No Direction

This movie came out a few years ago with Sandra Bullock called 28 Days. No rage-infected crazy people in this flick, but instead a woman dealing with her addictions to alcohol and drugs. In one scene in the movie, rehab men and women try to gain the trust of a horse to force the horse to raise his back leg. A horse will not do it just on command.

However, all of those involved could not get the horse to do it and never really attempted different ways at gaining the horse's trust. Sure, they would slightly change the way they pet the horse, but choosing to go in a different direction was not in the future for these people.

I bring this up because the owner of the horse cited the dictionary to explain these people. "Folks," he said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results." Or something like that. I cannot find his actual quote, but it was damn close. And on Wednesday, we saw someone scream out insanity at 9:00. Unfortunately, it was not some dumbass on American Idol or whatever shitty reality show the networks are shoving down the viewers' throats. No, it was the President of the United States when he looked to get the citizens to buy his new Iraq plan.

From what I heard, it seemed the "new" plan was the "old" plan with a shiny new code of polish. It reminds me of the Madden football series. None of the games are really that different. Most of the bugs go from one version to the next. However, every new version is tweaked slightly. It is definitely easier and safer.

The world asks for serious answers to serious questions, yet the President provided the old joke of an answer. Think of a fire. You throw a lot of wood on the fire, one of two things will happen. The fire will consume it or the fire will not have enough air to burn. I believe this is Bush's thoughts. Throw 20,000 more solders to the Iraq problem and maybe, he will end it. Why not 30,000? 50,000?

Bush, I love stats, too. We spend an estimated 6.4 billion a month on Iraq and have spent $355 billion so far. The winner of a Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph Stiglitz, has put the overall price tag at $1 trillion. And that is his conservative estimate. We have lost 22 Apache helicopters ($45-58 million a pop), 3 F-18 Hornets ($35 million), and 250 Humvees.

But here is the most troubling stat. 3,018 American soldiers have been killed as of January 9th. Over three-thousand of America's best will not be returning to their families and friends. We are approaching our fourth year since the war began. All of this comes despite great advancements in body armor and soldier placement that have been the death-to-casuality (or anyone who has been hit) to a much lower degree than Vietnam. That does not even get into the Iraqi body count which can not accurately been found, but estimated. A study in July found the number around 650,000. Yeah, the amount of zeros is correct.

The facts are pretty clear. The talking points are worthless. This war is unwinnable. Why? Because I'm not so sure what we're fighting for. Do we want Iraq to be democratic or do we want to stop terrorism because we cannot possibly have it both ways. Know what would work against terrorism? A heavy-handed dictator who puts down any terrorist violence. Shit, I think we let them kill that guy.

Everything bad that happens in Iraq will be blamed in the country on America whether we actually did it or not and I do not blame them for that. We have destroyed their villages, bombed their families, and Iraqi healthcare is worse now than it ever was under Saddam according to Joseph Chamie, former director of the U.N. Population Division and an Iraq specialist. They were amongst the top in medical care in 1990. Now, they are a third world country. Sally Struthers and that guy with the beard would be there if they were not afraid of catching a bomb with their heads. But no worries. Sooner or later, no one will be there to receive sub-standard health care as 100,000 Iraqis leave every month, mostly to Jordan and Syria.

And at the same time, we are increasing terrorism.

But the answer is more troops? Look up the definition of insanity, President. You might want to check yourself into a happy place.