Sobering Reality of Iraq

Juan Cole wraps up the shocking news from Iraq each day here.


Our troops are in a situation where they have very little control over their own fate. I'm obviously no military man, but my guess is that that is not a situation in which our military wants to ever be placed. The debate over the appropriations bill is dishonest in this sense: the administration and the war cheerleaders can say that setting a timetable simply gives the insurgents a reason to wait us out and plan their mayhem for after we leave, but the truth is that everybody knows we're going to leave at some point. Hillary says that it won't be in 2008, and that may be true. But we've been exposed, our troops are stretched, and without a draft, we're running out of soldiers. The idea that a timetable somehow emboldens the forces of evil is a red herring.

We'll leave, and blood will flow in the streets. That's unavoidable now. Colin Powell said it best when he warned Bush: "You break it, you own it". And then he unfathomably pushed ahead with his testimony before the U.N. What a tragic figure he is.