lessee . . .

We don’t get gasoline from the mideast; we get OIL. So, since we live in an economy addicted to oil, what happens when oil prices go up? Recession, inflation, unemployment, switch to dirtier fuels like coal, resulting in more pollution.

If we get in a military catastrophe “halfway around the world” you or your wife or kids get drafted sent into some stupid war to be maimed or killed. Your taxes get used to pay for it.

If it results in increased terrorism or bolder terrorists, the government responds by more draconian security measures at home.

I can think of all kinds of ways that stupid foreign policy tricks can have domestic side effects.

Black ops-how many? What does it do to ournationhood when we relie on Bl;ack Opps and “contractors”the fight “our”wars. Did the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group address adequately our national ignorance of the middle east?

Why do you say “alas”?

Most of us here are saying that the Baker plan has no more chance of success than the ones that came before it, that Bush is an idiot, and there is no likely route to success in “Iraq”. And that seems to be exactly what your quotes were saying, so apparently we don’t NEED to hear from Iraqi citizens to come to these conclusions!

BTW, on a semantic/philosophical note I question your use of the term “Iraqi citizen”. That would imply that there is an actual, organized political entity called “Iraq”. But it has long been my contention that “Iraq” is just a geographical expression like “the Alps” or “central Asia”. Iraq is just another place like many in the world where conquering or colonial powers drew some lines on a map for their own administrative, diplomatic, or military convenience without regard for whether the people inside those lines had any intrinsic possibility of nationhood.

We need to disabuse ourselves of the idea that Iraq has what it takes to become a nation, or at least examine that assumption. All the discussions I’ve heard on the dangers and risks of partition fail to even discuss or question the other side to that coin, which is the basic assumption that Iraq can ever be a real nation or that the Iraqis will ever think of themselves as Iraqi’s first, and Kurds or Sunnis, etc, second. It’s a lot like Yugoslavia or the USSR where the “nation” merely existed because some strongman and his army held it together with force and tyranny.

ROS needs to do a program on the concept of nationhood – what are the prerequisites for actually being a nation and how do you know when you have them?

Riverbend: “It’s not about the man- presidents come and go, governments come and go. It’s the frustration of feeling like the whole country and every single Iraqi inside and outside of Iraq is at the mercy of American politics. It is the rage of feeling like a mere chess piece to be moved back and forth at will. It is the aggravation of having a government so blind and uncaring about their peoples needs that they don’t even feel like it’s necessary to go through the motions or put up an act. And it’s the deaths. The thousands of dead and dying, with Bush sitting there smirking and lying about progress and winning in a country where every single Iraqi outside of the Green Zone is losing.”

In The Middle: “We all know there’s a need to change course in Iraq, but the new course will not be any better if it is based on more unilateral decisions. The U.S. should learn from Israel’s failed unilateral approaches to its conflicts with the Lebanese and the Palestinians. The only way out of Iraq will not be through more military and political unilateral solutions; it will be through giving Iraqis the time and space they need to rule their own country by themselves, and to take their own decisions when it comes to keeping their country’s unity and sovereignty.”

Iraq The Model: “Now, our real problem in Iraq is that we do not have leaderships with patriotic agendas and like we said many times in previous postings; these leaderships that work according to partisan and regional-foreign agendas are the main cause of trouble because they are in power and they would not easily abandon the agendas of their masters and regional supporters and they will remain an obstacle in the face of building the state.

The bitter fact is; it was us who brought them to power and gave them legitimacy through elections. But…regret is useless now.

I believe that America would like to see Iraq emerge as a model for the region and is working hard to find a way to solve the current crisis. But that cannot be done without having a cooperative Iraqi partner on the ground who shares similar views for Iraq and the Middle East. And that’s the point; that partner does not exist, at least not in the government.”

As you can read, these individuals understand that reports like the Baker Hamilton will have little to no affect in solving this issue regardless of what Act of the play we are in. Iraqi’s also understand that the withdraw of al-Sadyr’s Shiia party from the government signals a drastic change in Maliki’s power in the region. AlArab AlYawm, one of Jordan’s three major daily newspapers had a piece written by Mr. Jihad Al-Rantisi that sheds some light on side deals being made on behalf of the Maliki government.

“Mr. Saleh Al-Mutlaq, the head of the national dialogue front, told “Al-arab Al-Yaum” that the national salvation front that will be announced soon will include the national dialogue front, the national Iraqi list led by allawi, the reconciliation and liberation front led by meshaan aljuburi, and the Sadr movement.

The Iraqi Muslim Scholars association will have representatives in the front as well, according to mr. almutlaq.”

None of us should be surprised the Maliki is courting the religious leaders of the region, himself being a respected member of the Dawa party. We removed a secular government in favor for a more Islamic based leadership. Now the religious leaders will make their own form of governance and the US will face more criticism internationally for helping form this National Salvation Front. I am sure no one will bring up the Syrians, Romanians or Korea as prime examples of this type of government, but I bet the rest of the Arab region will remember. So let the talking heads of this administration babble on, they know and we should know, that they are no longer in control of anything in the region.

It’s ironic that we (okay not me, not you but certainly the mass media) look to these characters, Baker and O’Connor, the ones who helped push GWB into office in 2000, with “bated breath” for answers. Those were the two voices most prominent in the TV news clips ( along with Hamilton’s).

The ROS discussion left me depressed… and I think I heard Chris say “oy” at the end.

Don’t foist this disaster off on a few flunkies! The US public supported this invasion by a wide margin. And Bush and his party were re-elected by big numbers in 2004.

Basically the Americans asked for this; they practically begged for it, and now they’re getting it, good and hard. But instead of lying back and thinking of England, I suggest they lie back and think of Vietnam, because the last American servicemen will probably leave Iraq from the roof of the US embassy via helicopter.

I think that there is no “may well turn out to be” about it. It definitely IS that wave. If they had only paid attention to what Osama Bin Laden was saying about the motive behind 9/11, they would have realised that a reaction like Iraq was precisely what al Qaeda was hoping for.

It’s really unbelievable. Brer George W. Fox threw Brer Osama Bin Rabbit right into the briar patch. I would ask, how could an American President be so stupid? How could he play so easily into our enemy’s hands?

But I won’t ask. We knew he was this stupid even before he was selected. We knew it before Afghanistan fizzled and he lied us into Iraq. We knew it by the time we were given the atrocious choice of Kerry to replace him. We’ve known it all along, and why did we put up with him?

Because he WAS stupid. Because he is not an egghead like Gore or a genius like Clinton. Because he’s the guy “to have a beer with.” Because he’s a spoiled kid AND NOTHING MORE. Because, in short, Americans hate having people smarter than they are in the white house.

We ask for it, and we get it.

I think it is because of Baker’s and O’Connor’s involvement in creating 43 that they ought to have been left out of the process entirely.

Back in 2004, I was talking about the upcoming election with my coworkers. One of them said she was voting for Bush because he’d made a mess and now he needed to clean it up.

Well, that would have been a great, logical conclusion … if there were any evidence that the Republicans are either interested in or competent at cleaning up the messes they make. W never had to fix his own messes in his whole life. He sure hasn’t done so since being re-elected.

Only those in govt who are convinced that the messes really are messes should be allowed to clean them up.

It’s gonna be a long two years.