted eleven birds and four squirrels. I ended up stopping to watch this one squirrel stop and start and stop and start across a yard on its way to a tree.
An ambulance was approaching with sirens blaring and everything scattered.
For some reason, watching them disappear around the block I'd been walking down, this reminded me of Iraq.
There are not enough troops we could send in. (I'm not in favor of sending more troops over.)
We stand out and we will always "scurry" when the blasts go off. It's not our country and we need to get out of it.
Lori e-mailed me about a post elsewhere that really upset her. It said that we broke it so we had to fix it.
Can they define fix?
There are no goals here, certainly no realistic ones.
But I'm guessing "fix" means imposing our "order" on the country. We're fixing it so great now, aren't we? Forget the Iraqis who are dying. Forget that potable water is a dream. Forget the unemployment and our attacks on the oil union. Is that when we know we've "fixed" it -- when we've destroyed the oil workers union?
Or maybe we'll have fixed it when women have no rights at all? That's our "success" so far. The new Constitution will give women less rights than they had.
The arrogance involved in thinking we can "fix" something is, honestly, disgusting.
We've created a huge mess. We've brought terrorism to Iraq. (Which the Bully Boy is quite proud of although I doubt the average Iraqi is.)
How stupid and arrogant does someone have to be to honestly believe that the Bully Boy is bringing anything of value to Iraq?
The idea that we can "fix" it militarily is an ignorant one. Military "democracies" aren't democracies. Democracies come from the people. Not the United States handing a "democracy" to a people but from the people making their own.
The idea that they need us to "fix" things is so arrogant and insists that we know better, that the Iraqis are child-like and need us to motivate them or mold them.
C.I. has offered that a lot of the non-hawks in the "fix" it and "fine tune" may not have reliable reporting. I'd argue that they also lack common sense.
The invasion/occupation was wrong, built on lies, and little pie-in-the-sky xenophobes think we can start from there and export democracy to the region.
These people are not only failing to grasp history, they're also failing to grasp humanity. I've discussed the white rug before but let me note it again.
I was making my first bits of nice money. I was redoing my place to reflect what I thought was stylish (I shudder now at those early attempts) and that included having white carpet put in the living room. The first dinner party I threw resulted in a klutz spilling red wine on the carpet.
He was going to "fix it." He comes back from the kitchen with a wet towel. I didn't want him touching my carpet. I spent a lot of money on that (too much) and it was really important to me.
I just wanted him to leave.
So you're an Iraqi and your country's one big shooting range now, electricity is spotty, water is spotty, bombs go off all the time, your neighbors (male) get hauled off and maybe they come back and maybe they end up in prison, the Americans barge through your home and show little respect for your religion as they rummage around looking for guns and insurgents.
But "fine tuners" think we can still turn the corner.
We can't. We've been there three years and we've only screwed things up.
They don't want us there and somehow that, which does make the mainstream news, fails to register.
These types need to be forced to explain what we've fixed so far that allows them to hang onto false hopes that we can "turn a corner."
People like that refuse to face reality. Maybe they suffer from inflated opinions of themselves?
Maybe they suffer from extreme xenophobia that tells them it's America's job to go into a country and tell the country what they're going to do. (But then, all we've been concerned with was having a tag sale on all of Iraq's public goods as we privatized them. The oil industry has been less successful so maybe the fine tuners wants to hang around until the unions are busted and then they'll call it a "win.")
But how stupid do you have to be to think Donald Rumsfeld (who should be in prison for what happened at Abu Ghraib) and the Bully Boy and their ilk are going to improve anything?
What have they improved in this country?
This isn't our A-team. It's not even our B, C or D-team. It's our Z-team (for zeros). They've harmed everything they've touched in this country but some fools want to believe that they're able to do things differently in Iraq?
Do they not know Negroponte's history?
Iraqis and our troops suffer every day that we remain in Iraq. Our troops may be lucky and not die but they're degraded by our actions that say torture's okay, mass detainment's okay, eye scans to enter your own hometowns are okay, go down the list.
What is going on in Iraq is disgusting. These fine tuners think that we should "stay the course" and just improve our strategy.
They're living in a dream world. That may be cozy and comfy for them but the troops and the Iraqis are living in a very realistic hell.
I don't have sympathy for the fine tuners. They can't get honest with what's gone down and what we can reasonably expect to continue to go down while we're over there.
Maybe they're damaged from five years of Bully Boy? If so, that should frighten them all the more because the troops returning will have problems. We've already seen that but apparently that's another thing the fine tuners can't be bothered with. Ugly reality isn't something they want to deal with. They'd rather pretend that the Bully Boy can give democracy.
They're disgusting. But if they want fine tuning, here's a suggestion, sign up.
Quit preaching that we need to stay over there from the comfort of your computer chair. Sign up already.
I'm not one of the "we were all wrong" crowd. I wasn't wrong. I knew where this would lead and it has led there. So I don't suffer the fools easily even if they give shout outs to the troops.
They're letting people risk their lives and the question is "For what?"
As we get closer to three years of occupation, we've not seen anything to suggest things are better. They won't get better. An occupied people who want the foreigners to leave are not going to be receptive to strong arming and lectures.
They can flaunt their ignorance all they want when they choose to leave the topic of electoral politics in this country. But there statements have no grounding in human psychology.
They may think they are being "practicial." I think they are being reprehensible as they allow more Iraqis and more troops to be put in the line of fire for an occupation.
They're still willing to give the Bully Boy more troops. After all the lies, they're still willing.
You have to be incredibly ignorant to still believe in this "cake walk."
TV has given us gasbags so it shouldn't be all that surprising that some would pop up online as well. They are the Cokie Roberts of the new century. I guess it's easy to play "reasonable" with the lives of others.
I'm not surprised when Republicans make the "stay the course" or "fine tune" argument. It's their man in the oval office, they have to prop him up. They have to kid themselves that there's still salvation possible or else face the obvious fact that they voted in someone who is destorying this country.
We've got three more years of the Bully Boy (unless we get lucky and an impeachment movement takes hold). That the Republicans would rally around their Bully isn't surprising.
That people identifying themselves as progressive, liberals, etc. would is dismaying.
As we get closer to the three year mark, you really have to shove your head in the sand to remain so blind.
U.S. Invests Over $1B to Upgrade Middle East Bases (Democracy Now!)
This comes as the U.S. is investing over one billion dollars in major upgrades at military bases in Afghanistan and the region. The New York Times reports the U.S. is spending over $100 million at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul to build permanent electrical, water and sewer systems. In addition the U.S. is replacing the air base's runway and building a hospital and housing for 1,000 service members. In Iraq, the military is also spending over $100 million to upgrade its airfield near Balad, north of Baghdad. And in Qatar, the U.S. is building a 100,000-square-foot fortified state-of-the-art regional air operations center.
$100 million. We're there to help?
It's time for people who think they're left to get realistic.
They can start by reading "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" which may have been too shocking for them in December but now maybe they can handle it.
Iraq
Kat's Korner
Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man
The Common Ills
Cedric's Big Mix
