The Good And The Bad

by Steve Soto

AP photo

Although I don't expect the media to notice because of the feeding frenzy over Eliot Spitzer's stupidity and impending resignation, and as Turkana noted last night, there are mixed messages coming from Iraq about the benefits of Bush's escalation. On the one hand, as evidenced by the picture above, the al-Maliki government is finally getting schools rebuilt with our help and putting needed services and security into the neighborhoods.

On the other hand, even with thousands of additional troops in Baghdad and the surrounding provinces, there are signs that bombings are on the upswing again. We lost eight soldiers just yesterday in two different attacks, one in a supposedly safe part of the capital. We face the prospect of a gradual increase in American deaths for the remainder of 2008, with an administration that will do nothing to change course for the remainder of their term and a GOP nominee who would possibly escalate further.

To the GOP, these are reasons why we cannot possibly leave Iraq soon, if ever. But why is our military and our treasury shouldering this burden exclusively, aside from the obvious "Pottery Barn" rule and the reality that we don't want other players involved in our Oil "Field of Dreams"?

It's not like the Iraqis themselves don't have the money to start spending on their own reconstruction; they supposedly have billions going unspent. And as long as the al-Maliki government isn't being required to spend its own money by the Bush Administration (because that money wouldn't go to Bush/Cheney disaster capitalist campaign contributors), why should the Iraqis spend their own money?