And we should believe them why?

To a person, they said there would be genocide, gas prices in the U.S. would rise to eight or nine dollars a gallon, al-Qaida would continue its expansion, and Iran would take over that portion of the world if we leave.

-Rep. John Porter (R-Nevada)

I don't know what will happen in Iraq when we leave, but I don't see any reason to believe any projections coming out of the current administration, which has been spectacularly wrong about just about everything. Or maybe the Iraqis just have a funny way of greeting us like liberators....

Postponing the Inevitable

Does anyone doubt that when General Petraeus reports to Congress next month, we'll hear that the surge is working and we should stay the course? You don't make it to general by telling truth to power; you tell power what power wants to hear. And there's no doubt that the Bush administration only wants to hear that progess is being made, that we shouldn't pull our troops out of Iraq, and that victory is achievable if we have the will and don't let liberals and Democrats stab us in the back.

Of course, if progress were really being made, then there wouldn't be all these rumors about replacing Maliki as prime minister, and ex-Baathist Allawi wouldn't be hiring one of the premier Republican lobbying firms in DC to position himself for the job. So, the word will be that progress is being made, but not fast enough, and if we can just replace this puppet with this other puppet, then all the factions in Iraq will suddenly come to their senses and lay down their weapons and compromise and build a strong government that looks a little like a democracy if you squint just right, but not so much so that anyone hostile to US interests would ever gain power. 

All those Republican congresspeople (and too many of their Democratic counterparts) will obligingly agree that we should give the Iraqis more time and not set any deadlines or withdraw any troops, but soon, those Iraqis should get their act together soon, or next time, for sure, we'll be tougher, though what that means will be distressingly vague.

Meanwhile, Iraqis will continue to die, our soldiers will continue to die, arms and money will continue to flow to whichever faction we happen to like today, nevermind that tomorrow, those arms are likely to be used against us. Someday, we will leave, just as we left Vietnam, and yes, people will die, not really because we left, but because we never should have gone there in the first place.

Obama doesn't Kabuki

Barack Obama has made several statements which have drawn criticism from both Democratic and Republican candidates, who claim that these statements show Obama's inexperience. The only inexperience shown is not in foreign policy, but in the weird kabuki world of political campaigns.

Obama has basically said three things: we should talk with our enemies, we shouldn't nuke Pakistan to get the Taliban, and relying on air power in a counterinsurgency is counterproductive. In any other world but the world of Presidential campaigns, those statements would not only be right, but would be blindingly obvious.

We've basically been holding our breath and not talking to Cuba for 40 years, and Castro's still there, so I can't see how refusing to talk with our enemies is helpful to anybody. Nuking Pakistan, besides being completely morally wrong, would be stupid; Pakistan has nukes as well, and even if they don't have the capability of delivering those nukes as far as the US, throwing a country with nukes into chaos seems like a really bad idea.

Air power has been oversold since at least World War II. It gets used because it's a way to deliver damage while risking less yourself. Problem is, it tends to be indiscriminate; the accuracy is never what's promised. Bombing doesn't just take out "strategic" targets; it produces a lot of "collateral" damage, as well. In other words, it kills lot of civilians, which tends to make people more willing to fight, not less. Just look at what happened here after 9/11: we invaded a country that hadn't even been involved even peripherally with that attack.

I generally prefer to look at what a candidate has done rather than what he says, but at least Obama is saying some things that make sense, that other candidates seem unwilling to say out of fear of looking weak.

Taxes

A bridge collapses in Minnesota, just one of many 40+ year old bridges in this country. We've spent the last 30 years not investing in infrastructure, and the bill is coming due.

So, what does President Bush think we should do? Why, cut taxes, of course! No, not taxes for you or me, corporate taxes, to make US corporations more competitive around the world. I'm sure his next step is to hand out no-bid contracts to Halliburton and his other cronies to "re-build" our infrastructure, since that's worked so well in Iraq and Lousiana.

Meanwhile, an increase in the gax tax to pay for any of that is a bad idea, of course. President Bush thinks that raising gas taxes is a bad idea because 8% of the monies raised tend to get spent for projects favored by members of the relevant committee in Congress. Horrors! Such venal graft!

I can only hope that the anti-tax mania of the last 30 years is passing, and that people are coming to realize, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, "taxes are the price we pay for civilization." President Bush and the Republicans may still be in thrall to Grover Norquist, but there's a simple solution to that: vote 'em out.