From that perspective, "civil war" is entirely accurate.

As for "phases", this is the latest in a steady downward spiral that started with "invasion" (unprovoked by the way) to "occupation" to "rebellion and insurgency" to "civil war" which I maintain that if you ask the guy on the street in Baghdad, this thing crossed over into that some while ago. Only the order of magnitude has increased. Now our soldiers are sitting ducks in the middle of a centuries old blood feud. I've said this before. Now it would appear that the "paper of record" has caught up. How nice. Nicer still if the White House would get into the "reality-based" world and GET US THE HELL OUT OF THERE!!

To "No Name Given"

Surely you've figured out by now that worship of George W. Bush that was highly fashionable in recent years has become very much passe' since about 3 weeks ago.

No one here is disrespecting the Office of President of the United States. However, the current officeholder has very clearly disrespected the office and the people he has sworn to represent, and he has done this in the most stunning, arrogant, contemptible, and quite possibly criminal fashion. This unquestioning devotion to the man and the direction he's taken the country in is naive and dangerous. No other president in recent memory has so carelessly and so callously spilled blood, trampled upon the Constitution and reached for absolute power the way the son of Bush has. The hubris of all of this has come back to bite him hard, not only in the recent midterms, but also now in Iraq which has spun almost completely out of control, spiraling towards all-out civil war. There is a lot of blood on this man's hands. A lot of death and destruction. You admonish us here to "grow up". My suggestion to you would be to open your eyes and look at what's happening. No one thinks that victory in Iraq is possible. No one sane believes we're heading in the right direction as a country as long as George Walker Bush remains in the White House. This is the reality. Time to quit kidding yourself about it.

Just remember, citizens:

Incoming Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment of the President is "off the table". Meanwhile, a fellow named John Conyers is saying, "It aint off MY table!" And if memory serves, he's about to become Chairman of a committee that looks into these sorts of things. Speaker Pelosi is third in line of succession to the White House. Should the current President be impeached and removed from office along with the current Vice President, then she becomes President, a fact that I'm sure is not lost on her. In which case, a fascinating bit of history would be made. And in case you think it can't happen, no one was thinking a sweep of Congress by the Democrats would happen either. Yet it has.

So assuming that bit of history is made, just remember, YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST, in the Salon.

AHHH...

How nice it is that since the midterm elections that saw voices of sanity and reason finally win the day, that we can afford to take a holiday from the so-called "fair and balanced" sludge of thought that passes for intelligent discourse at FOX. Once again, find something seemingly incendiary, throw a bunch of hysterical voices in the room led by Bill O'Reilly, and you've got a bloody bonfire. Standard Procedure. Except no one's listening anymore. There's a connection in the thought process of those who listen to this junk, and the seeming paranoia of the Right Wing who think (still!) that the best way to win the war on terror is to turn America into a theocratic police state, or that the best way to win in Iraq is to stop calling it a "civil war". People who think this way listen to the same toxic waste, be it O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or that other whack-job whose name escapes me just now. Then they land on relatively harmless drivel like "The View" and turn it into a controversy. Tempest in a teacup. Does this not seem depraved here? This is the inevitable result of ingesting this sort of sewer grade mind candy on a regular basis.

For all the talk by conservatives of cleaning up the airwaves, we could start with FOX. The mental excrement it spews forth is a biohazard far worse than the tainted water in New Orleans after Katrina and even more obscene than any naughty word they told you about in Sunday School.

I once thought that there was a way to salvage the situation in Iraq, but I worried that maybe we had already gone too far and destroyed too much. It appears my worry was founded. If the Iraq study group is correct, the truly awful worst case scenario is already playing out, and there is no stopping it. We may be in a situation where no matter what we do, the cause is already lost and perhaps hopelessly so. Even if (and that's big "IF") you were to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and say he had good intentions, this incompetently executed invasion/occupation has destroyed a once mighty and ancient civilization with thousands of years of history and culture to study and learn from. This is a great and tragic loss and it was completely avoidable. The even greater tragedy is that in terms of safety and security for the USA, we've gained absolutely nothing. This report is probably little more than an epitaph on this horrific, incomprehensibly stupid, and criminal affair. The only thing to do now is get out, salvage what we can diplomatically, and prosecute the bastards that started all this.