2018?

Well, folks... buckle up.  As you may have seen in the NYT online today (the only way DDD reads it anymore), the Iraq that George W. Bush and his neocon cronies broke may become part of more than a misadventure, it is a generation now!

According to the Iraqi Defense Minister in a statement about the preparedness of Iraqi security:

... said Monday that his nation would not be able to take full responsibility for its internal security until 2012, nor be able on its own to defend Iraq’s borders from external threat until at least 2018.

2018.  Yes, a misadventure might last a few months maybe a year. Of course, even a misadventure has some basis in reality.  Some interest in advancing a credible foreign policy.  We never had anything even remotely close.

This misdirected so-called "war" which was really an effort to finish some bizarre neo-con vision of the Middle East has become more than an embarrassment (premature declaration of "victory"), more than a costly mistake (price of oil), or damn-them-all-to-Hell destruction of lives (death, destruction, etc), environmental damage (spilled oil, destruction of cities, etc), and destabilization of the Middle East (power vacuum that Iran can step into) and truly giving support and recruitment to actual terrorists (tactics that drive young people into the waiting arms of Al Queda) ... may not end for more than a decade!!!

President Bush has never given a date for a military withdrawal from Iraq but has repeatedly said that American forces would stand down as Iraqi forces stand up. Given Mr. Qadir’s assessment of Iraq’s military capabilities on Monday, such a withdrawal appeared to be quite distant, and further away than any American officials have previously stated in public.

And no one is being held accountable for this farce (we passed tragedy a few years ago, if not the very beginning)!  Somehow impeachment feels just inadequate, doesn't it?