Horror show

In a few previous posts, I asked "What to do?" about Iraq. That question now seems beside the point.

We no longer have any choice regarding which movie to watch; the show has already started and we've all been strapped into our chairs. Some of you may have already started to feel like real sick deep in your guttiwuts, just like little Alex in A Clockwork Orange.

The Iraq conflict has lasted longer than World War II. It will not last much longer.

The followers of Muqtada al-Sadr have taken over Baghdad's television stations. When the media falls to rebels, the end begins.

"I got four phone calls from friends telling me to change the channel to Iraqiya and see what's happening," said Mohamed Othman, 27, a Sunni resident of Ameriya, one of the districts mentioned in the program. "I think this is an official declaration of civil war against Sunnis. They're going to push us to join al-Qaida to protect ourselves."

America is being pushed out. Dick Cheney is meeting with the Saudis on the question of whether they should take our place, at least in the Sunni areas. Too late, too late. Besides, we know that a strong pro-Osama faction exists within the Saudi government.

Many American citizens still believe that we went into Iraq to fight Al Qaeda, even though Al Qaeda was not there. This decision was a bit like bombing the North Pole because you don't like Budapest. Once we have fled Iraq, the jihadis will run large sections of the country. Guys who make Osama seem comparitively reasonable will control the oil fields.

A source inside the country wrote the following to Juan Cole:

Another friend, a Sunni sheikh of the Shammar tribe noted to me that thousands of former officers are prepared to assault the G[reen] Z[one]. It is no longer a matter of can they do it, they are only mulling over the timing.

[Emphasis added.] I have contempt for those who complain that the current disaster stems from the administration's lack of post-war planning. As Greg Palast and many others have made clear, the neocons did have a plan: Loot the country, take control of the oil, and enforce ideological measures (such as an end to socialized medicine) which the Iraqis did not want. Historians will one day view Bush's occupation government in Baghdad as the most absurd enterprise ever undertaken in the history of political puppetry.

Now an army of fanatics -- or rather, two competing armies of fanatics -- will chase out an army led by thieves. We have no choice but to sit back, make popcorn, watch the slaughter, and try to comprehend that our tax dollars paid for this insanity. Like little Alex, we will end up screaming "It's a sin!" That word, if it retains any meaning in these reeling times, must apply here. What has happened is a sin. What is about to happen will be an even greater sin.

And if you listen closely, you may hear the alla marcia section of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony tooting ironically in the background...