With all the furor erupting over the six retired generals now calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald "Roach Excrement" Rumsfeld (the nickname has to do with the list of inanimate objects you'd least like to run a war), one thing has become abundantly clear: Even as the Battle for Iraq rages on, the Battle Over Who Lost Iraq has had its official inception.
Earlier this year I wrote a column called "War in Iraq going just swell," and it detailed just a few of the colossal blunders of the Bush administration and the reasons we would continue to fail in this ill-conceived foreign policy nightmare.
I hate being right. As good as it feels to have the truth on your side, it definitely doesn't feel good knowing people in Iraq whose lives are being risked for what will ultimately be a lost cause, and it doesn't feel good watching corrupt politicians and ill-informed yokels spouting off at the mouth about how we're trying to bring freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people while the Iraqis walk down the streets with the delightful opportunity of being burned alive by U.S. rounds of white phosphorous - if they escape insurgent car bombs and manage to avoid Shiite death squads.
Back when I wrote that column, I really had no idea that it would devolve this quickly. The words "civil war" were being thrown around, but I freely admit that I, along with FOX News, thought this was the talk of nervous nellies. Perhaps the insurgents would string together some violence and vicious civil unrest for the next decade, but a civil war?
Now even big-name Republican senators like Chuck Hagel are freely admitting that Iraq is on the verge of collapse, while every option to the United States is thoroughly unappealing. We won't leave, simply because whoever cut that deal would have to answer for Iraq turning into a pot-bellied pig with a large firecracker shoved up its ass overnight (it's a sight to behold). We won't triple the number of soldiers over there (which is what a lot of folks think is what it will take to quell the violence) because that would mean watching every veteran who didn't lose a limb shipped back with the possibility of a limited draft to bolster the ranks looming not far behind (especially with Iran acting like the drunk guy at the party about to start throwing blind punches).
So what are we going to do? Well, I hate to be the guy who gives away the ending, so consider this a Spoiler Alert!
We are going to continue just as we are, with just enough soldiers to keep the country from burning to the ground in a week but not enough to stop the Sunni insurgents and certainly not enough to control the Shiites, who are less interested in politics than they are in forming militias and death squads that leave bodies washing up on the banks of the Euphrates River with drill holes in their faces and chests.
Eventually, when it becomes clear that this situation is unviable, a president will pull the troops out, and for the next forty years I'll have to listen to conservatives whine that we could've won in Iraq if that scared little bitch, President (insert your favorite Democrat here) hadn't cut and run.
You think I'm joking? Cut this column out, put it in your scrapbook, and in 15 years if this is not more or less the situation you can call me up and I will perform whatever sexual favor you ask of me no matter how sickening or depraved. The only thing I don't do is firecrackers.
