United States politics. It is a theme that I try to avoid writing about too much, but it just seeps in every so often, then becomes a flood, then seeps away again for a while. I am not a fan of the current White House occupant or administration, and not a fan of the Iraq quagmire - emphatically so in both regards. But, because I can't do much to change things in Washington, or Iraq, I try to keep my frustration to myself. Sometimes it is best to vent though.
Iraq is just a nightmare, for both the locals and the US and allied forces. Car and suicide bombings hitting Baghdad every day, with two or three mass casualty incidents a week it seems. Imagine if in Sydney, a similar sized city, you had various factions killing 100 people a day. And the war has turned into so much background noise for 90% of the population.
Let alone the US casualties there, past three thousand fatalities and rising fast. As if twenty thousand new troops can do much more than the 150,000 that are there already - although if they are going to live native with the Iraqi army as the plan is indicated, they will be just so many more targets for either side, Shia or Sunni to take potshots at.
Can anyone apart from Bush see a free, stable Iraq, capable of defending itself anytime soon? Well, apart from Cheney as well. They have downgraded the expectations of the democratic part of things, and the transformative nature of having Iraq in the middle of the Arab world.
And, even as Afghanistan moves toward the spring campaigning season with NATO fighting hard to even keep things quiet over winter, the US is looking to bully Iran, by moving a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, and bellicose rhetoric.
Here's a thought, Bush will reintroduce the draft a day before he hands power over in 2009. Because where they hope to get the troops from for a volunteer army in these sorts of war conditions, I don't know. If the US ever gets out of Iraq, the Army and Marines will take a long time to recover. And especially the Army Reserve.
Eh, vent vent vent - I was going to mention a couple of the domestic policies, and the fact that Congress is as unhappy about where things are going as the general US public, and that Bush is the most unpopular Prez since RM Nixon. But I have vented enough already.
Something more close to home tomorrow - perhaps the local flag and citizenship debate?
Paul
Iraq is just a nightmare, for both the locals and the US and allied forces. Car and suicide bombings hitting Baghdad every day, with two or three mass casualty incidents a week it seems. Imagine if in Sydney, a similar sized city, you had various factions killing 100 people a day. And the war has turned into so much background noise for 90% of the population.
Let alone the US casualties there, past three thousand fatalities and rising fast. As if twenty thousand new troops can do much more than the 150,000 that are there already - although if they are going to live native with the Iraqi army as the plan is indicated, they will be just so many more targets for either side, Shia or Sunni to take potshots at.
Can anyone apart from Bush see a free, stable Iraq, capable of defending itself anytime soon? Well, apart from Cheney as well. They have downgraded the expectations of the democratic part of things, and the transformative nature of having Iraq in the middle of the Arab world.
And, even as Afghanistan moves toward the spring campaigning season with NATO fighting hard to even keep things quiet over winter, the US is looking to bully Iran, by moving a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, and bellicose rhetoric.
Here's a thought, Bush will reintroduce the draft a day before he hands power over in 2009. Because where they hope to get the troops from for a volunteer army in these sorts of war conditions, I don't know. If the US ever gets out of Iraq, the Army and Marines will take a long time to recover. And especially the Army Reserve.
Eh, vent vent vent - I was going to mention a couple of the domestic policies, and the fact that Congress is as unhappy about where things are going as the general US public, and that Bush is the most unpopular Prez since RM Nixon. But I have vented enough already.
Something more close to home tomorrow - perhaps the local flag and citizenship debate?
Paul
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