Mess in Iraq

Lest we forget, the mess in Iraq is still, well, a mess. Our soldiers continue to die. We have lost 58 soldiers in July and 75 in August and 21 in the first week of September. For those of you keeping score at home, that's a worse rate of casualties after the "handover" of "power" to the Iraqi "Government" than before. What do you know? The "Handover" did not work in reducing the fighting. How did I know that it would not work: The Bush administration said that it would reduce the fighting. Just like declaring "Mission Accomplished," killing Saddam's sons, and capturing Saddam were going to stop the fighting and didn't. Now taking casualties alone does not render Iraq a clusterfuck. Taking casualties while losing control of most major cities in Iraq not to mention Sadr city in Baghdad, does. Imagine occupying Chicago with the south side in open rebellion. There are not that many cities in Iraq, if the U.S. backed central government does not control these cities then they are not the government of Iraq. We can retake these cities, but it would wreck the cities. Which in the words of Iraq'd would:

And would the surviving residents and neighbors of a flattened city really be inclined to view elections held in the wake of destruction as credible and legitimate? I hate to say it, but ask a Chechen. It may very well be that at this late hour, free and fair elections in January may simply not be possible.

Bill Clinton, recovering nicely, had foreign policy screw-ups. Somalia was not a highlight. Some of you may have seen the movie. After a screw-up that cost the lives of 19 soldiers Clinton fired his Defense secretary. Sometime this week 1,000 soldiers will be dead.

Not one member of the Bush Foreign Policy Team has been fired.