Why the Iraq Surge is Supposedly Going So Well: Everyone's in the Dark!

The New York Times reports Thursday that Iraq's electrical power grid is controlled by fiefs of differing militias who don't share, and that Baghdad doesn't have juice for more than a few hours a day.

Since the cost of the war to U.S. taxpayers stands at $450 billion and counting -- that's billion with a "b" -- what in the world has that money been spent on since Saddam fell four and a half years ago?

Sure, the recent surge seems to have caused a short-term quelling of violence, like in Anbar province. But remember: the Sunni coalition (historically the minority in Baghdad) walked out of the so-called central government months ago, so whatever political entity it is that Maliki leads is essentially in name only. It's Shiite in Baghdad even more than before, with less Sunni and some Kurds, so conflict has naturally dissipated. Still, nothing is anywhere near resolved for the country, and next April we hit the five-year mark.

Meanwhile, we still can't guarantee a 60 watt light bulb that can last all day.

A couple of years ago conservatives went into convulsions if anybody dared broach comparisons to Vietnam, yet President Bush himself now invokes it in speeches to the VFW!

It turns out those comparisons are more and more spot on. The war in southeast Asia officially lasted eight years, cost $531 billion, and had nothing to show for it at the end of the day except 58,000 dead Americans, another 150,000 wounded, and a United States psychologically torn asunder.

Fast forward. This modern mess in the desert has become precisely what Dick Cheney predicted back in 1994, "an occupation....a quagmire."

Iraq may be in the dark, but we have no such excuse, and anyone who can't plainly see this is just blinded by the light.

Comments

[Rescisco]

"we still can't guarantee a 60 watt light bulb that can last all day."

...and we've had some pretty dim bulbs in the White House too. We've been in the dark from the begining of this war of choice.

[MissFortunate]

It's a humanitarian crisis of "quagmireic" proportions.

But GOD forbid we admit it and ask for help, not for us, but for the Iraqi people. When you put profit, pride and hubris above any human life, you are not fit to lead any country.

When you call leaving a sovereign country and offer to help them sort things out rather than encouraging a civil war to fight the mess WE created to "cut and run", we've not only failed the Iraqi people, but ourselves and we've basically displaced ourselves as the moral leader in the world.

Is it no coicidence that Putin is strengthening his army, that China owns part of us and that Iran is continuing it's nuclear weapons programs? Our word really doesn't mean shit to the world and we have this Administration to thank for that.