Recently in bushwhacked Category

There are 10 kinds of wrong in this article.

Saudi Arabia is building a fence on their border to keep illegals from crossing into their country from Iraq? A fence? The Saudi's see Iraq as a terrorist training ground?

After 9/11, I had a lot of questions. Who were these Al Qaeda people? Where did they come from? What was their motivation?

Our government's answer to these questions? They were "killerz" who "hated freedom." We circled the wagons and branded anyone with questions as an "enemy of freedom."

This morning I read a letter to the WSJ by Newt Gingrich. Even though I dont see any similarities between Presidents Bush and Lincoln, Gingrich raises some interesting points (and some confused arguments).

I agree that we arent winning the "war on terror" the President started 5 years ago. I also agree that the problem is not a matter of time and that "stay the course" is not going to get the job done. (It is interesting to see how Gingrich argues that stay the course is a failure but blames the "government bureaucracies" not the president for its failure.)

Rather then go through the whole article, I realized that it raises an issue that I started to write about just last week. Winning.

I've been on the fence about Iraq trying to make up my mind about our "war". Watching Meet the Press today, I have finally come to a conclusion. Today I, Vaitkadamas, will go out on a limb with a bold prediction:

The war is over. We lost.

The next months will turn into years and we will continue to fight (and die) over there, but the outcome has been determined. Sectarian violence will continue to worsen until it reaches full blown civil war and the county will eventually break up into three pieces. Sure we got Saddam, but in his place we destabilized the entire region, which will see increasing terrorism and decreasing stability as Iraq continues to be a lawless breeding ground for terrorists.

Nice job, George. You really showed your dad how easy it was to take Iraq!

The last week I've been thinking about unintended consequences of strategic errors. Can one ever come back from a failed strategy?

Of course, I am talking about the USA in Iraq and Israel in Lebanon.

When I first heard that some of the President's religious supporters unconditionally take the side of the Israeli government because they believe it is the next step to Armageddon and the return of Christ, I laughed. (There is a similar argument for why we dont need to worry about global warming since the people that matter wont be here much longer anyway.)

But as I have watched our elected leaders spread the bloodshed from Afghanistan, to Iraq, to the Palestinian territory, to Lebanon and now to begin threatening Iran and Syria, I have begun to think this idea is a less of a joke and more of self-fulfilling prophecy.