It's inevitable

How fucked up and putrid the stories of "progress" we have heard for three plus years sound now?

I honestly took part in a conversation with a couple of folks the other day, one of whom is a ditto-head who after several examples of the disaster, started telling me that "the reality" of Iraq is it really couldn't be going any better than it is -- it is just that the "press" doesn't want to admit it.

I suggested he consider wearing a crash helmet at all times.

For most of the past six months, Iraq drifted without a government and its security forces largely stood by and watched at crucial moments, like the one in February when Shiite militias killed Sunnis after the bombing of a sacred shrine.

Now, as Iraqi leaders in the Green Zone savor their recent successes — the naming of the first full-term government since the fall of Saddam Hussein and the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Iraq's most wanted guerrilla leader — Iraqis outside its walls are more frightened than ever. Neighborhood after neighborhood in western Baghdad has fallen to insurgents, with some areas bordering on anarchy. Bodies lie on the streets for hours. Trash is no longer collected. Children are home-schooled.

The paralysis that shut down life in western Baghdad is creeping ever closer to the heart of the city, and Iraqis in still-livable areas are frantic for the government to halt its advance, something the new leadership pledged to do when it started its new security plan for Baghdad last week.

"It's like a cancer, spreading from area to area," said a guard at Delta Communications, a Mansour cellphone shop that has been shuttered since a bomb blast in front of it last month.

We cannot afford to be there much longer, the Iraqis cannot afford to have us any longer.

Naturally we're staying.

The war with Iraq began, on our initiative and choice, in Mid-March 2003. Three years and three months have gone by.

From the day Hitler declared war on the United States to the Nazi Surrender took three years and six months....and we were certainly never doubtful of victory by this stage.

I know that righties can come back and say "but we weren't fighting an insurgency"...which is ironic because many of the same dickwads were talking about the "Werewolves" in Germany post WWII in May and June of 2003 as an excuse at that time.