Depart Off Failure

So there you have it America. Dubya calls the pre-ordained troop rotations a "Return On Success." As Thomas Ricks pointed out last night for the Washington Post - it sounds like a Merrill Lynch ad. A bad one, I'll add. If Dubya was worth more parsing, I'd get my panties all in a bunch and do so. But I've got a different point to make.

Iraq is doomed. Other nations in modern history have dissembled into decades of civil war given a horrifying minority acting off of a majority opinion of dissatisfaction. But this one's a totally new level of screw-up. And as the instigating Nation, everyone back here in the US of A is tarnished. The anemic anti-war movement inspires less people than those hepped on the new Fall TV schedule. The fraudulent pro-war movement are the same genetic strain of hooligans that enjoyed the gladitory events at the Colliseum before the fall of Rome. And people like me that have been against this sort of folly since 9/11 are just as screwed as the lot of us. No wonder Britney Spears drunkenly hogging the spotlight @ the MTV VMAs is so much, much more fun. Here's my point - we need to get mad. Intelligently mad. The Surge is a failure. The Extension of the Surge meant to "Return On Success" is a fraud. People need to rise up, march in the Streets and clog up the business of Government. Our Nation can't take this extension without suffering the ultimate loss. That of the Nation itself. I got in trouble with a group of beloved friends a year ago saying that we are a more divided Nation than at any time in our history, even though we don't realize it yet. I won't claim prescience. But that's what it increasingly feels like. We can't settle this Iraqi civil war even though we caused it. We must stop. One more dead American is far, far too many. And that's all I've got to say about that.

Hope your own riffs lead to something more today. Rock on.