Progress Report

Tomorrow Gen. David Betraeus and American Ambassador Lyin' Crocker are scheduled to lie to the American public regarding the current state of the Iraqi occupation.

What lies will they tell? The same ones we've heard before.

They will tell us that progress is being made in Iraq.

This is true if you are a Shiite insurgent- the forces of rebel cleric Moktada al-Sadr fought Puppet Minister Nuri al-Maliki's Iraqi Army to a bloody standstill last week during a poorly conceived military 'crackdown' on Sadr's private army in Basra...the operation didn't accomplish much except to prove that the Iraqi Army (and Maliki's government ) are helpless without U.S. air and ground support.
The recent battle also helped create and widen internecine divides within the Shiites themselves, thus making any future reconciliations more difficult- neighbor kills neighbor, brother kills brother...grudges were formed, to say the least.

The Iranians have also made considerable progress in Iraq, a nation which they have historically been at odds with...Maliki's Puppet Ministry is openly sympathetic to Iran's government; Saddam was not.

Gen. Betraeus and Mr. Crock will certainly point out that Mr. Maliki's government is not capable of standing on it's own and they will doubtlessly use that observation as part of their rationale for continuing the Iraqi occupation - what they won't give us is a 'timetable' as to when the civic miracle of Iraqi sovereignty will occur.

No one knows for certain when that will happen. But we do know when it won't happen. Peace won't break out while Iraq is occupied by a foreign power-Iraq will remain in a state of anarchistic violence as long as we stay there. As long as we stay, there will be war. There's no way to tell how long-or even if- a peace can be established, but it won't even start until we bring our troops home.

Imagine if you were given a project at work and you turned it in without finishing it, crying exultantly, "mission accomplished!"...five years later your boss is still asking you when you will be finished and all you can say is: "hey man, I'm workin' on it...all I need is more time. And a raise."
You'd be fired.

Five years have passed and we are still dropping bombs in the hearts of Iraqi cities.
From any perspective this is a failure and it will get worse before it gets better.

If we pull out our troops, Mr. Maliki and his Puppet ministers will probably be executed by their own people- history doesn't look kindly on wartime collaborators. Tough shit.

If force was capable of spreading 'freedom' it would have worked already- if the Persians wanted Western democracy, they could have adopted it from the Greeks two thousand years ago.
Or, more recently, from the British- we all remember how well the British occupation of the Middle East worked out, right?
Right?
Obviously not.
I mean, who could have foreseen any of the troubles that we, as the invader, have faced in the Middle East?
The Crusades went so smoothly, after all. No trouble there...man, the whole thing shoulda been a cakewalk, just like establishing Israel was...I mean, that went off without a hitch or complaint, right?

Ooops.
What I meant to say is that 60 years after establishing 'freedom' in Israel, we are still trying to stop the violence there and the best solution anyone seems to have come up with involves concentration camps, a segregated population and the copious use of armed force backed with an implied nuclear threat, three things that just scream ' freedom'...it's a wonder that the Liberty Bell doesn't shatter from the the stress of ringing out all that freedom.


Perhaps we will be told that the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in power.

I challenge anyone to provide one concrete example to support that claim- just saying "he was a bad man" isn't good enough- how exactly is the world a better place? Be specific.

There were 631 reported incidents of Iraqi violence in March, up from 239 the previous month...at the time , the 'low' number of 239 was held up as sign of progress- only 239 attacks in a month, that's less than 10 bombings per day!

How many car bombs does it take to ruin one's day?

4.5 million Iraqis have fled their homeland. I suppose an optimist could say that Saddam never would have granted 4.5 million travel visas, but those Iraqis aren't on vacation, they are wartime refugees. What sort of 'progress' creates 4.5 million refugees?

Iran's theocratic leaders were held in check by Saddam's secular regime and vice-versa- Presidents Reagan, Bush 41 and Clinton all knew and understood this- the USA has a long history of supporting both sides of the perpetual conflict between Iran and Iraq because it served our interests to do so- Saddam also kept al-Queda from establishing a presence in Iraq...when Iraq invaded Kuwait during Bush 41's term, Osama bin-Laden contacted the Kuwaiti government and offered the services of his own private army to expel the Iraqi invaders; at the time, bin-Laden's Mujahadeen warriors were basking in the glow of their recent victory over the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, (a feat they accomplished with considerable American help) and were itchin' for a fight with Saddam, who al-Queda saw as a Westernized infidel who refused to pay proper tribute to their call for Fundamentalist rule...the Kuwaiti's rejected bin-Laden's offer but there was a lot of bad blood between Saddam and bin-Laden ; the Mujahadeen were not allowed in Iraq- until we invaded and opened the door for them-
before the U.S. invasion, an al-Queada agent would have been safer in Bush's Kansas than he would have been in Saddam's Iraq.

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Speaking of Fundamentalist rule, I used to live in Utah, circa 1984 and this group was one of the worst-kept public secrets I've ever encountered...I mean, everyone in Utah knew what their deal was ; every once in a while they'd make the news and would be pressured to re-locate to a locale that was more inclined to ignore polygamy, rape, pedophilia and forced marriages- these areas of America are more common than I'd like to believe-first Utah, then Colorado, then Arizona...now Texas has them. They can hold 'em for all I care.

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Speaking of progress:

-I did not and will not get a new PC anytime soon. That offer was withdrawn due to another family crisis. I can't go into that now.

-I had two job interviews last week but no job offers. I'm borrowed-out and flat broke. I need new shoes, new clothes, new food...new everything. I'm willing to work for them but no one is hiring...America just lost another 150,000 jobs over the last 45 days. In 1999 I made $25/hr...the best offer I've had this year was $8. It's a good thing that the cost of living has also dropped by 2/3 or I'd be at serious risk of losing my apartment.
I have been homeless before but it was brief and it was by my own choice...the next time promises to be neither.

- There are options to homelessness. The last time I was facing the street life here in Fallentown, I found a girlfriend with a house and moved in with her. She turned out to be a drug-dealing psychopath with shady connections to the world of professional art thieves. She also had a semi-domesticated pet wolf that was prone to killing the neighbor's pets and when we broke up she tried to 'sic' the wolf on me but I was one of the only humans it liked and I escaped unmauled.

- My ex-girlfriend once tried to kill me with a wolf. How much worse could it get?
I'm dating again, so I'm pretty sure that I'm going to find out.