Look, I can get as sentimental as anyone. It's the week before Christmas, and believe me, I want to be writing warm, touching pieces straight out of the Hallmark Channel style guide. I'm all for roasting chestnuts, crutches carefully preserved by the fireplace and large, inanimate globs of snow fashioned into a simulacrum of a human being and brought to blashphemous life by a magic hat. I'm like Currier & Ives here. Really.
But then The Decider goes and tells The Washington Post that, in Iraq, "We're not winning. We're not losing."
Oh, okay. So we're in a permanent state of being. There is no goal, there is no purpose, there is only the moment. Or something like that.
And Our President is inching ever closer to authorizing more troops into Iraq. Where on earth they will come from is not explained, but this "surge," as the military calls it (apparently naming it after the failed "extreme" soft drink of the late nineties) would cost approximately 1.2 billion dollars for 10,000 extra troops. Where the money would come from isn't explained, either. Maybe a nation-wide bake sale?
It should be pointed out that the Democrats--who, after all, swept into congress on a wave of anti-war support--are so far offering no meaningful opposition to this insane plan, and in some cases actively support it.
How long does this have to go on? The number of Iraqis killed grows steadily day by day, inching ominously close to a million. Just under 3000 U.S. troops have been killed. All for what? When Republicans or Democrats speak of "victory" in Iraq, they mean only a way to give the U.S. a graceful way out. Nobody gives a damn for the Iraqi people now, if anyone ever did. Now it's all about covering asses. And if a few hundred more Iraqi civilians have to die, or a few thousand, just to make us feel better about ourselves, so be it. No one cares about those towelheaded camel jockeys anyway, right? Lousy savages--we bring them democracy, you'd think they'd at least be grateful.
Merry Christmas. Ho. Ho. Sigh...
