Time to place a call to Yap?

About this war – the one in Iraq, you know – it’s worse than I thought it was going to be. I pictured running gun battles in the streets, with the Iraqis having a frustrating home field advantage. But I also thought it would have a beginning, a horrible process, and an end. I figured at some point, before too long, we’d beat them. Superior troops, weapons and tactics. I didn’t think it would linger on like this, so much like Vietnam.

I saw on CNN a day or two ago that the 200 mark had been hit. 200 American dead since the aircraft carrier speech. And I don’t think we’re much closer to neutralizing the insurgency than on that day – a day that will live in stupidity. Pulling Saddam from his lair won't do it, friends. They still hate us, and they're still willing to do violence.

This war has been an exercise in monumental arrogance. The aftermath of “major operations” has been an orgy of hypocrisy. We can start with the fact that Halliburton – and for that matter the U.S. Government – is just as guilty of dealing with Old Shaggy Bunkerbutt than the countries that have been precluded from rebuilding contracts for fraternizing with the dictator. If every country and company that ever dealt with Hussein were locked out of rebuilding deals, Iraq would get rebuilt by the Masai and the Federated States of Micronesia.

I guess it boils down to the obvious. Leadership is needed to end the insanity. And nobody currently in office is up to the job. … Dis-appoint Bush in ’04!