Bad News from Baghdad: Salam Pax in the Guardian, and Xymphora

As Salam Pax says at the end of his piece, in Iraq you eventually "have to step out of the car and get smacked by Madam Reality"...the population hates the occupation, and the occupation can never end. I don't see a solution to this, and I wonder if anyone on the ship of fools we call a government is even thinking about one (that doesn't involve divine intervention, that is).

from The Guardian:

"...Baghdad had no electricity for a whole day. Call me the master of all whiners but do you have any idea what it feels like to sleep in 50C? I guess with the current heat wave you have a taste. Today's office stories: Muhammad, one of the drivers, decided the best place for his family to sleep was in the car with the engine running and the air-conditioning on. Shihab was up every couple of hours getting water for his kids because he was afraid they would totally dehydrate. Everyone who got into the office today had bags under their eyes and a bad headache. Haifa, the nice lady who makes sure we have coffee in the morning, was ranting about having to watch "this Paul something" give us lies on TV everyday. She actually described Paul Bremer as another Saddam; we see him every day on TV, and the news is all about what he says and what he does. Next we'll have statues of him in the streets. Somehow you feel like he lives in a bubble and has absolutely no idea what the people are saying..."

and from xymphora:

"...There is a lot of talk in the United States about bringing the soldiers home. Not only is there absolutely no chance of that happening, it will probably never happen. Outrageous as it may seem, the genius neocons have sent the United States through a trap door that it can never get out of. They set this attack in motion without the slightest thought of an exit strategy. As Christopher Dickey writes:

'We're here forever. The simple fact about the New Iraq is that never in our lifetimes will it be able to defend itself from its neighbors. It will always be dependent on the United States to do that job. And because it floats on oil, and because all its neighbors - and all of us - have a vital stake in its future, it's going to take a lot of defending.'...

I saw the guy who is working on an Iraqi newspaper on CNN and he was saying that at first the people were happy, but now we have lost our friend and allies over there. Wolf Blitzer really didn't know what to say, because the evidence of things not going too well were right behind the guy speaking-- he was in the main square of Baghdad in TOTAL darkness-- no lights for as far as the eye could see.

nt

someone posted it another thread last night.

It's an eye-opener.....

http://www.anitaroddick.com/weblog/weblogdetail.jsp?title=null&id=580

SNIP:

As we enter the city itself, it is total chaos. Nothing could have prepared us for this. No traffic lights working anywhere. Traffic going both ways on all one-way streets. Horse carts, motorcycles, SUVs, tanks, Humvees, and pedestrians. Hundreds and hundreds of men lined up in the sun, using newspaper hats and umbrellas, to apply for jobs in the new Iraqi army, whatever that means.

There is a sloution: Impeach Bush & Cheney. Fire the Neocons. Go crawling to the UN for a mandate, peace keepers and a plan to get the US out of the Middle East.

or would be a good start anyway.

is the only way. Our soldiers should not be expected to bear all the weight. But let's send repugs in.

Because we're not willing to let go of the treat inside.

So we'll just have to keep going whumpety-whumpety-whumpety down the road with that damn jar on our hand.

Poor us.

They want the occupation to last. It's the best way of ensuring control. It isn't that they're stupid, it's that they are immoral and dishonest that bothers me.