Tuesday, August 31, 2004
The Fall of Iraq
While the GOP is preening during its bait-and-switch, "Fun with Moderates" Convention, Krugman in The Times lays out pretty much what I've been thinking for a few weeks now.0 comments
On Sunday night, during a replay of George W. Bush's appearance on Larry King's show, Bush said that we'd leave Iraq if the Iraqis sinply asked us to leave.
I no longer think that we'll be asked to leave at any point.
I now believe we'll be driven out.
By force of will.
And in disgrace.
The Iraqi people aren't stupid. They can see that "liberation" and "democracy" are not the key things that Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle and Dick Cheney had in mind when they dragged us kicking and screaming into Iraq.
Turning Iraq, and later Syria and Iran into replicas of Indiana is what these mad architects had in mind.
Pax Americana.
The Iraqis waited a year for us to treat them like the liberated people we said they were. And they watched sadly, and with growing anger, as the U.S. marginalized all their popular leaders and strong-armed a gaggle of ex-patriot thugs with no constituencies into positions of power and indluence over the facade the Bushies showed the world.
Iraqis became more furious as they watched first the Chalabi thugs, then the Alawi Gang, rape the country for their personal profit, even though they have control over basically no part of the country.
The Bush administration has fucked this whole affair up so badly, that there is no longer any possibility of reconciliation. No chance of the average Iraqi having any feeling for us, other than a to-the-death hatred and contempt.
The Sunnis and Shi'ia have hated each other for centuries, which is why a dictator was the only way to keep the territory together.
Yet it's already been well documented that they have bonded together out of their collective hatred for us, so Bush's talent for being a "uniter" goes well beyond his uniting the Democratic Party.
The only friends we have there now are the Kurds in the north, and that will last only as long as it takes for the Kurds in Iraq, Turkey, Russia and Iran to decide to go ahead with their dream of consolidating into a unified Kurdistan. And that will cause the entire region to blow apart into smithereens.
Cool move, George.
There is no more use to be made of the words: "Insurgents" or "militants." Those words are now woefully obsolete.
This is now Iraq's war for Independence.
And we're the Redcoats.
posted by Gotham 8:57 PM
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