How Many Hearts and Minds...
... have we been winning, lately?
Oh, yeah, the rest of the world loves our movies (particularly our excesses in those, the trashy ones), our music, maybe even our outrageous personalities, the Paris Hiltons, the latest American Idol winners, the Britney Spears (oh, ye of little talent, no brains and excellent public relations management).
But, does the rest of the world think much of us? The polls suggest not. Now fifty-three months after the invasion of Iraq, the Iraqis, whom we were told would embrace us as liberators, hate us all the more. They have become inured to little or no electricity, fetid water, when it runs, and sewage in the streets. We busted their electrical system, destroyed their water treatment and sewage plants, in a desperate attempt to get them pissed enough at Saddam Hussein that they would destroy him and his regime without our help. Didn't quite work out that way. Instead, the Iraqis, quite accurately, placed the blame for their misery on us. We managed to make their lives even more miserable than they were under Saddam and the sanctions.
Now, we're being presented with yet another dog and pony show by the military, telling us Bush's "surge" is working. All the evidence suggests otherwise. Iraqi civilian deaths are as high or higher than ever. Month by month, last year to this year, death counts of American military are higher than last year. The number of displaced Iraqis looking to escape the fighting is roughly double over the number of those last year. Reconstruction projects are crumbling before they can be used.
But, idiot boy king says about Iraq to the Australians, on a state visit there this week, "we're kicking ass."
Who in gawd's name was he talking about? The American corporations cleaning up U.S. taxpayers' cash? They're certainly kicking somebody's ass, and it's probably ours.
Otherwise, we're suffering Vietnam Syndrome all over again. Petraeus is Westmoreland manqué, except with a lot fewer soldiers at his disposal. What is wrong with these bozos?
Did they think it would all be different because there's no jungle in Iraq? It might be that simple. No trees. Desert. Not like Vietnam.
But, just like Vietnam, when you smash in doors, arrest every one of the men in the village, burn the rest of the place, occasionally rape and murder the remainder, you don't win friends and influence people.
One day, the military will figure that out. One day, they'll put honor above orders and walk away from the stupid ideas fostered by the idiots in the White House, drop their weapons and hitch the first truck out of there, en masse. Maybe not now, but, one day.
There are going to be a lot of people destroyed by this clusterfuck of a war, and not all of them will be Iraqis. With luck, they'll come to blame Bush and Cheney and Rice and that political whore, Powell, for what has happened in Iraq, instead of themselves. With luck.
Until then, we're going to have to live with what they bring home with them, and so are they. And, it ain't going to be pleasant.
Oh, yeah, the rest of the world loves our movies (particularly our excesses in those, the trashy ones), our music, maybe even our outrageous personalities, the Paris Hiltons, the latest American Idol winners, the Britney Spears (oh, ye of little talent, no brains and excellent public relations management).
But, does the rest of the world think much of us? The polls suggest not. Now fifty-three months after the invasion of Iraq, the Iraqis, whom we were told would embrace us as liberators, hate us all the more. They have become inured to little or no electricity, fetid water, when it runs, and sewage in the streets. We busted their electrical system, destroyed their water treatment and sewage plants, in a desperate attempt to get them pissed enough at Saddam Hussein that they would destroy him and his regime without our help. Didn't quite work out that way. Instead, the Iraqis, quite accurately, placed the blame for their misery on us. We managed to make their lives even more miserable than they were under Saddam and the sanctions.
Now, we're being presented with yet another dog and pony show by the military, telling us Bush's "surge" is working. All the evidence suggests otherwise. Iraqi civilian deaths are as high or higher than ever. Month by month, last year to this year, death counts of American military are higher than last year. The number of displaced Iraqis looking to escape the fighting is roughly double over the number of those last year. Reconstruction projects are crumbling before they can be used.
But, idiot boy king says about Iraq to the Australians, on a state visit there this week, "we're kicking ass."
Who in gawd's name was he talking about? The American corporations cleaning up U.S. taxpayers' cash? They're certainly kicking somebody's ass, and it's probably ours.
Otherwise, we're suffering Vietnam Syndrome all over again. Petraeus is Westmoreland manqué, except with a lot fewer soldiers at his disposal. What is wrong with these bozos?
Did they think it would all be different because there's no jungle in Iraq? It might be that simple. No trees. Desert. Not like Vietnam.
But, just like Vietnam, when you smash in doors, arrest every one of the men in the village, burn the rest of the place, occasionally rape and murder the remainder, you don't win friends and influence people.
One day, the military will figure that out. One day, they'll put honor above orders and walk away from the stupid ideas fostered by the idiots in the White House, drop their weapons and hitch the first truck out of there, en masse. Maybe not now, but, one day.
There are going to be a lot of people destroyed by this clusterfuck of a war, and not all of them will be Iraqis. With luck, they'll come to blame Bush and Cheney and Rice and that political whore, Powell, for what has happened in Iraq, instead of themselves. With luck.
Until then, we're going to have to live with what they bring home with them, and so are they. And, it ain't going to be pleasant.
posted by Montag at
4:36 AM
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