I’m having a bit of trouble understanding all of the newly released reports coming out about Iraq. Luckily for everyone, when Australia Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile recently asked President Bush for an update on Iraq, the President told him “We’re kicking ass.”
OK. Fair enough. That sums it up for me. It’s terrific news and it’s about time.
Because we’re kicking ass over there, let’s schedule a parade through Baghdad. Let’s have the Bush family lead the parade. That includes George W., Laura and the twins. Let’s make it a big parade. We can have a prominent float on which Mr. Bush’s friends and co-workers can ride: Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. What the heck. Bring everyone: Gonzales, Ashcroft, Scooter (I know that he’s free). Let’ have everyone who ever worked closely with the President spread some red white and blue cheer. This will give our highest ranking Republican officials a chance to mingle with the people we saved, the Iraqis. Can you imagine Dick Cheney walking through the middle of Baghdad shaking hands with the people of Iraq and spreading the good news that we’re kicking the asses of those terrorists?
Let’s plan for our parade to stretch two or three miles through the center of Bagdad, so there’s room for everyone in Congress who authorized the invasion of Iraq. Since we’re kicking ass, there’s no need for helicopters hovering overhead and there’s no need for anyone to wear flak jackets (like John McCain did during his visit). Nor is there any need to bring in heavy security. It’s time to give the military the day off in Iraq. Call it something like “Iraqi Freedom Celebration Day.” Since we’re kicking ass, let’s announce to the people of Iraq (by dropping thousands of leaflets by helicopter at least a few weeks ahead of time) that this parade is a chance for the people of Iraq to come on out to meet the President of the United States, shake his hand and tell him what’s on your mind. Maybe the President could dress up in his cowboy boots. Or maybe he could ride his bicycle. Let’s use this opportunity to show the citizens of Iraq that we’ll never hesitate to bring a bit of America to Iraq.
Let’s not forget that there are tens of thousands of Iraqi children whose parents have died during the Iraq liberation process. Let’s construct a few thousand large parade floats on which they can ride, places of special prominence.
Let’s make the Parade Day an even bigger deal. Let’s invite hundreds of American high school students to travel over to Baghdad with our President to join the parade, then to begin an student exchange program, say for a semester or two. Our students can live with real Iraqi families outside of the Green Zone, since we’re kicking ass. They can attend the finest Iraq high schools and colleges that still exist. They can help tell the Iraqi students about American democracy. They can tell the Iraqi students that in America, our political system works extra efficiently because money is speech.
In fact, since we’re kicking ass, isn’t it about time to open a few McDonald’s and Starbucks in downtown Baghdad? And how about putting a FOX News corporate office in the middle of town, right on an Iraqi Main Street, so that FOX reporters and editors can have easy access to the real people of Iraq: those outside the Green Zone.
Now that we’re kicking ass, let’s really start the reconstruction of Iraq. I’m sure that many of the people who favored the U.S. invasion are retired folks. Perhaps they would be willing to come to Baghdad to help fix up at least some of bombed out schools and mosques. Let’s also invite thousands of American fundamentalists to make the trip too, so that they can open up one of their mega-churches in the heart of Baghdad. They can tell the Iraqis to worship Jesus instead of Muhammad or Allah. Now that we’re well on our way to saving the Iraqis from terrorists, we can get busy saving them from going to hell.
I’m getting excited even writing about this big parade. Finally, this is our opportunity to step up to allow our President tell the people of Iraq, face-to-face, what he’s done for Iraq.
A report this week on PBS interviewed an Iraqi woman who escaped the bloodshed in Baghdad and has since founded a non-profit called Women for Women International. She stated that women's rights were in some ways better under Saddam than they are today. She stated that during the chaos of the U.S. occupation, many professional and intellectual women have been assassinated, sending a clear message to the women who remain: stay home.
I also noticed this week that some of the Republican presidential candidates continue to assert that we must stay in Iraq because "the people we are fighting in Baghdad are the same ones responsible for 9/11," causing me to wonder if the Iraq fiasco has made the Republican leadership more dishonest, more stupid, or both.
Ambassador Crocker: "Baghdad Has Never Looked So Good."
This is from an interview at Huffpo:
Attributing to the surge what has been achieved through genocide is one of the big lies of Bush's occupation. If America waits long enough, a large percentage of the "evil doers" in Iraq will have slaughtered each other. Kill a bunch more with U.S. troops and, eventually, enough people (both "evil doers" and innocent targets) will be dead (or displaced) that violence will inevitably decrease. Survivors will move out of the neighborhoods they perceive as dangerous, and into regions they perceive as safer — a mass migration that divides Sunnis, Shias and Kurds into more distinct geographical regions. Of course, the process will displace or kill a whole lot of innocent bystanders, but Republican neocons couldn't care less about that. They just want to prolong the chaos long enough for the inevitable decrease of violence to occur, at which time they will declare "victory" for their "strategy" and slap each other on the back for "staying the course."
Erich's quote provides a perfect example of this. If a Shia neighborhood slaughters or exiles all of its Sunni residents, violence in that neighborhood will first go way up and then will naturally come back down. Is the inevitable drop in violence something to celebrate or claim credit for? In the big picture, no, of course not. But Bush and company have already begun doing it.
Grumpy,
Just for the sake of argument, let's assume Saddam had been taken out by one of his lieutenants–or just died of old age. Do you think the situation vis a vis Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds would be any different? It was Saddam's oppression, begun way back when the Ba'ath Party came to power, that kept a lid on the mutual animosities among these groups. Do you think if we pulled out, en masse, tomorrow, the violence would stop or escalate?
Just wondering how much of this you attribute exclusively to our presence.
What if the U.S. suffered the equivalent of the Bush invasion of Iraq. That is the subject of a clever graphic here. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/dubo…
Well now, Iraq has a new KFC open, in Fallujah. But, actually, it's all a lie. Thanks FOX. http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08…
I still haven't heard of any big American parades in downtown Baghdad, but Nathan Deuel recently visited Baghdad and described what he saw: http://img.slate.com/id/2274797
From World Socialist Website:
Tens of thousands protested in cities throughout Iraq yesterday against the economic oppression and corrupt officials imposed by the US occupation regime, as well as the US occupation itself.
Complaining of joblessness, worsening electricity outages, food shortages, and rising food prices, they denounced or demanded the resignation of several national and local officials. Even though Iraq has the world’s second-largest oil reserves, social conditions are atrocious. The official unemployment rate is over 15 percent (in reality much higher), large parts of Iraq have only a few hours of electricity a day, and the country is still occupied by 47,000 US troops—with Iraq’s oil fields now largely in the hands of Western energy firms. Iraqi security forces fired on protestors in several of the at least 17 cities where protests took place. Fifteen demonstrators were confirmed killed and at least 130 were wounded.
http://wsws.org/articles/2011/feb2011/iraq-f26.sh…