Oh damn them damn them and damn them again

When (perhaps ‘if’ but I’m not hopeful) Iraq dissolves and brings eastern Syria and Kurdistan with it and the region falls into a few more decades of war, I will remember Paul Wolfowitz assuring the Senate before our 2003 invasion that ‘there is no history of sectarian violence in Iraq’. Really, he said that. In a neighborhood where sectarian war has been the norm for  a thousand years. He said that.

Damn them all.

Perhaps he’s hitting a few golf balls?

I sure hope George Bush is having a nice life.

Today is the 145th day of the 11th year of the War in Afghanistan.

And are we still at ‘war’ in Iraq? We invaded that country nine years ago this month, so something like 4,000 days?

$1.3 Trillion American dollars (mostly borrowed, can’t raise taxes ya’ know; this ain’t the 1940’s fer Elvis’ sake!). Watch the dollar clock here.

US military dead in Iraq – 4486.

US military dead in Afghanistan – 1914.

Stuff: trees, blogging, Condoleezza Rice

That Christmas tree? The one in a pail of water out in the carport? That one? Intact, looks lovely, has perky, sweet smelling pine needles. And it would be perfect if . . . . now I’ve bought trees for that spot for 17 years and I know the right size. I can pick out the right tree four rows in under the tent – from the street. That’s how well I know the right size to buy and lug home.

I bought the wrong size.  Yesterday’s curse was strong.

The holidays have started to intrude on my prefered pace of life, which is slow. Very, very slow. There’s likely to be light blogging till I put my foot down or have a burst of energy.

Meanwhile, you’ve heard this:

ONE of the great tropes of Republican criticism of Barack Obama is that the president goes around the world apologizing for America’s past misdeeds. “Have we ever had a president,” Mitt Romney asked in a foreign policy speech this summer, “who was so eager to address the world with an apology on his lips and doubt in his heart?”

But did you know this?

 In a major speech in Cairo in 2005, Condoleezza Rice, then Mr. Bush’s secretary of state, said that “for 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East — and we achieved neither.” What was she doing if not apologizing on behalf of the United States — and vowing to put an end to a pattern of misguided policy?

Maybe it’s a black thing.

Ten years in: we know who broke this but can anyone fix it?

When I began this blog, I made a habit of  regularly posting the count of years and days we’d been in Afghanistan. At first, I posted every day. Soon it was every week, then every two . . .  the last time was August 31.

But today I must, because today is the first day of the tenth year of the War in Afghanistan.

• US dead: 1800
• US wounded: 18,000
• Direct war fighting dollars spent by US: $461 billion

And?

• The Taliban are back.
• Afghanistan remains splintered.
• President Karzai is openly corrupt, and
• he is derisively called the “Mayor of Kabul” and people are tyring to kill him

This war should have been over in a year or two.  It would have been had someone not had a yen for Iraq. Now we have no idea what we’re doing there and we can’t identify a way out. And when we do get out? Tragically, Afghanistan will revert back to what it’s been for a thousand years, confirming yet again that it is “the graveyard of Empires”.

Has a president ever left a bigger mess behind than George Bush did?