Bottoms-Up

I was hoping to come up with some fascinating commentary to make on Robert Kaplan's take on the "surge" report that's now up on the Atlantic website, but I don't really have an incredibly novel rejoinder to assertions like "It may be no accident that the progress we have seen is at the bottom, since that might be the only place where such progress can even begin to take hold."

To reiterate, though, I believe that the essentially problem in Iraq is disagreement about the basic nature of the Iraqi state. In particular, disagreement between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs about who should control Iraq, and disagreement between Kurds and Arabs about how much control Iraq should have over Kurdistan and how big Kurdistan should be. "Political reconciliation" is the name for the hypothetical process by which critical masses of all three groups might come together to reach an agreement about these key issues. Various figures, including Ryan Crocker, David Petraeus, David Brooks, and now Robert Kaplan are pushing the idea that the "Anbar Awakening" represents a form of "bottom-up reconciliation" that serves as an alternative to reconciliation understood as a agreement between major factional leaders.

The problem here is that the Awakening isn't just bottom-up rather than top-down, but actually on a different subject. Sunni Arabs agreeing to stop fighting American soldiers as a precursor to overthrowing the Shiite-led government and, instead, to accept money and possibly weapons from American soldiers as a precursor to overthrowing the Shiite-led government isn't a close substitute for Sunnis and Shiites reaching an agreement about the nature of the government. Nor is it a tentative first step toward such an agreement. Nor is it progress toward such an agreement.

Comments

If the Shia and Sunni were mooning each other, would that be a "bottoms up reconciliation"?

Posted by fostert | September 13, 2007 2:09 PM

The ONLY defense of the success of the surge that I find remotely coherent, let alone plausible, even on its own terms is here: http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2007/09/anbar-conundrum.html

Mind you, I don’t begin to buy it on many, many levels. Even aside from the non-interventionist arguments I would make, and putting on an interventionist hat for a moment, there are plenty of counterarguments, many of which are set forth in the comments.

Posted by LarryM | September 13, 2007 2:19 PM

"The problem here is that the Awakening isn't just bottom-up rather than top-down, but actually on a different subject." -- This nails it exactly.

A couple of days ago I e-mailed the following question/comment for John McCain, who was appearing on the Diane Rehm show. Unforuntately, they didn't get to it.

"The crucial point in the Administration's and Senator McCain's argument that the surge is working is that local political reconciliation is occurring in Anbar. But as the first caller pointed out, what we have seen in Anbar is a willingness of Sunni insurgents to cooperate with Americans in fighting AQI. This is a welcome event to be sure, but does not seem to provide any indication that the primary Shia-Sunni civil conflict is any nearer resolution. And frankly, joint celebration of a soccer victory and the 'reluctant' provision of limited funds by the central government to Anbar [which McCain earlier opinted to] are equally weak evidence of such reconciliation. I agree that there are potentially dire consequences of failure in Iraq, but there are also potentially dire consequences to staying indefinitely. Without actual evidence of political reconciliation, many of us conclude the latter are a greater risk than the former."

Posted by Greg | September 13, 2007 2:21 PM

The "Anbar Awakening" ssems to me the equivalent of a major city police force deciding to ally with the Crips to get rid of he Bloods. Since deciding to stop fighting one of our enemies is now defined as a major success, wouldn't leaving be a total victory?

Posted by Roger Tompkins | September 13, 2007 2:22 PM

Still no comment on this paragraph from Kaplan's piece, which goes against your steady stream of posts aimed at undermining the credibility of Petraeus and Crocker?:

"The idea that General Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are front men for the administration is ludicrous. Until he took the job as overall ground commander in Iraq, Petraeus was a favorite of liberal journalists: the Princeton man who enjoyed the company of the media and intellectuals, so much so that he was vaguely distrusted by other general officers who envied the good ink he received. As for Crocker, he is a hard-core Arabist, a professional species that I once wrote a book about: He is the least likely creature on earth to buy into neoconservative ideas about the Middle East. Neither of these men are identified with the decision to go to war. If I had to bet, I’d say that Crocker especially would have been against it, like his other Arabist colleagues. Thus, these men have no personal stake in proving the president right. They and their staffs are much more likely to provide a balanced analysis of the reality in Iraq than senators and congressmen looking over their shoulders at opinion polls and future elections. As Petraeus said, “I wrote this testimony myself,” meaning, the White House had nothing to do with it. Watching them brief Congress Monday, I came away convinced that they made a better impression on the public than anyone else in the room."

Posted by Fred | September 13, 2007 2:24 PM

I know MY is a big hoops fan.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3017538

The Trailblazers are fucked this year.

Posted by Joe Klein's conscience | September 13, 2007 2:34 PM

I agree totally Yglesias. This is actually what I've been saying. There are no fewer than 7 conflicts in Iraq, and the main ones, the ones that I guess we should consider to constitute "the war", would be: internecine Shi'a conflict (Dawa/SIIC vs Mahdi Army, basically), internecine Sunni conflict, Sunni-Shi'a conflict, and Sunni/Shi'a-Kurd conflict.

Those are all about political power in Iraq.

The other stuff (Turkey/Kurds, Sunni-AQI, Shi'a-AQI) are important, but have little do with the establishment of a stable Iraqi government. The "Anbar Awakening" or whatever addresses one of these issues, not any of the above.

We're no closer to a power-sharing agreement now than we were 2 years ago. They still can't come up with an oil revenue sharing deal, the Sunnis seem less willing to engage in the government process...the only progress that's been made has been the cease-fire with the Mahdi Army, which seems like an important first step towards some level of reconciliation between the Sadrists and Dawa/SIIC.

Posted by mopper | September 13, 2007 2:34 PM

the equivalent of a major city police force deciding to ally with the Crips to get rid of he Bloods.

Roger Tompkins almost has it right. Its actually disbanding the police force and hiring the Crips to patrol their own territory. To call this a strategy, let alone a success is absurd. Also, apparently the chief Crip got offed today. I can't wait to hear who did it. A Blood? An ex-cop? His girl friend's brother? A Hells Angel? WTF.

Posted by Peter Driscoll | September 13, 2007 2:35 PM

The bottoms up approach in Anbar could theoretically be the start of a reconciliation process. But it would require the unlikely assumption that what is getting in the way of reconciliation is that the Sunnis in Anbar are not sufficiently unified or armed to convince the Shiites that they need to reconcile.

There is not going to be reconciliation until the various parties come to think that the best they can get will be accomplished through reconciliation. And the reality is that we have no idea of how to tip the balance of power so that will happen, which is why even the administration is not trying to make such an argument.

It is conceivable that arming the Sunnis is the way to get to reconciliation. It is as likely or likelier that pulling out as quickly as possible is the way to do it.

What is right is that there is no obvious way to get to the current successes (which amount to less harm is currently being done in some places than we expected) to any long term advantage is going to be achieved.

Posted by Lon | September 13, 2007 2:48 PM

Dear Fred,

Regarding Petraeus' credibility, certainly you must have seen over the past few days the posts of his NYT Op ed before the 2004 election stating how well everything in Iraq is going. Clearly, the timing of Petraeus' piece, and tha fact that it turned out to be wrong, tend to refute Kaplan's statement.

Crocker may be a more indepdent individual, but it seemed apparent from his testimony that he did not believe at leaast some of what he was saying. He may not be a front man, but at the least he appears to be an apologist for the Bush administration.

Posted by John Mc | September 13, 2007 2:48 PM

‘Reconciliation’ is something that happens after wars end. It’s also something that can only happen in the presence of functioning political institutions. But Iraq is in the middle of a civil war, and the institutions of the Iraqi state are fractured and non-functional. To call what is happening in Anbar ‘bottom up reconciliation’ is nonsensical.

Even so, the strategy of trying to work with and arm moderate Sunni factions makes a certain amount of sense from a balance of power prospective. Because the lack of a stable balance of power is currently an even more fundamental problem than disagreements about the nature of the Iraqi state. Without that, it will be impossible to solve any of the political questions.

Posted by RC | September 13, 2007 2:59 PM

It is conceivable that arming the Sunnis is the way to get to reconciliation. It is as likely or likelier that pulling out as quickly as possible is the way to do it.

Huh? It may very well be the case that things are going to go to hell no matter what. But at this stage it’s very hard to see a scenario where a quick pullout will make things better. A quick pullout seems almost certain to lead to a huge escalation in violence, as all sides will move as aggressively as they can to fill the resulting power vacuum.

Posted by RC | September 13, 2007 3:09 PM

Kaplan says this of the consequences of a pullout: "even if Iraq were brought gradually to rights, and the clerical regime in Iran were to suffer severe setbacks, it would still be hard to justify the loss of tens of thousands of lives merely for the sake of strategic positioning."

What boggles my mind and keeps me yelling at my monitor is the fact that no one seems to give a crap for the hundreds of thousands of lives already lost NOT EVEN FOR STRATEGIC POSITIONING. Lives basically thrown into the toilet to make the world more chaotic, more extreme, more anti-american, with more jihadists worldwide. When discussing the consequences of the pullout no one -with very few exceptions- talks about the havoc already wrecked or seems to even want to include these deaths in an analysis of what's happened so far, let alone learn from them. Not the commentors here on this board, not the pundits across the blogosphere, not politicians or MSM talking heads and writers. No one. It's like the entire country has become so obsessed with point scoring and politics they've lost the ability to reason.

I have therefore concluded that anyone who is in favor of keeping American troops in Iraq for an indeterminate period of time and for the sake of preventing unnecessary Iraqi deaths and chaos, is actually lieing. They don't care about Iraqi deaths or society at all, they just want an excuse to keep American troops fighting someone to stave off their own fear of the bad men who want to hurt us. They are simply unable to parse the phrase "fight them over there so we don't fight them here" and it haunts their quivering unconscious. It's 9/11 hysteria written as thoughtful and considered (and considerate) policy. Personally I'm disgusted, but that's my own cross to bear.

Not one person who advocated for the war in the first place made any predictions that were right. Not one! They've all been consistently wrong, up and down the aisle. The only people who can say with honesty that they did actually see and predict what was coming are the ones who said "This is going to go very badly. This is going to inflame extremism against us. This is going to cost countless unnecessary deaths and will yield us nothing in return. This is going to be a quagmire from which we will not easily escape." Those are the only people who have been right. And not one of those people is proposing to leave our troops there indefinitely. They are all saying, "get them out ASAP." I think they know that the death and mayhem in Iraq are not strategic, they are a salve for the terrorized.

Posted by Bakum | September 13, 2007 3:12 PM

The fundamental flaw in Mr Kaplan's reasoning is that is US centred. I don't have a problem with that. But, the assumption that will have a say in determing the final outcome after years of occupation is ludicrous. Sadly, the assassination of Sheik Risha shows just how tenuous our grip is in Anbar. Anyone siding with us will be gunned down eventually. The Bush handshake might well have sealed this leader's fate.

The Iraqis had better decide what they want to do with their country: artificially constructed or not. The US will not be able to make such decisions and cannot grant legitimacy to anyone in Iraq.

Posted by Alan | September 13, 2007 3:16 PM

"...the strategy of trying to work with and arm moderate Sunni factions makes a certain amount of sense from a balance of power prospective."

What balance of power....sunnis are the minority in Iraq....just how much infuence are they suppose to have? Just when to the sunnis accept their minority role...after bush leaves and Sadr forces them?

Posted by tin foil | September 13, 2007 3:21 PM

I like that Kaplan fellow's books. His classic essay "the Coming Anarchy" noted important trends in the post-Cold War era - the diminishing primacy of the nation-state, the emerging primacy of sub-national and trans-national forces - long before almost anyone else on the national scene (outside of certain academic geographers, professors at the war colleges and a few European theorists).

And even now - almost twenty years after the end of the Cold War - few in the American news media or blogosphere let alone among our political elites choose to recognize these things out loud.

But Kaplan is at heart a conservative Republican and conservative Republicans - once the principal defenders of republicanism - have become the new imperialists. (This is the reason his sunny writings about America aren't his sharp as his writings about the developing world. He doesn't see the dark side; he can't.)

I don't doubt that tens of thousands of American troops will remain in Iraq for many years but it is no less about oil than the Roman occupation of Egypt was about grain.

Posted by Linus | September 13, 2007 3:34 PM

Would US Grant ask Lincoln for a reduction in troops if his surge was successful?
How about more troops to do even better and faster?

Posted by catclub | September 13, 2007 3:38 PM

no one seems to give a crap for the hundreds of thousands of lives already lost

They're just a sunk cost, my man. Regrettable, but no longer relevant. Cheers!

Posted by mq | September 13, 2007 4:28 PM

The bottoms up approach in Anbar could theoretically be the start of a reconciliation process.
This all started because Saddam theoretically had WMDs and we theoretically would be greeted as democracy-granting liberators. I'm done with theory.

As for the Petraeus issue, it is completely unreasonable to expect him to say his commander-in-chief's policy sucks. It is, however, completely reasonable to expect him to give interviews to media outlets more skeptical than Hewitt and Fox News without having to rhetorically drag him there.

Posted by Lynn | September 13, 2007 4:46 PM

"They're just a sunk cost, my man. Regrettable, but no longer relevant. Cheers!"

MQ, I wonder if they were ever relevant? I think most Americans really don't care. The Iraq war for them is not about Iraq. It's about America. That the Iraqis are there and suffering to boot is just their bad luck.

Even the phrase "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here," how do you think the people over there feel about that? How is this morally OK? You have a person threatening your life so you scrap with him in his neighbor's house? You tear up his furniture and break all his stuff, hit his kids with debris and your buddies who came to back you up rape his daughter. It never even enters your mind either that maybe you're doing the wrong thing.

It would be a joke if it weren't pathetic. Actually pathetic doesn't quite cover it and I don't know a word that does.

Posted by bakum | September 13, 2007 5:14 PM

I am not an American, however, I have always admired the American pragmatism, their focus on the future rather than the past, and their inclination on fixing things rather than pointing fingers.

Most of the comments here and the dialogue in the country follows the "we are where we are, how do we fix this" logic.

This is one rare case, though, where this is not the right approach. America should look inwards and fix the underlying reasons for this quaqmire first, then look to fix the consequences.

Posted by Krassen | September 13, 2007 8:20 PM

Reading "The Coming Anarchy" back in 1993-4? was an awakening for me. Especially the Afghan-Soviet conflict and its aftermath...tribalism and "ungovernable" areas of the world...etc

I'm surprised at his take on Iraq. I would think he found it ungovernable.

Posted by magisterludi | September 13, 2007 9:05 PM

"I believe that the essentially problem in Iraq is disagreement about the basic nature of the Iraqi state. In particular, disagreement between Sunni Arabs and Shiite Arabs about who should control Iraq, and disagreement between Kurds and Arabs about how much control Iraq should have over Kurdistan and how big Kurdistan should be. "Political reconciliation" is the name for the hypothetical process by which critical masses of all three groups might come together to reach an agreement about these key issues."

No, the "essential problem" is NOT just "disagreement" - that goes without saying.

The ESSENTIAL problem is the power disparity between the Sunni and the Shia (and to a lesser degree, the Kurds, who are a separate issue from the other sectarian divide.)

As long as there is a power imbalance, reconciliation is not feasible - until exhaustion sets in on both sides. People only reconcile when they can't see a way to win. As long as they think there is a way they can win - which is where the Shia are now - or as long as they think they have no choice BUT win - which is where the Sunni are now - reconciliation is not possible.

It is only when the circumstances produce a stalemate or a recognition that there is no way to win without losing everything that people sit down and negotiate.

And sometimes even then, they don't sit down. Instead, in some cases, one side commits genocide, or the other commits suicide.

Matt is right that even once you deal with the Sunni-Shia divide, you still have the Kurds to deal with. Of course, that won't be too much of a problem. They've been persecuted by Sunnis for decades, I'm sure the Shia will have no problem persecuting them as well.

OTOH, the Kurds can hang in those mountains forever, fighting a guerrilla war. Saddam couldn't beat them, I doubt either the Sunnis or Shia will.

So that's another unsolvable problem - unless the Sunni and Shia decide just to give in and formally recognize what the Kurds have already created - an independent Kurdistan with Kirkuk oil revenues.

Then of course somebody will have to mollify the Turks - and to a lesser degree, the Iranians - who absolutely are not going to accept that solution because it simply means endless Kurdish terrorism in their countries.

The second part of this is that there is no "bottom up" solution. The factions are run by their leaders. Now, if exhaustion sets in with the followers - and that's where it WILL set in since the leaders aren't particularly threatened by it - then we might see the factions pressuring their leaders for a resolution. But if both factions don't "exhaust" at the same time, it still won't happen. It will just give one faction the edge.

Matt is correct, of course, that the "Anbar experience" has nothing to do with the rest of the country and the Sunni-Shia divide.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 13, 2007 10:18 PM

Kaplan's statements:

"Neither of these men are identified with the decision to go to war. If I had to bet, I’d say that Crocker especially would have been against it, like his other Arabist colleagues. Thus, these men have no personal stake in proving the president right."

is completely ridiculous. Of course, these men have any number of "personal stakes" in "proving the President right."

It's just stupid to say otherwise. They both have CAREERS to look after, you idiot! They were ASSIGNED THE TASK of "proving the President right" - that is obvious. Failing in that task is not an option!

Kaplan just blithely assumes that Bush was seriously interested in an unbiased, non-partisan analysis of the situation.

That is unbelievably laughable! That Kaplan could even suggest it makes him an even bigger idiot than Crocker and Petraeus!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 13, 2007 10:23 PM

"There is not going to be reconciliation until the various parties come to think that the best they can get will be accomplished through reconciliation. And the reality is that we have no idea of how to tip the balance of power so that will happen, which is why even the administration is not trying to make such an argument."

Lon has that exactly right. It's the power imbalance between Sunni and Shia that will keep the civil war going until one side dominates or exhaustion sets in. And the US has no credibility or influence in that game.

"It is conceivable that arming the Sunnis is the way to get to reconciliation."

Probably not - since the Sunnis are not short of arms, ammo or anything else except MEN - and that's not going to change.

If the US deliberately and openly said, "Okay, we're completely on the side of the Sunnis. Now what, Shia?", maybe that would provoke some rethinking. But that would only work if most, if not all, of the Sunni insurgency agreed to stop attacking the US - which is unlikely, if not impossible.

And even then, that truce would only last long enough to set up some sort of government - and at that point, either the Sunnis would have to agree to keep the US around to "protect them" - which would be politically impossible, or both sides would kick us out - and the civil war probably would start up again.

So that's not really a rational option.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 13, 2007 10:30 PM

"This is one rare case, though, where this is not the right approach. America should look inwards and fix the underlying reasons for this quaqmire first, then look to fix the consequences."

Indeed sir. But when I look inward I find the genes of a lot of bored, hungry, and delusional English people just wanting to make a buck. And when I look at the mess in Iraq I find that it makes perfect sense that these people as well as their Scots-Irish, German (okay so my Y-DNA is Prussian but what does the Y chromosome matter?), Irish, east European, Jewish, African-American and Latin-American imitators could fuck up the world so badly. This is a country that elects people with 119 IQs president because they look better on tv than the other guy. And this is a world that lets itself be ruled by countries that elect people with 119 IQs because they look better on tv than the other guy.

I for one blame myself. But that only makes me drink more. And that in itself - in addition to any other number of factors - makes me at least as pathetic as everyone else.

Posted by Linus | September 13, 2007 10:38 PM

"When discussing the consequences of the pullout no one -with very few exceptions- talks about the havoc already wrecked or seems to even want to include these deaths in an analysis of what's happened so far, let alone learn from them. Not the commentors here on this board, not the pundits across the blogosphere, not politicians or MSM talking heads and writers. No one."

Ahem.

Me.

I have repeatedly - although not recently, apparently - criticized the US for the level of civilian deaths and the destruction of the Iraqi infrastructure and economy. And any discussion about remaining in Iraq AT ALL for ANY reason simply implies more of the same - not even counting the US troop deaths (which we deserved for our actions in Iraq) and the expense to the US taxpayer (also "deserved" because the voters voted these morons in TWICE.)

The people who believe in the state always like to say to anarchists who decry voting, "If you didn't vote, you can't complain." To which I reply, "au contraire, mon frere! I'm the only one who CAN complain! I'm not responsible for putting criminals in power!"

I agree - all this babble about "pulling out" or "not pulling out" simply ignores the reality that the whole thing was a disastrous mistake - the consequences of which must be accepted and dealt with in the future - not in Iraq now.

It's as I've said here several times: Humans make a mistake. Then they make more mistakes to try to correct the first mistake. Then they ignore the first mistake and limit the discussion to the subsequent mistakes, while planning to commit MORE mistakes.

It doesn't work.

What's worse in the present circumstances is that everybody on the blogs and the pundits are obsessively discussing Iraq while it is plain to see that Bush and Cheney are planning to EXPAND the war to IRAN!

It is EXACTLY what that Administration official told someone - "You people in the 'reality-based' world just react to our actions."

That's exactly what is happening. The suckers here on the blogs talk about Obama and Clinton as if they are going to do ANYTHING about stopping another disastrous war in Iran. Meanwhile, Bush and Cheney and the Pentagon move forward inexorably setting up the conditions and opportunities for the next war.

They're raising the tensions, shifting the justifications, moving military forces into position, moving US and UK troops to the border of Iran, etc., etc.

And nobody on the blogs or the MSM cares.

It's like everybody here is sleepwalking.

Denial is the national pastime, not baseball or football.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 13, 2007 10:43 PM

"They both have CAREERS to look after, you idiot! "

Ambassador Crocker and General Petraeus are both at the peak of their respective careers, having served for more than three decades and achieved the highest ranks in the foreign service and army, respectively. Both could retire with generous pensions right now if they wanted, and pursue more lucrative work in the private sector or in academia.

Posted by Fred | September 13, 2007 11:15 PM

Yes, they could. And they will - long after this disaster continues.

In the meantime, they have every motivation to lie for the President.

After all, I don't recall either of them asking YOU when it would be "appropriate" for them to retire.

And by some accounts, Petraeus wants to BE President...

Which means standing up to Bush and declaring it all bullshit - which would mean their careers were essentially at an end NOW - was not in the cards.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 13, 2007 11:55 PM

R.S. Hack:

If Petraeus or Crocker had political aspirations and shared your views of the Iraq enterprise, they could advance those aspirations by publicly disagreeing with an unpopular president. Grateful Dems would probably offer them cabinet positions in the next Dem administration, or offer to back them for Congressional or Senate Campaigns.

Posted by Fred | September 14, 2007 12:28 AM

"It's like everybody here is sleepwalking."

It certainly is.

Posted by bakum | September 14, 2007 12:49 AM

And perhaps they will in the NEXT administration.

But not in THIS one. The point is that while working in this administration, they will toe the administration line UNLESS they want to retire NOW.

What part of that isn't totally obvious to you?

I mean, you want unbiased? Fine. Let them QUIT NOW, THEN give a report! Did we see that?

No.

I mean, give it up, Fred. Everybody with a brain knows that Petraeus and Crocker are lying their asses off.

You and the rest of the right wing nuts are the only ones standing up for these clowns.

And YOUR credibility is less than theirs.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 14, 2007 1:07 AM

"What boggles my mind and keeps me yelling at my monitor is the fact that no one seems to give a crap for the hundreds of thousands of lives already lost NOT EVEN FOR STRATEGIC POSITIONING. Lives basically thrown into the toilet to make the world more chaotic, more extreme, more anti-american, with more jihadists worldwide. When discussing the consequences of the pullout no one -with very few exceptions- talks about the havoc already wrecked or seems to even want to include these deaths in an analysis of what's happened so far, let alone learn from them. "

Bakum - I want to thank you for your impassioned and excellent post. And I want you to know you are not alone in thinking this and being totally disgusted at how little anyone in power or the media seems to care about the 100,000+ civilians dead, the 2 million displaced, the lives utterly ruined. It compounds the terrible arrogance and imperial brutality of what we are doing in Iraq. I feel like the blood of so many innocents are on our hands and will be for generations to come - and never a word of apology from anyone in the administration for all of the horrors we've inflicted - and our populace at large seems to bligthly ignore this as well.

As was clear during Vietnam, this country - because of our military might and our belief in our righteousness - can be a force for terrible evil as well as good. Sadly, more traditional conservatives like Bush Sr. were aware of this and were often skeptical about the use of American military power to spread "good" in the world but the were completely ignored by the current regime. Over 3000 Americans died on 9/11 and as a result we are now responsible for the deaths and displacements of millions. No American that is morally honest can now ignore that we are indeed a dangerous and blood thirsty nation and that the American people have blood on our hands for electing this disgusting Administration and keeping them in power when their character and the horror of this war was already so clear in 2004. I personally will never trust in the innate "wisdom" of the American people again. My disgust is as deep as yours.

Posted by Wiggy | September 15, 2007 11:42 AM