No Way Out

John's post below about the wall in Bahgdad being an admission of failure is true. Joe Biden said months ago we need to divide the country into three with a loose federal goverment. Ali Allawi says the same thing in his new book, Iraq, Winning the War and Losing the Peace.

We can't continue the way we are going. Nor can we just leave. Perhaps dividing the country and creating the largest Marshall Plan ever will help to solve our problem in Iraq. Because the bottom line is that 70% of the children of Iraq are showing signs of imense stress. They walk by dead bodies every day. They don't know if they will come home alive from the market or if their parents will. They don't have access to mental health because most of the psychiatrists (along with the rest of the upper/middle class) have left the country. What are we creating? More suicide bombers.

Does anyone remember the ad that George McGovern ran in 1984? It was a little girl looking in the camera. She was from Nicaraqua. The ad said something like, "She hates you. Because last night you killed her father and last month you killed her brother." That's what we are doing in Iraq. You can't win hearts and minds when you a slaughtering civilians. As Bill Maher said last night on Real Time, "Thirty-two dead in Iraq is a good day."