Can I kick it? No, you can't.

Haditha

I'm not certain which is less surprising, that Marines overreact under great stress and massacre civilians, or that the United States government covered it up for over six months.

I'm not even mad at the Marines. If I was stuck over there, or in any war zone, I'm sure I would shoot at everything that moved. It can't be any good being freaked out 24 hours a day, and these guys are never truly safe while in theater. I know that the Marines and soldiers there are overwhelmingly doing a phenomenal job, but more reports are leaking out all the time, now in regard to the killing of 11 Iraqis at a town called Ishaqi.

The rhyme was unintentional, and not nearly as ironic as the name My Lai.

Speaking factually, the men and women of our military are stuck in an intolerable situation. They are not in a position to win, they have no timeframe on when the conflict and occupation may end, and they are being picked off in ones, twos, and fives. It has become a war of attrition, and as in Vietnam, we do not have the stomach for it.

No matter what we do, short of keeping a permanent occupying force in Iraq (numbering 600,000 or more), the results will be thus:

We will withdraw, the Iraqi parliament will remain fixed on petty squabbles, and the ayatollahs in Iran will take over the Shiite portions of Iraq. The Kurds will remain independent only as long as they are able to resist the Iranian military.

I suppose the only questions left to ask are, how much more than the $500 billion we've already spent will we still shell out, and how many more mangled and killed American military personnel will we sacrifice for this quagmire?

Friday, June 02, 2006