For maybe a month.

One of them - who worked in Iraq for years, as the only American in an Iraqi company, and still maintains strong ties to the place - in other words, who knows what he's talking about, said earlier this year, if memory serves, that as far as he's concerned, the best-case scenario is now that a brutal tyrant takes over the country and enforces security with an iron fist.

Again, that's his best-case scenario.

* "He sucks", "No, he's a good guy"; "He's not getting the job we need done", "He's the Iraqi peoples' Prime Minister, not ours".

I despair. And it doesn't help that there is a family in KC that lives on State Line in a place I have to pass that have put out a small flag for every death and a total count card at the end of the bank of flags (on both ends so it can be read both directions). It's updated daily.

I cry when I pass it. This is such a wasteful, stupid war. My brother didn't die from Viet Nam, but he may as well have. This war may leave much deeper scars.

...

Unless, of course, they just go back to plan A and install Ahmed Chalabi like they intended to from the start, despite his ties to Iran.

This is part of an ongoing series on why the workers of the world have no nation.

--Government sanctioned satellite surveillance of US citizens, in the US. (for your safety!)

--Increasing demands for "National ID" cards that you would be required to carry around with you at all times. ("papers, papers please")

--Government publications on how to stifle free speech and expression at Presidential speeches and rallies, by using organized "rally squads" to confront, outyell, and block anyone not showing the proper amount of support.

Gee thanks, Bush Jr., you're getting your wish to be remembered in history. It just won't be the way you wanted. At least Grant will be able to step down from the "worst President ever" podium when you're done.

Bryan #11: Say, after we conquer Iran, let's appoint Christiane Amanpour as the new Head of State. She would do a great job!

They've got Ballistic Mussels.

(Yeah, yeah, xkcd probability = 1, I know.)

(Not commenting on the actual post, because, goddammit, what a bloody horrible messy waste of 4.5 years.)

Then there's Bernard Lewis, who apparently was influenced by a trip to Turkey in his youth to believing that what the moribund Muslim world needed was secular strongmen like Ataturk. Iraq already had one of those, but that didn't keep him from advocating invasion anyway...

I'll be needing to order more postcards soon.

My Democratic Senator has been getting "thank-yous" from me by email and phone. He's voting the right way.

In any event, Bush already assumed that mantle long, long, long, long ago.

Oh, those are flashbacks? I though it was the same d*mned nightmare since the cast had only minor changes ....

Shrub actually rattled off the line about boat people and reeducation camps with what might almost pass for eloquence (by his standards, anyway). I suppose it was a combo of heavy coaching and the relative relaxation of talking to a bunch of "patriotic" vets -- as opposed to the ones who saw first-hand just how deep that earlier quagmire was.

I hate this shit. I just don't know how to stop it.

Deja vu all over again.

And we got pretty close -- Johnathan Chait, liberal hawk (sic), actually proposed this with tongue only slightly in cheek some time ago.

Of course, in an earlier move, desperate for raitings, they killed off the character. But no matter: we'll take a Saddam clone. Dress him up in the same suit, and everyone will get the parallel. (I'm thinking of how Woody Allen, the early, Bananas Woody Allen would do it here: suit the same, big false mustache the same... actor barely visible under all that garb.) Won't have precisely the dramatic punch, but close enough not to matter.

And Christopher Hitchens and Don Rumsfeld can proudly proclaim that they were for a strong man in Iraq decades before the rest of us. And hey: for once they'll be telling the truth.

But reading your predecessor's thoughts and reasons seems to have been too much for this administration, throughout. It's amazing the way they think "democracy = govenrment that does what we want". They can't even manage that reliably in the USA, never mind Iraq, Palestine, etc.

It's all about the ballistic nipples.

(Imagine a gigantic nipple going *spung* into your face... forever.)

To be fair to Christopher Hitchens - and no, I'm not sure why I'm bothering, because I doubt he would be fair to me - I have the firm impression that he at least has been consistently in favour of democracy in Iraq, even if it's democracy-by-force. If he has any of his old principles left, he should be as horrified by the prospect of a puppet dictator as any of us. But I wouldn't be too surprised to be proved wrong about this. Possibly he would justify it on the grounds that a dictator would at least be secular (like, er, Saddam Hussein was).

Not even close (IMO). That goes to Buchanan. After that there's a small line, in which Grant doesn't really stand. He had poor friends, and came to office in a bad time, but he wasn't even venal, just not the right man for the job.

We need to get to the bosom of this.

"You fucking draft-dodging ASSWIPE, haven't you learned anything?"

Hell, one prosthetic leg clattering onto the stage would have spoke volumes.

Man, why couldn't ONE of those vets stand up and shout:

"You fucking draft-dodging ASSWIPE, haven't you learned anything?"

Well, it wasn't quite as dramatic as all that, but remember this?

Gad, that photo brings back mammaries.

What? All the good jokes were taken.

Those who ignore history are condemning others to repeat it.

*Applause*

*groan*

*bigger applause*

To be fair, the available alternatives all suck. Pulling out may be the best option available to us, and is certainly at least one we can probably manage, but we're probably going to leave behind a multiyear, multiethnic bloodbath, and quite possibly get an Iraq that we will like much, much less than the old secular thugocracy under Saddam.

*vian, your lingerie is much better than my thorax

Stephen@59: Fair enough. The original article is remarkably mealy-mouthed, actually, but it's clearly an expression of support for Saddam. I shall clearly have to revise my idea that he has been a consistent supporter of democracyL it looks like the by-force part was always more important.

It's a shame, because I'm sure he used to say as many sensible things as he did ridiculous things. But now apparently he's picked the stupid ideas and decided that being consistent is a virtue even when he's wrong.

Can you imagine the "Help Wanted" ad? Wanted: Tyrant. Niceness not a requirement. Must have good communication skills, be secular, and have strong ties to the communities. This is an equal opportunity position.

That reminds me of a movie I caught the very end of, years ago. It was one of those things inspired by some martial-arts videogame. After the Bad Guy has been defeated, two of his henchmen, now unemployed, forlornly stand by a road carrying a sign that says "Will hench for food".

Steve @ 35: I'm fucking nostagic for the '70s and '80s. At least those administrations felt enough shame to do their torture and brutality by foreign proxies, instead of ordering Americans to get blood on their hands.

Holy crap! The parallels really are uncanny. A president installed by foreign machinations, who's a member of a sect not trusted by other parts of the population during a time of great religious and ethnic division, brought down by internal forces at the behest of a US government which no longer believes he has their interests at heart - oh, wait, that hasn't happened to al-Maliki yet.

I believe the final demand was to the effect of "Leave the country," then started bombing before the "or else" deadline.

I'm confused ... are you saying that your low taste in movies is evidenced by your opinion of The Ninth Gate? Because I really enjoyed that movie, and I have good taste. You can tell, because all the big food companies want to put me in a can. Being a Linux kernel hacker these days, I guess that makes me Chicken of The C.

I was essentially indulging in a bit of self-deprecation with my #95. heh.

#80: "Shrub -- when it absolutely, positively has to become Somalia!" (Especially given this week's news, which makes clear for anyone who'd completely missed it before that the majority can't even work out power sharing among themselves; the Mahdi Army and the Badr Brigade are close to an all-out war in the south.)

I'm not much for joining groups, though.

Things get kinda weird--and not necessarily in the right direction--when your prescription plan has BigPharmaName right on it.