News of today

David Brooks is a freaking idiot. Read this, and then go read the last few days of posts at Juan Cole's site. If you have half a brain you have to know that this is not a regular war anymore. We 'won' in Iraq. No doubt. Good job us. Brooks criticizing Kerry's Iraq policy because it is not a path to "victory" is fucking ridiculous because there is no "victory" here. There is painful unattractive compromise and then there is utter disaster. That's what happens when you take a country with one power structure that controls violence in one way and blow that wide open so that everyone thinks they have the leeway to use violence to achieve their ends. It may be 'better' in the long run, and in this case, I am still in the camp that thinks it most likely will.

But for the love of god let's not pretend that somehow if we fight hard enough everything will be peachy. A 'decisive victory' for the U.S. in this situation can ONLY be bought with countless civilian deaths. That's what happens when you turn cities into open warfare zones. And considering the nature of the Middle East we are dealing with right now, countless civilian deaths does not, in fact mean epiphanies of love for the U.S. Sacrificing your grandmother to gunship attack doesn't make most people appreciate the price of freedom, after all.

God help us we don't achieve a 'decisive victory' in Iraq. I would gladly settle for one of those middling uncertain 'let's check back in 5 years' victories, thank you very much.

UPDATE: Ok. You MUST read Cole's latest post here.