Thoughts on the New Year (Iraq) I know 2007 is a week old and there has been little (blogged) comment from me. Don't worry, I am still here.

So, Bush has decided the best way to put out a raging five-alarm fire is to throw more gas on it. Joe Lieberman is happily there beside him, and it seems that even despite widespread Congressional resistance, Bush will probably have his way. More Americans will be sent into Iraq to reaffirm our commitment to ineptitude. In that sense, 2007 is the same year as 2006, which was the same as 2005 and so on. Bush's only New Year's resolution was to be more resolute. I wish I could use the new year as an occasion to inject a bit of optimism into my view of the Iraq Debacle, but there is no cause for hope.

I was speaking with a war supporter the other day, and it was clear that she clung to the idea that the media is painting a bleaker picture of Iraq than is the reality on the ground. I do not particularly understand this way of thinking. I do not deny that schools being painted, flowers being planted, and other such things are indeed good things, important for Iraq. But part of the problem is that the current Iraqi civil war prevents them from mattering.

How do you report on the news: 40 bodies found tied and bound, executed in a Baghdad back alley. New math books arrive at grammar school in Basra. Insurgents in Iraqi Army uniforms attack and slaughter scores of new Iraqi police officers. 4 American Marines die in Al-Anbar Province.

It doesn't work. Iraqi society itself seems to be nearly totally nonexistent, in that it is really Shiite society, Sunni society, and Kurdish society. In the midst of these divisions, Bush believes he can pour a billion dollars (yes, a billion) to "create jobs" something which, of course, he is not good at doing. What jobs will they be? Painting schools, of course (I'm not kidding). And to add further irony to all of this? There were thousands of jobs back in 2003, jobs that Iraqis who were then somewhat open to the concept of making a new nation hand in hand with the United States, might have happily accepted. Not only would this have kept them from joining the insurgency, but it also would have probably done more to hold that society together too. But what happened with those jobs? Dick Cheney's friends at Halliburton were given hundreds of millions of dollars to bring thousands of men from other impoverished countries to work them.

So, we continue on in 2007. The media would love to be able to report something more positive - at this point, people everywhere are clamoring for good news. But there is little hope that any such good news will be there to report. And in this way 2007 will be 2008, will be 2009. I hope I'm wrong.

Labels: politics

  ¶ 8:23 PM