Iraq, Mr. President, is a failed state. It failed when we toppled Saddam.

IT ALL STARTED WITH GERTRUDE BELL AND HER DAMN MAP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gertrude_Bell : The lady who, from the remnants of the crumbled Ottoman Empire, drew the national boundaries of Iraq. She split the Shi'ite tribes into Iranian and Iraqi with a line on a map and a flag design.
Churchill refused to call Iran and Iraq nations, he called them, "tribes with flags."

I knew there was a way I could blame this war on a woman! I don't know why not; George is blaming the war on the Iraqis. You know Hitler blamed the German people for falling short of his vision of the Third Reich.





I get so sick, sick, sick, of hearing, "we cannot afford to let Iraq become a failed state." Woes of the Failed State" has become the new song sung by the same tired old Republican singers: Bush, Cheney, McCain, and Graham.
O.K., then, "what is a successful state?"
Is it one in which Disney Baghdad opens for business in 2014, or 2022, or 2055? A secure country where American Airlines runs two hundred tourist flights a day in and out of Baghdad International? (at the cost of how many American lives, and how many trillions of dollars? Yes, I said trillions-- good bye health care, good bye Social Security, good bye, your children's future -- Hello, inflation. Hello, nine dollar a gallon gas and the eleven dollar hamburger. DON'T THINK IT CAN'T HAPPEN).
You ask, "how do we accomplish that? I mean, peace in the Middle East?"
Think about it; I MEAN REALLY THINK ABOUT IT. (quit thinking about that Genii in a lamp -- we won't find one ).
Let's consider the obstacles: First, Iraq had a population of twenty plus million, over two million Iraqi citizens have fled the country, that's over ten percent of the population. These were the wealthy Iraqis. They had the means to flee, so they did, taking their education and money with them. Yes, the educated class of Iraq is now gone, just the thugs and the poor left. Secondly, it is estimated by a Johns Hopkins survey group, the number of war dead is approaching one million. God only knows how many orphans, how many injured, how many injured orphans, and how many of those left blame somebody for their losses. I know if my brother, mother, or father were killed, maimed, or disfigured, I would want some payback, an eye and a tooth for starters.
Are these, perhaps, the "dead enders" our vice president talked about once, before he realized there was no dead end on our freeway to hell. No, it will be war without end for us if we stay, but do realize, we will not stay.
Keep in mind, the Iraqi natives do not have to win against us, they only have to wait till we go home, then they will claim to have won--without winning a single battle (and who said this was not like Vietnam)).
Forcing America out is only one of the goals of those who live there. The insurgents, foreign fighters, Sunni, Shi'ite will all have difficult goals after we're gone. Goals in the Middle East have always been reached by overcoming difficult obstacles, and each obstacle has been hurdled by killing people. Life is cheap in the Middle East, cheaper than oil.
So, to get back on point, how many maimed and mad? As a guess (and this is only a reasoned guess), two million. That is a grand total for maimed, mad, dead, and gone -- five million.
Another five million are hiding, afraid to come out. They are the young, the old, the doctor, the shopkeeper, the artist, the peaceful. They will come out only a few minutes a day to collect what is necessary to live -- food, water, maybe some gas for lamps or generators. They will then go home and pray no one kicks down their door, and also pray for peace.
The remaining ten million Iraqis live in areas of Iraq which are the quiet, successful provinces. Some of them are rebuilding. The Kurds in the north of Iraq are a success story. They are happy Saddam is gone.
Most all are happy Saddam is gone, especially the Shi'ite. If you remember, Saddam kept the Shi'ite down on the farm, groveling for a bit of the oil revenue, buying and selling rugs, cowering in fear of Saddam's army, his warrior class of thugs, his Republican Guard.
The Shi'ite are now armed, black-eyed crazy, and fanatically unafraid. They are also willing to commit genocide against the Sunni to control Iraq's oil riches. For the Sunni, it is the fight of their lives, and the unspoken truth is we are on their side. We realize an emboldened and radicalized Shi'ite Iraqi population will join with their Iranian brothers, who are also Shi'ite. Then the Iranian and Iraqi Shi'ite will join forces with their Syrian and Lebanese brothers, who are the Hezbollah Shi'ite. This Shi'ite superpower will turn against the Iraqi, Kuwaiti, and Saudi Arabian Sunni. Once this war has been waged and many, many have died, Iran will have been weakened, Iraq destroyed, Tehran and Riyadh will be in flames, the Kurds in Turkey and Kurdistan will be emboldened to move against the oilfields in the south of Iraq. The Saudis will welcome their help (the Saudis have enough oil). The Iranians will ask the Russians to intervene, and they will, then........I don't want to think about then.
Why did we do this? I mean, really? Will someone please lock that dumb motherfucker of a president of ours up. Please. Good Gravy!