Mission Accomplished?

Dubya' s recent attempts to link the Iraq Quagmire to the humiliation in Vietnam is interesting in the attempt to show parallels between two failed military and political campaigns. Leaving aside that both wars were sold under false pretences and lies, these are the last gasps of a bankrupt and desperate leader.

The war in Vietnam was a civil war that was turned into an American war; the war in Iraq is an American war that has become a civil war. To that extent Iraq is the true quagmire that Vietnam did not have to be. A precipitate withdrawal would unleash Iraq's civil war into ever larger killing fields of vital significance not only to the United States, but to the rest of the region and beyond.

Wow and I can vividly remember all those technical guys who were going to come in and fix Iraq within a few months after the glorious liberation march. Get the power plants running, fix the water, build some schools....

As the author concludes

The future holds no "date certain" for withdrawal, although, and without a doubt, the earlier the better. But the past offers even less of a date certain for redemption, and going back to Vietnam as an alibi for explaining a delayed withdrawal from Iraq only serves to obfuscate further a war that the administration failed to explain when it was launched, and now fails to understand after it has failed.

So basically they are completely stuffed in every department. More money will be poured into a bottomless pit of death, despair and disaster. Surely this is what people envisage hell to be.

Perhaps Bush will have to do some political rearranging to move things along a little. I mean why would you take a holiday when you have guests fixing things up for you.

Viral Art from the very talented Beau Bo D'Or