All this has called into question the Bush administration’s larger agenda: inspiring gratitude and admiration in the hearts of Iraqis and other Arabs, creating a model for a troubled region. Even many Iraqis who are grateful for liberation say they hate being a U.S. protectorate.

Bush can deny it all he wants, but we've started a war on Islam. That's certainly the way most of the locals see it. The fact that there's some corruption in the CPA, and that it's poorly run, is a pretty small aggravation compared to that.

Now that the resistance has affirmed that they're in this for the long haul, I doubt there's any way to redeem this effort.

"...has Bush and PNAC brought upon themselves a situation that even the greatest military in the world cannot overcome...?"

Matt is absolutely correct. It was the height of total insanity to ever think we could go to war, dismember children, kill civilians and smash a lot of structure and then turn right around with a straight face and say we did it to build a democracy.

What utter bullshit. The regression of cognitive ability in the current American leadership is appalling. Americans [using the term extremely loosely] who were willing to cheer a stolen election were gullible enough to believe it, but I can assure you no one--I mean no one--else in the world was fooled for an instant.

That's why it's going so badly. It was not possible or even really believed in by the freaks who ordered (rebuilding Iraq). If they really wanted to succeed they wouldn't be failing so badly.

This is not tiddly-winks or ethanol policy. That idiot Bush has lit a fuse in the middle east--the same cretin that got us into this incredible mess is now somehow supposed to have the leadership skill to get us out of it? Gawd. Things are going just swell--that's what Bush said yesterday.

Bush should be roasting over an open pit this very second for such a disaster, yet he's not. There shouldn't even be a question if he should pay a political price--the question should be whether we hang him or use a firing squad after conviction.

*sigh* Whether the drunk little war felon pays a price is irrelevant. We keep soldiering on, no matter how foul, deadly, and distressing it is.

the same cretin that got us into this incredible mess is now somehow supposed to have the leadership skill to get us out of it?

Absolutely right. The curtain has been pulled back but the wizard still keeps working his bells and whistles. I have some hope that the electorate is waking up, but this Administration is the most secretive and Orwellian that we've ever had. So getting the word out is much more difficult.

I mean, Cher called C-Span to talk about the amputees she'd visited in Army hospitals. Those same wounded who are invisible in the American media. We have to see through a cloud of propaganda - but something is starting out here in America.

war criminals, the lot of them.

where oh where has the VICE president gone? Maybe there is a Haliburton Hell.