God Damn You All

We're told by the President that a "surge" of troop strength in Bagdad will accomplish what the last 4 years of occupation has not. That the warring factions will be "pacified" and the Iraqi Government can then gain a foothold of control.

Our military can destroy other military forces. They can gain physical control of territory. That's what they do. They cannot force the populace of a fractured and oppressed society to modify their behavior. If we try to make them do this, the military itself will break, no matter what the troop strength we maintain. It's like trying to use a hammer to bake bread.

President Bush has made huge blunders in Iraq. He continues to make them. He thinks that he can somehow "force" the populace to behave the way he wants. He has not been able to and now they have nothing more to lose. Family and civil authority are irrepairably broken. Millions of Iraqis are dead, displaced or refugees in foreign lands, only time will tell how many are which. The only functioning societal fabric left are the tribal affiliations that have existed for a thousand years. The tribal imparitives ae timeless and immutable, ethnocentric violence, wanton destruction and ethnic cleansing. Now it will play out, nothing will stop it. Saddam himself played a final, important role in this process. He died well. Surrounded by a legion of partisan thugs hurling insults and catcalls, he stepped up to the gibbet with a natural grace and dignity that erased the decades of atrocity and dictatorial rule. The cell phone videos of the event swept around the World, immortalizing him and making him a martyr for large segments of the worlds population. Giving him over to such rabble for execution, on the eve of Eid, may be Bush's biggest blunder yet.

Just as he feels he can force the Iraqis to behave the way he wants them to, Bush believes he can force the American people to support his actions in Iraq. Once again, he has made a huge blunder. The American people are repulsed by the War in Iraq. They see no justification for it and no way to salvage the situation. What we have done to the Iraqi people, through our support of Bush's policies, amounts to a crime against humanity, done for no rational reason, by an administration that lied to a trusting people in the hope that once they got in deep enough, they would follow unquestioningly. The American people are better than that, bigger than that. They will not be lied to by their elected leaders and will not tolerate it. Bush's time is up. The bunker awaits. Will Laura and the little terrier follow him down? Well, maybe the terrier.

Bush still has supporters. The neocans, who have sold out their country for the wet dream of Zionism. The fundamentalists, who have seen the country move away from the values they cherish. The military, kicked to the curb by successive Democratic administrations. They will go down with him. There will be no place at the table for them in the coming years. There will be only the censure and loathing of their countrymen, for leading us, like the judas goat, down to the killing floor.

I do not delude myself into believing that the times ahead will be good or that the leaders that emerge will be worthy. Damage has been done. We will be scarred and ugly and disabled. It need not have been.

God Damn You All!