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Just go... now

by Mark Gisleson

I usually avoid Maureen Dowd's columns. Her Clinton-era cheapshots wore on me, exacerbating the simultaneous need I had to defend Clinton's sex life while despising him for his domestic and foreign policies. Even in her post-Willy weeniescence, she can write some mean lines:

The administration's optimism was exposed as a fantasy when the two efforts it holds most dear — the reconstruction and democratization of Iraq, and advancing the Palestinian-Israeli peace process — both went up in smoke yesterday, literally.

Before the Iraq war, the Bush team inflated the threats to America; since the war, the Bush team has deflated the threats to America.

Even the Bush people, who tend to look at excruciatingly difficult problems and say no prob, were shaken by yesterday's carnage, which delivered a terrible truth: just because we got Uday and Qusay, Iraqi militants are not going to stop blowing up Westerners. Even if we get Saddam, the resistance will no doubt keep at it, hoping the dictator will enjoy the carnage from paradise.

The democracy dominoes are not falling as easily as Paul Wolfowitz and other neocons had predicted.

The countries that could help us out with more troops won't do it unless Iraq is turned over to the U.N. And Rummy & Co., always doctrinaire, doesn't want turn Iraq over to those wimpy guys with blue helmets.

To be honest, I don't know what little ol' me can add to the reporting on yesterday's giant mess. Media Whores Online takes the low road, rubbing the vacationing Bushies' noses in the steaming pile formerly known as their foreign policy strategy. That's tempting, but at this point I'd give the sonuvabitch tens of millions of dollars and a Saudi palace if he would just resign and go away now. It took me fifty years to finally understand why the abused locals always let the head bastard abscond with the treasury, but now I get it. Whatever it takes to be rid of him for once and for all.

Steve Gilliard, as usual, sums it up best:

The Iraqis aren't going to work with us. They are not going to kill their relatives for the greater glory of Halliburton. George Bush is so fundamentally corrupt, and the Iraqis are so fundamentally angry at the occupiers, that people are willing to help anyone destroy anything. They blew up the pipeline for the water. How did they learn the spot to hit? Some civil engineer had to tell them. How did they know where de Mello's office was? Someone who worked in the building told them. The Iraqi resistance is sheltered and embraced by the Iraqi people. It could not exist otherwise.

Moja Vera, the soldier-blogger I love to quote has killed his comments section. I'm glad. His posts speak to the humanity of Iraq and the occupation, but the trolls who frequented his comments were more interested in fighting the war at home. TCB, of course, also lacks a comments feature. If you're that pissed or pleased, you have to write me or Steve, but we're not net nannies invested in hosting a tribal shoutout forum for the politically incompatible. We'd rather read the thoughts of people who have taken time to think about what they want to say. Like Moja, for example:

i do see the reasons that we are here...the good and the bad...i do hear the explosions...and i see the smoke billowing into the sky...the militants are blowing up all hope of peace with car bombs...we do it with B-2 bombers...there are 2 sides to everything...

At this point in time I don't think the Iraqis care if we take the oil with us when we leave. I think they just want us gone. Now.

Posted by Steve Perry at August 20, 2003 9:57 AM

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