In point of fact the professional planners at the War College did foresee many of the traps that this "Wartime President" and his idiotic sycophants walked into without a clue. The plans existed and called for: more troops, active suppression of looting, maintaining the Iraqi Army as a force for keeping the peace and several other measures that were simply cast aside by this Administration. Now the whole of the one billion adherents to Islam in the world, know that in addition to being bloody handed arrogant militarists our leaders are fools. We have yet to discover how bad this defeat will be for our interests but it is far worse than Vietnam already. Not in the number of dead Americans, thank God for that reality. It is worse in every other way possible though. The propaganda engine that drives radical Islam will be fueled by this fit of stupid arrogance for years if not decades. The region in which it is taking place is now far less stable than it was before the neocons brought this little adventure into being by lying to us about nearly everything important. We are to blame for swallowing their lies.

The Iraqi's are not rejecting freedom with their resistance; they are creating the opportunity for their own brand of freedom. If it is Islamic and uses the rules that the Koran prescribes as the basis for laws then that will be their choice. No one wants to see the suppression of women and the abuses of human rights that the Taliban represented brought into being instituted in Iraq. We have made that outcome far more likely with our failure there than anyone could have imagined before this war began. The world is standing by now in "shock and awe" not of our military might, but of the folly that we are capable of when we are this badly led. If anyone in this nation still thought last month that our troops were in possession of an important level of Iraqi support then the last three weeks should have taught them something. We have lost their minds and hearts and they have their own balls under their control. For the uninitiated that is a reference to an old bit of wisdom, "grab them by the balls and their minds and hearts will follow". It should be a part of the Marine battle hymn and it often works, but only if you never let go of their balls. Every Marine recruit knows that simple fact. We never got a firm grip on the balls of Iraq and we let go far more quickly than even I would have believed possible.

War is not a nice exercise of golden rules in any case; the main rule in battle is "do death unto the other guy before he can kill you". This is not only the golden rule of combat but it is also an insight into how violence begets violence once war is begun. That rule slops over into any occupation and when resistance becomes possible it always flares up. In Iraq they have a cultural system that supports an escalation in violence once it has begun. We are not really a very violent nation. Oh I know that there are a lot of murders here, and violent spousal abuse and other things that people do for entertainment when their favorite TV show is cancelled. Vendetta's here are more than unusual they are forbidden and sometimes punished severely. An eye for an eye is not our rule of law and we are proud of that fact. It is nearly impossible for the people in this nation to understand that it is still the only law that matters in much of the Middle East. Family Feud here is an innocently stupid TV show; there it is still a deadly serious possibility. We have accomplished one amazing thing there, we have united Sunni's and Shiites against us, and they have been fighting for hundreds of years.

I am angry at the ignorance that our leaders exhibit when they periodically try this kind of venture with the power of our nation, which belongs to all of us. We buy that power with our long work weeks and our big tax bills even if this fatuous Administration believes otherwise. We pay for it with the lives of our beloved children and their flesh and blood and bones sacrificed to the power we wield in this world. It is not to be misused in this way! The arrogant believers in special privilege that have lied this nation into this trap are destroying its power in the world faster than the rest of us can build it. We do need to take back control from them even if it takes a revolution. Thankfully there is an election coming, that is our favorite form of revolution here. If after this vote there are any reasons to believe that the election was stolen I will lead everyone I can get to follow me into the streets of Washington in protest. I will never sit idly by and watch another fiasco like occurred in Florida last time. We need to take this nation back from the chicken hawks, and we will. God bless you all and keep you safe in our nation "conceived in freedom, with liberty and justice for all".