Civil War in Iraq

So how is the conflict in Iraq not a civil war? More and more in the news now, you read the dread phrase: Iraq is slipping into a civil war. It used to be, if we pull out Iraq will slip into a civil war. Well we stayed there and Iraq is slipping into a civil war anyway. But the phrasing is strange, because Iraq slipped into a civil war a long time ago. And let's stop using the word slip here. We administered a sudden shock to Iraq in the spring of 2003. We removed its government, disbanded its army and its civil service, and failed in our efforts to rebuild these institutions. The civil war began the day the first oil pipeline was bombed and the first arms depot was looted. Iraq suddenly descended into civil war two and a half years ago, and we haven't wanted to recognize it.

So what shall we do about that? The answer is the same as it has been from the beginning. Replace our leadership with leadership that recognizes the truth. You can't expect competence from leaders who use dishonesty to advance their goals. It doesn't matter here whether the self-deception we see in our president and his advisors is at all purposeful or not. It doesn't matter whether or not our leaders know they are being dishonest. They just are. A comparison between what they say and the evidence on the ground shows it. Leaders who practice dishonesty, and who display the incompetence that liars always display, have to be replaced.

"Well, how do we do that?", you're going to ask. We just reelected our leaders, and the inauguration was only eight months ago. We aren't going to impeach our president, and we can't ignore his power. We can do something to make him irrelevant, though. We can reduce his influence. We can find other leaders who are honest, who are willing to make plans and say things that that they know will bring vituperation down on them. So far we have not found those leaders in the Democratic party. We have not found them in the military, and the military is in a complicated position when it comes to politics. It took Cindy Sheehan, a citizen with no standing at all in the eyes of our leaders in Washington, to give voice to the anguish and anger that so many Americans feel now. But her voice isn't going to change our policies unless people with power act now.

The only institution with power to counteract the president is our Congress. Congress has been unbelievably craven about this war so far. A few of our representatives - Senator Byrd comes to mind - have expressed strong protest against this war, but for the most part the institution has been mushy, quiet, compliant, and hopeless in its ability offer any leadership that opposes the unbelievably bad policies coming out of the executive branch. They've been so quiet that voters just seem to expect more of the same: they don't even look to their representatives anymore to give voice to their anger. What an institution. What a failure.

So that leaves the bloggers, the demonstrators, and the voters who elect new representatives in 2006. No one seems to expect that the Democrats can take either house a year from now, when we have our midterm elections. I have just one letter from Edward Kennedy to indicate that the Democrats even want to win a majority in the Senate in 2006. Party politics has become so bad that I think the Democrats want to remain out of power until 2008, so they can blame the Republicans for every bad outcome and have a better shot at winning the White House. Another winning strategy from a party that seems to have no direction to begin with!

Well I have to be careful not to renew my bitterness here. Time to sign off for now!