The Iraq Mess

Bush's speech last night was remarkable...for the kid-gloves reaction that it's getting from the oppoition and the domestic press.

The Democrats are falling all over themselves to approve of Bush's "tough determination"; the only thing they can fault is his constant repetition of the falsehood that there's a link between Iraq and 9/11. The domestic press, much the same.

Here's what nobody's saying:

1. The man who has led this entire two-year disaster, who got us into this mess in the first place and who has made it worse with every decision, got up in front of the country and said, "In order to get us out of this mess, we're going to keep doing exactly what we've been doing so far." He offered absolutely nothing new.

We don't know for sure what will work in Iraq...but we sure know what doesn't work. And Bush says we're going to do more of it. Our failed policies and practices will continue.

And no one called him on it!

2. Every moment the U.S. stays in Iraq, the situation gets worse. We are an occupying force, and the people of Iraq hate being occupied. (You might feel much the same if the U.S. Army moved into your house to "protect you.") The longer we're there, the more resentment we produce...not just in Iraq, but across the entire Arab world.

The Democrats and the domestic press agree with Bush, "Of course the U.S. can't withdraw from Iraq, we need to stay there for many, many years."

Pardon my Slobbovian, but that's a load of crap. The US has zero credibility on the world stage. Statements like this just reinforce the notion that we're there for the oil, and we're never going to leave.

The United States needs to turn Iraq over to a bona-fide international peacekeeping force as soon as possible -- preferably yesterday. Ideally, this international force would be largely Arab, almost entirely Muslim. Bush needs to go to the United Nations, hat in hand, and make abject apologies..."We know we made a mess of this, we know that you told us so, and we know that our presence there is only making things worse. I'm sorry that I called the U.N. 'irrelevant'; boy, have I learned that I was wrong. We want you to take over. Here's a hundred billion dollars to help. And by the way, I'm withdrawing Bolton's nomination effective immediately."

The United States cannot succeed in Iraq as long as we are in Iraq. A true international force is the only thing that can get us out of this mess.

3. Bush said -- and the Democrats & domestic press swallowed it whole -- that it will take years to train native Iraqi forces.

Let's see. The United States Army can take a high school dropout from one of our spectacularly failing public schools (to coin a phrase, a child who's been left behind), and in six weeks they can turn that child into a soldier (in fact, according to Bush's ultra-patriotic rhetoric, into the best soldier in the world). Yet that same Army will take years to turn an educated Iraqi into an inferior copy of the same soldier.

Huh?

Does no one notice the lapse in logic here?

Does no one notice how insulting this is to the Iraqi people?


One last thing. On NPR yesterday, they were asking people in the street what they would have liked to have heard from Bush. Nobody asked the Ivory Madonna, but she's going to answer anyway.

What the Ivory Madonna would have liked to hear Bush say: "I resign."

Just the Ivory Madonna's thoughts....

-M

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The Ivory Madonna's story is told in Dance for the Ivory Madonna by Don Sakers.