No more excuses

Petraeus says we have at least another year in Iraq and the U.S. Institute of Peace says we need five more. I don’t know about you but I find the prospect of either almost too depressing to contemplate. Congress gave the Administration everything they asked to run this war. A rolling five-year disaster has been the result and yet, the gang that could not shoot straight continues to demand more bullets. And Congress continues to provide them - ugh.

It remains a mystery to me how anyone could give a cogent, intellectually honest argument for staying in Iraq when the prosecution of the war, up to this very moment, has been so wildly fucked up. To lift an expression I once heard, the Bush Administration is so incompetent, they could not spell cat if you spotted them the “c” and the “a”. This is not the A-Team, never has been, and never will be. I wish we had players at the table that could save Iraq from itself but we don’t. So for what it is worth (damn little I know), I say no more wishful thinking, no more second (umpteenth?) chances, no more "we just need six more months”, and no more Plan B’s, it is time to get the hell out yesterday.