Our Puppet is Not Well

Since right-wingers are focusing on repeating over and over that the security situation within Iraq is improving, I’m quite sure that Democrats will continue to repeat over and over that a political solution is necessary to achieve any positive result. The President hasn’t taken a word of it to heart, hasn’t seemed to have learned anything along the way, and so we’re in a spot where there’s no viable strategy we can employ besides somehow evoking Muhammad himself, along with all his nephews, brothers, cousins, whoever he may have had relations with that some of these Flinstone cocksuckers may have idolized and killed their neighbors in the name of, to come back to earth and tell everyone to calm down, put down the guns, give the oil leases to the nice white men who went through all this trouble on your behalf, and don’t let me catch you carrying on like this ever again.

Indeed, they should be ashamed of themselves, and not playing partisan politics like Moktad a al-Sadr, who yesterday made news by pulling his 6 cabinet members out of the government, leaving 30 parliament members remaining, but certainly letting Maliki and the rest of this puppet regime know he was serious about lighting a match, burning the whole fucking place down if he had to, if they didn’t succumb to his will and the will of the majority of Iraqis who are still there in demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops. Echoing a similar sentiment here in the United States, al-Sadr has apparently been reading up on some of Augustus Caesar’s greatest schemes, perhaps fine-tuning his rhetoric and actions to coincide with some sort of buildup over the next month or two, in concert with the gullible, permissive nature of the occupiers who carry big guns and kick in many doors, yet allow his people to demonstrate freely and organize against their efforts, even go so far as to declare Iraq as one country with one enemy, whose continued presence makes all Iraqis brothers in arms, if only for a short time.

Al-Sadr’s words do not yet carry the weight of a future tyrant who is feared quite yet, but from where my fat ass is sitting, it could simply be my prejudice and inability to trust any of these players when they seem sincere, if not for the length of their beards, then their seemingly unquenchable appetite for mass murder, the killing of their own, so uninhibited and sportsmanlike in the mutilation and disposal of corpses in public, like trophies almost, the dead are handled in a way that most would assume to be for the benefit of an audience that will feel terrified and bend to the will of whoever made the deposit, though I suspect that the effect of all this, has by now become more of an overkill in that regard, and has instead crossed over into the realm of game hunting, the fulfillment of macabre fantasy, and for certain, a widespread level of acceptance in terms of knowing that there is no return to what they were before, and even if there was, who could live with such a monster and still claim to be a messenger of anything holy, let alone human?

It’s not as if the phenomenon of a cease fire could actually take place on anyone’s say-so this deep into the bloodbath, and as far as I can tell, al-Sadr is probably the closest thing there will ever be, next to Mohammad himself, of someone with the clout to command something and cause the maniacs to at least take some time away from making their latest victim howl in agony, long enough to get a few thoughts out of his head and into those of the most anti-social, yet insanely religious Iraqis around.

My educated guess about whether or not he could pull something off is worthless, but as of right now I’m skeptical that the withdrawal of his people from parliament would pay dividends immediately, as the game then would be on the streets exclusively, with his militias already proving difficult to control, being relied on to slaughter off enough ministry heads, gaining control of their flow of government cash, to continue the pac-man strategy, until either from fear or other circumstances, the voting majorities in parliament and within Maliki’s own collection of brain cells inside his skull-cap, finally vote to eject the occupying force…all of which I’m skeptical about at this point, and soon to be indifferent towards once again (new semester getting serious). That said, the ball is in al-Sadr’s court, whether anyone likes it or not.

Neither Maliki nor Bush have any say over the outcome of this mess, but both can and will indeed manage to make matters worse in the meantime. The entire thing is too far over their heads at this point, and as much as we Americans like to pretend it no longer matters, that firepower and money can make up for a lack of leadership skills in our executive branch, the law firm of Bush, Rove & Cheney simply do not possess the specific skills that a seat at this particular table requires. Supposedly a ‘war czar’ and the lone efforts and brilliance of one General Patraeus are enough for us to come out on top, but whoever actually believes such things at this point shouldn’t even be reading something like this to begin with…in fact, if you’ve still got hope in your heart that for once these stooges haven’t simply lied to your face about the strategy in Iraq, never visit this site again, and stay tuned to those cable news channels, flip around and get a taste of each dish on a daily basis, so you can always remember where you were when the war was won…

OK, now that the children have left the area, let’s get down to some serious words that I find politically brilliant and depressing as hell at the same time:

Moktada al-Sadr: “Oh Iraqi people, you are aware, as 48 months have passed, that we live in a state of oppression, unjust repression and occupation. Forty-eight hard months — that make four years — in which we have gotten nothing but more killing, destruction and degradation…The occupier supported Saddam and helped him to become stronger, then removed him because his cards were burned,” he said, using an Arabic expression to note that Saddam Hussein was no longer useful to the United States. “The fall of Saddam means nothing to us as long as the alternative is the American occupation.”

The saddest part of all this is that we made this al-Sadr what he is today, by having our head up our ass for the first year after the invasion, and then simply playing the cards we were dealt once the votes were tallied, having gone into this war with not much more than the word of Ahmed Chalibi and his friends, the political landscape wasn’t one that our intelligence could have helped “tidy up” in a way that would have sewn up our share of the spoils by now…hence the emergence of someone who did know a thing or two about the game being played, and once legitimized within the government, with his own puppet in Maliki as prime minister, it was simply a mission of consolidating power, stoking hatred of Americans and playing our own hapless leaders’ soft spot for “good news” to his advantage.

So it went like this for a while, and desperation led us to an act that we’ll likely regret for many years to come, that being the speedy trial of Saddam Hussein on a mere slice of the legitimate charges he should have been brought up on. Eager to have something, anything to grab onto and call a sign of progress, President Bush pulled the lever and Hussein’s premature conviction and execution not only managed to rob millions of the justice we were supposedly there to provide, but it served as the most effective piece of self-promotion one could ever have hoped for…literally a once in a lifetime opportunity for publicity, one that will be signified by nothing more powerful than Saddam asking “Moktada?” following the prayer that turned into a campaign slogan, less than a minute before the trap door opened and the tyrant was no more. (Sources: Yahoo, NYTimes, NYTimes)