The coming madness

Iraqi ID's for sale

The idea that three years into the war that US employees cower in the Green Zone and US troops have been kidnapped should be frightening. Instead, the Republicans are living in denial.

The Americans foolishly bragged about killing Zarqawi, showing his dead body on TV, and now they act shocked that a well executed plan to capture Americans took place. God knows how that will end, but my bet is not anyway you'd want to see.

People are being shielded from the violence of Iraq. It is a deadly place, combination colonial war and Mad Max. When people talk about the government, the idea is a joke. It isn't a government, it lives in an American fortress and cannot show it's face.

Bush's refusal to deal realistically with Iraq should be a danger sign for the Congress and his advisors. Whatever Iraq is to us, it is a personal test of character to him. Which is a trap which will be exploited. The guerrillas have the ability and means to jerk us around at their whim.

What is even scarier is that the militias are now coming to dominate civil life. We have a low-level ethnic war going on and it could go critical at any moments. According to Juan Cole, a Kurdish newspaper basically called on their representatives to leave the government and come home, saying Iraq is lost.

Which means a war with the Kurds, because an independent Kurdistan is a no go for Sadr, even as Hakim plays with an independent south. Control of Basra is up in the air between the Sadrists and the SCIRI.

When people say that men in police uniforms killed someone, I just assume it's the police. It's clear from the DOS memo that militias have infiltrated Green Zone security.

It's obvious that the US venture in Iraq will end as all colonial wars do, ugly and without warning. Someone will play their hand and the US will be caught.

But what is amazing is that there is absolutely no will in Congress to face the ugly reality of Iraq. They want to pretend that the Kerensky government can stop the Islamicist revolution. It can no more able to do that than stop New Orleans from flooding. It is weak and totally dependent on US protection. To Iraqis, it doesn't exist.

What was most poignant was the Iraqi DOS employees asking how will they be evacuated. People commented that we don't do helicopters, but the reality is that they will be killed by their neighbors as collaborators. Even now, low level employees face death threats. If we leave Iraq and do not take those who worked with the US and NGO's with us, they will be shot like dogs in the street.

Also, there is a refusal to understand something else. Maliki said he was closing down Baghdad, then car bombings rock the city. He has no power. If Sadr, who grows nuttier by the day, said that, it would have happened. Because he has power. The US has invested in people they like, not people who can get things done. As a result, they cannot get things done and Iraq descends into madness.