A Wonderful Time in Baghdad Tonight!

Our leaders have been telling us for five years that the situation in Iraq is getting better and better and victory is just around the corner...just give them a few more months.

None of that has been true, of course. So, because things were going so well, we sent in more troops - a surge, if you will - to improve an already great situation. That has gone so well that now Bush and company are talking about NOT bringing troops home because they are needed to make sure that Iraq remains a free democratic country.

If things get just a little better, we'll all have a wonderful time in Baghdad tonight!

Except...there are "heavy clashes between government forces and Shiite Muslim militants in Baghdad and the southern port city of Basra...

"Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki issued an ultimatum Wednesday demanding that the militias surrender their weapons within 72 hours...

"Radical clerick Muqtada al Sadr ... responded by demanding Maliki leave Basra."

Then there's the problem of mortars being fired into the supposedly safe "fortified Green Zone." Only three U.S. employees were seriously injured. One round hit very close to Maliki's office. Do you suppose the militants were sending him a personal message?

The Mahdi Army-dominated neighborhoods in Baghdad are sealed off - which is making a lot of people angry as they cannot get to work, or send their children to school, or find medical help.

In Basra, the situation is just as bad, or worse. The people are staying inside their houses, the hospitals are barely functioning. By some counts, 33 people have been killed and 150 wounded in the fighting. But no one knows; it could be much higher than that.

And in Kut in the south, fighting raged between Maliki's forces and the militants with U.S. planes bombing targets on roadways and the homes of suspected weapons smugglers.


John McCain, of course, is parroting the Bush administration's position that every day things are getting better and better and we are "succeeding."

Time magazine, less optimistic, suggests the U.S. military may need to rethink drawing down troop levels. Where the hell have they been? The military's been saying for some time that it is highly unlikely they will send troops home.

Is it all worth it? What about the 4,000 that died? Not to worry, says our vice prezident, Dick Cheney. They were volunteers. (He must have just plain forgot that many of those were sent back not just for a 2nd tour but for a 3rd tour against their wishes!)...

Seeing as how we have become well aware of the fact that both Bush and Cheney are superfluous -- actually a detriment -- to good government, and seeing as how they believe the "war" in Iraq to be so terribly important, and seeing as how both of them dodged their military service - let's put them into bullet-proof vests and send them to Baghdad for a 12-month tour. They can redeem themselves for their previous cowardice and get a chance to put their money where their mouth is and fight for freedom and democracy in this most important country of Iraq.

The only problem I see is that Cheney might shoot an oil well thinking it was a militant!