To Hell In A Handbasket Hawks

Iraq continues to go to hell in a handbasket.

Has anyone realised that it's just as bad if the Shiites rigged up the alleged massacre at that mosque in north Baghdad or if the U.S. troops actually comitted an atrocity? Either the U.S. is trying to start a civil war or the Shia powerbrokers have entirely given up supporting the occupation - which was the only thing making the occupation tenable in the first place. It may even be both. Either way, the bloodshed is going to get lots worse and the current 30,000 or so displaced by sectarian ethnic cleansing is going to turn into a diaspora that will export Iraqs' troubles to the entire region and beyond.

Meanwhile, Bush is telling Iraqi politicians to "shut her down and get governing" and at the same time the Shiite pick for Prime Minister is telling Bush to stop interfering. (I know Bush is dumb as a rock but could someone explain that even a warped neocon definition of democracy means that after you rigged the rules for as US friendly a regime as possible if the Iraqis decide by a single vote to have Jaafari as PM then he, Bush, should shut up and live with it?)

Bush's tantrum is kind of late and comes out of a lack of forethought as usual. We lefties told the neocons that the Constitution was an excuse for Shia blowback and that they would never keep their word about amending it after the elections. We said a year ago that the militias were a bigger potential danger than the insurgency and that the Shiite majority would happily climb into bed with Sadr if given a chance. But a year ago they were all out killing "al Qaida" for 'Murika so were we listened to? Were we heck.

Now at long last some of the Right who have so glibly written Iraq's troubles down are beginning to realise that all is not well. Those who would once have written well-crafted prose to convince us that all would get better soon (as a new nation experienced birth pangs) are beginning to look shakier. Still, they are unwilling to admit that the pain Iraq is experiencing is a direct result of their own administering of neocon poison to that country - they would rather cast around for others to blame.

Then there are the "To Hell With Them Hawks" - those who want to withdraw from Iraq but argue that somehow it is all the Iraqis' fault. The Iraqis' fault that they were invaded on a neocon-created pretext. The Iraqis' fault they were occupied by an incompetent and corrupt neocon-inspired authority that gerrymandered the neocon-written rules and eventual constitution in favor of the Shia without ensuring there were balances against Shia backlash. The Iraqis' fault that the neocon-minded in charge of the occupying forces donned rose-colored specs when warned of the future power of militias. The Iraqis' fault that those same neocons ignored warnings that the Shia were not going to renegotiate the Constitution after elections took place no matter what they said before those elections.

Somehow, most amazingly of all, it is the Iraqis' fault that the neocons created all this without ever resolving their biggest, unspoken contradiction. On the one hand the neocons brayed loudly about creating new democracies by force of arms and how the previously oppressed would love their new freedoms and their liberators - and on the other about how Islam is not a "religion of peace" (go on, name me ONE religion that hasn't instigated wars) and the West was involved in a "war of civilizations" with Islam. If they believe one of those then the other is impossible - yet they continued to profess to believe both. Like children who believe in Santa and also ask their parents to buy them Christmas presents.

Really they are all the same, these neocon hawks. We should call them all what they are - "Spoiled brat hawks". Or possibly "Dursley Hawks" after the hugely built but immature and spoiled bully from the Harry Potter books. Having broken one toy with which they decided to play out their masturbatory fantasies of regime change and "wars between civilizations", they are now casting around for other, newer and shinier toys to break by wielding the might of the US military they managed to get their hands on. They only actually disagree on whether they have completely broken the old toy yet.

They are all "To Hell In A Handbasket" Hawks.