Bill Clinton failed as  President to prevent this war, and the Democrats in Congress have failed to offer the necessary support for the troops.  The world is a different place since 9/11, so to avoid that mushroom cloud, and the damage that could be done with Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, we will continue to work towards the benchmarks of success, that will bring this regime of evil, one of three in the world, which the President just the other day......Joe, in the back there! 

Hoppy in Sacramento

What about Bush and Cheney resign? Pelosi becomes Pres and appoints Obama VP.

Tom

Nothing makes sense. If the US wanted Shiites in control (as an ally for Shiite Iran), why waste all those resources funding, arming and empowering Saddam Hussein to fight the Iran/Iraq War? If the US wanted Sunnis in control, why disband the Sunni army and dismiss Sunni civil servants?

Like everyone else who read the newspapers at the time, I read that Bush 41 didn't push on to Baghdad because strongman Saddam was needed to keep the Shiite majority in check and that civil war and insurgency would likely follow an invasion. When Bush 43 went in, that was THE big question: how to prevent that from happening. We talked about it over lunch at work - most of the people I talked to understood the basic issues.

I was truly dumbfounded to hear Bush 43 and his top guns claim that they didn't develop a plan to deal with that contingency because they were unaware of the Sunni/Shiite division within Islam. Were they lying? telling the truth? Which would be worse? Is it plausible that Bush 43 and Bush 41 never had a conversion about it?

These aren't serious people who are running our country. The janitors in my workplace take their jobs more seriously. Any group of a dozen or so honest, reasonably informed citizens could have made decisions that would have been better for the country and for the world.

Who do they hope wins out? Do they even care? Do they care about anything other than dividing up the spoils of war?

This jaded Vietnam Veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent understands the plight of today's Cheney-Bush Buy Time Brigade only too well. Still, although it looks like everyone in Iraq has either fled their homes and/or left the country, taken up arms against any number of threatening monsters, or just died; nonetheless, some of us can see the boy bumpkin behind it all and appreciate his true accomplishments. For my part, I've sought to mortalize the malignant moron and his minions in verse worthy of today's bad poets who cannot sing or play musical instruments: namely, those fabulously rich -- even though tiresomely repetitive -- rappers. Hence I offer, for the amusement and edification of all those "winners" in the White House:

"Deputy Dubya's Droopy Diaper Rap"

You fell asleep on watch and let some bad guys blow us up,
And when you woke you swore to pay them back.
You then attacked a country that had never done us harm
Which seems to indicate it's brains you lack.

You needed made-up reasons that you thought the rubes would buy.
You swore Saddam Hussein had done the crime.
You had Ms. Rice warn darkly of some sprouting mushroom clouds
In little less than forty minutes’ time.

Dick Cheney spoke of spies who may have met one night in Prague
Discussing who-knows-what? or when? or how?
He claimed that all this nothing added up to something big
That justified attacking Iraq now.

Don Rumsfeld claimed to know just where to find those awful bombs.
He said he knew exactly where they were.
That none had ever come to light disturbed him not at all;
For dreams, not facts, made better sales allure.

And Colin Powell played along and told the world untruths
In service to a man who oft betrays;
And now no thinking person who resides on Planet Earth
Believes a single word that this man says.

Your CIA did what it does, whatever that might be;
And spent more billions finding nought to fear;
But undeterred you pressed ahead until the spooks agreed
To tell you everything you longed to hear.

The Pet Press pundit sycophants fell quickly into line;
For "access" they had sold their souls for free.
You gave each one a nickname in return for which they swore
To overlook your rank stupidity.

The Congress went along and did precisely not one thing
To cure us of our doubts about their worth.
They swarmed aboard the lemming liner, "Gulf of Tonkin II,"
And led us once again to rue their birth.

So came the night of green-hued TV pictures from "The Front"
With breathless claims of "Shock and Awe" profound
That really only lulled and bored the viewers back at home
Impressing no Iraqis on the ground.

You and your team, of course, converged to watch the main event;
To stomp and cheer each way-cool boom and bang.
You had photographers snap pictures of you gettin' down
And doin' that studly Texas hamster thang.

With manhood issues unresolved, you pranced and leaped about
With every adolescent urge fulfilled,
You launched three dozen missiles at a Baghdad neighborhood
Yet never cared to wonder whom you'd killed.

And don't you think that forty missiles seem a little much
To cut the heads off three Iraqi men
Who, anyway, were somewhere else when all the bombs arrived
And not where you supposed them to have been?

That word "decapitation" sounded swell not long ago
But now only reminds us of your lies.
Some folks have lost their heads, all right, but not the ones you planned;
Just those who drive your trucks and cook your fries.

So things have gone from only-bad to worse-than-that and more
As GI coffins come home late at night;
And billions run into the hundred-billions off the books
Which makes those foreign lenders quake with fright.

You started spouting Jesus-jive because you think it sells
Among religious folks who live in dread
Of terrorist hijackers crashing into Red State barns
And working people organized and led.

To you, the Middle Ages sound like just the place to reign
With hopeless people waiting for their doom
Who ev'ry thousand years or so take off their clothes and climb
Up on their roofs to wait for what? and whom?

You learned to watch the NBA and do that high-five dance.
You've learned your three-word mantras through and through.
George Tenet taught you how to 'slam-and-dunk' and jockstrap-sniff
But still you've never grown to more than you.

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005

There. As the Horrible Holidays devolve into Hobbesean Hell for our troops and the Iraqi people, I sincerely hope that the shade of my poetic hero Dante Alighieri has begun constructing a newer, lower level of the Inferno suitable for double occupancy for all eternity by those Partners in Pathology, Sheriff Dick Cheney and Deputy Dubya Bush: the terrible twosome whose tawdry tale will no doubt triumph as the terrible tabloid of our times.

Good question, Mr Hundt.
Since the designated puppets didn't work out as "planned", the thinking is starting over again for at least the fourth time.

Perhaps the White House will end up backing the Baath. After all, you go to war with the Rolodex you have, not the one you wish for.

Frankly, I would like to see the French win this one.

"which side does the White House want to win?"
Hopefully, the side that will let us out alive, if there is one.

DUBYA: See, see? That's what I been telling the American people all along and you guys just haven't picked up on it yet. We want the side of freedom to win. And the way we do that...the way we do that is by adjusting...adjusting...you see? Do you finally get it?

REPORTER: But which side would be the best for us, Mr. President?

DUBYA: I already answered that. Let's let Ann Coulter ask the next question.

Tony will just deny that there is a civil war going on, and will insist that the Iraqi people voted for a unified government, and that is now up to the Iraqi parliament to implement that unified government.

Having spent six years focusing on public perception rather than reality, they are going to have a very hard time actually talking about reality.

Please. Reporters don't attend these kind of events.

If one ever did, I'd rather have them ask, "What mistakes did Sec. Rumsfeld make in Iraq? What will your nominee Gates do differently?"

-- "Good people can have honest differences of opinion. Republicans tend to be neither."

It may look like a civil war, but it isn't one yet. And, if we stay the course, we can let the Iraqis stand up as we stand down. It is all part of the War on Terror. If we leave now, they will come over here; we are preventing Al Qaeda from coming over here to destroy us.

The best question to ask is: 'How can we tell we've won in Iraq?' And then: 'How do you propose to achieve that? And how many soldiers will be killed to get there?' " That's a good one for McCain, too. As The Times puts it today, in comparing various proposals for Iraq, he wants more troops but, when it comes to political goals, "has not elaborated his views." 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

These aren't serious people who are running our country.

Which is sadder? That they're not serious, or that they were relected when their total lack of any agenda beyond handing the country over to big business and trashing the Constitution was obvious to anyone paying attention?

Bushco delenda est

J. McCutchen

Reed - Would you please get JimBob Baker on the horn?

Jonathan Chait: Bring back Saddam Hussein [LAT}
Restoring the dictator to power may give Iraqis the jolt of authority they need. Have a better solution?

It looks like OCPatriot and BruceMcF fell victim to that phenomenon upthread - rated 2 by someone who thought they were serious?

Well, I assumed we were fighting for the fundamentalist rights of Shiites --- with ?the exception of those pesky types, displaying disloyalty by joining the ever ?evolving insurgents. Indeed, ole Bush was in hot pursuit of Saddam's secular ?Sunnis --- made apparent after he disbanded Iraq’s entire police and military ?forces that resulted in their humiliation and chagrin.?

?... Too bad really, we sure could have used their help to avoid their civil war that ?we initiated after bombing and killing the shocking awe out hundreds of ?thousands of innocent Iraqis families --- not that much different from our own --- ?without provocation mind you, all for the spoils of oil. What I find far more curious ?however, is why Bush was so concerned about bringing power to the Shiite ?fundamentalists in Iraq when he is so determined to destroy the very same power ?of the very same Shiite fundamentalists in Iran... A fundamental dilemma of ?paradoxical proportions, wouldn't you say??