Parable of the quagmire-crosser

Great big croc

Some commenter going by the name of Raymond at Crooks and Liars drew an excellent metaphor for the Iraq war and what those of us who oppose it mean when we say "support the troops, oppose the war" (as if that needs any explaining).

But first I'd like to vent about how utterly sick I am of hearing the obnoxious Republican talking point that says that "Democrats are cheering for our troops to fail."  Grown men in suits on television continue to proclaim that same destructive, childish nonsense day in and day out, when anyone who is honest with themselves has to admit that it is -- empirically -- a deceptive, hateful thing to say.

It was a bad, bad idea to go into that country and unilaterally destroy its government, no matter how dysfunctional.  It was an impossible mission to complete, honorably or otherwise. And regardless of how many "surges" we carry out and however successful we are at bringing violence down in this region or that, it's all just a useless escalation of an impotent war strategy if the political situation doesn't improve, and improve dramatically.  And after almost five years and hundreds of billions of dollars and an unknown cost in human lives -- the political situation doesn't appear to have improved at all.

And that has been the problem with this war since before it even started: Our dishonest leadership is constantly playing with our heads, trying to conflate scattered military victories with actual, sustained progress in this "war".

They're not the same.

Maybe they were in World War Two, but nothing has ever been that simple since.  Everyone knows by now that there isn't a purely military solution to the mess we've made in Iraq -- even Bush has said so himself.  And yet every time we talk about leaving, citing the utter failure of the Administration to make any lasting political gains in 4-1/2 years, someone on the Republican side will point out all the successes our military has had, then attack the messenger, equating their criticism of the civilian leadership with an attack on the work of our servicemen.

Is there anyone out there who doesn't immediately grasp how tangibly, palpably asinine that is?  I've thought about this a lot, and I've decided that anyone who makes the "against the war, against the troops" argument at this point in history is either

1. seriously not paying attention, which at this point is inexcusable;
   
2. just plain dishonest, which is, well, just evil; or
   
3. insane, which, of course, calls for professional help and is beyond the scope of this blog.
   

For example, taking it all the way back to the beginning: Did anyone ever doubt that the United States could topple the Iraq army?  Of course not.  And yet the right wingers and the media cheered and oohhed and aaahhed when the US military, a larger military force than any History had ever seen, rained fire and brimstone down on one of the Middle-East's most mediocre, languished defense forces, casually decimating it in less than two weeks.  We've witnessed more suspenseful "showdowns" on American Idol.

And then, idiotically, Bush pretended to land that fighter-jet on that aircraft carrier, strutted out in his flight-suit and codpiece and declared, ta-DAA! that we had won, when anyone who knows anything about history, politics, or anything knew that that was the EASY part!

Any leader capable of finding his proverbial backside with both hands in his proverbial back pocket would know to tell his countrymen to buckle down because here comes the hard part.  But he didn't.  Because he either didn't know --- or he didn't care.  I used to suspect the former.  But now I fully believe the latter.

And the insanity continues to this day, with this inane nonsense about whether the "Surge" is "working".  It could not be clearer: the "Surge", which most of us opposed because it amounted to a further escalation of a hopeless war, was clearly and publicly stated by the Bush administration itself to be for the sole purpose of giving the political leaders in Iraq the time and space to make political progress.  Anyone who argues that the surge strategy as a whole was successful (???) is spinning -- by ignoring what it was attempted for in the first place:

1. We escalated.
2. Security temporarily improved (of course...)
3. Iraq's leaders (yet again) made no discernible progress.

This is more than we ever bargained for, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that the picture of success Bush insists upon involves more than even we are capable of forcing the Iraqis to do.  We need to turn up the stakes for them and talk about getting the hell out.

Otherwise, how many more "surges" will there be with no results?  How many have there been already? Do YOU know?  (In case you're wondering, this wasn't the first one.)