So here we are, looking at partition as virtually inevitable. Well, we’ll divide up the land at least. Where are the people? Millions of them have already dispersed to avoid the chaos invited by our ill-considered invasion. According to Newsweek:

An estimated 2.3 million Iraqis have fled the country since the 2003 invasion. They represent the largest displacement of people in the region since the Palestinian diaspora nearly a half century ago. About 50,000 people escape Baghdad each month. A staggering 1.7 million are displaced within Iraq, while almost 2 million more have sought refuge in Syria and Jordan, 130,000 in Egypt and 50,000 in Iran.

The exodus has not only scattered my family, it’s hollowed out Iraq’s most skilled classes—doctors, engineers, managers and bureaucrats. Baghdad was once home to one of the most educated populaces in the Middle East.

The bottom line is reflected in Newsweek’s title to its article: “As its middle classes flee, Iraq is losing skills, open minds and perhaps the hope of renewal.”

As for Gen. Zinni, he was the Marine General who had been in charge of CENTCOM before Tommy Franks and had devised invasion plans for Iraq which not only would have used more troops but, had more extensive planning for post-war administration of Iraq than pre-war invasion, a victory which was believed to be a forgone conclusion.

Galbraith also goes into how some of the neocon planners of the war, like Paul Wolfowitz, not only didn’t plan for the aftermath but forbade others from doing so. Gen. Tommy Franks, for example, was barred from contacting his predecessor Gen. Anthony Zinni, presumably because Zinni actually had a plan to keep the peace that involved more troops than Rumsfeld wanted to send.

As regards the Bush Administration’s stunning lack of foresight and planning (pick a topic — Iraq, 9/11, Katrina, Baghdad, the list goes on), I am reminded of a story I read about someone who was riding a bus on a narrow mountain road in India. The bus driver was going around blind corners at speeds much faster than would enable him to stop if a vehicle were coming the other way. The reason for his imprudence: whether or not an oncoming vehicle exists around blind corners is God’s will; therefore, he need not slow down. Bush loonies appear to operate the same way: don’t read books, don’t ask experts, don’t plan anything, don’t strategize anything, don’t employ any common sense at all, and don’t for any reason ask any non-believers for advice (even if they are far more competent and knowledgeable than you are) — just pray about it and do whatever you believe God tells you to do, no matter how idiotic it might be. As long as you are guided by prayer, any disasters that result in the short term are merely part of God’s plan.

See…God must have wanted the Iraqi museum looted, the library burned and those explosives stolen.