Joe insists we have to win the “war” – but there is no war!

There is no standing army that we are fighting. There is no single unified enemy, with a unified command structure operating towards a single goal.

What you have are a bunch of civilians with wildly differing goals, agenda and tactics all vying for power.

The neocons, and Lieberman, are obsessed with the idea that this is a military compaign against a standing army. It isn’t!

The Iraqi government is not unified and cannot agree on any significant legislation or how to share power between the Sunni, Shite and Kurds.

The Iraqi police force is also hopelessly fractured along ethic/religious lines and are routinely supporting local militias – meaning that Shite cops are arresting Sunni civilians as “terrorists” and Sunnie cops are arresting both Shites and Kurds as “terrorists” with an attempt to cleanse neighborhoods.

Our infantrymen are equipped and trained to fight standing armies (like the Republican Guard) but are totally ineffective against mediating turf wars between civilian gangs. If five Kurds want to set a car bomb to blow up a Sunni market – or if three Shite want to drive by shoot some Kurds – there is literally nothing our infantrymen can do to halt civilian violence! Especially when both the cops and the government are totally unstable!

Our army cannot win a war if there isn’t one.

What Bush has done is equivalent to handing the government of California over to the Crips, Bloods and Latin Kings and then asking them to work together, share power equally and all band together in harmony to drive out illegal Mexican immigrant.

What????

That insane scenario has no chance of working and all the internal bloodshed and power struggles that would result from it could not be considered a “military war” under any definition.

It’s impossible to stabilize the region now.

Bush’s entire plan requires a stable cohesive Iraqi government and a relatively stable, cohesive citizenry who will work together to drive out foreign invaders.

You also need rule of law – as in trustworthy police forces and courts that treat all men and women equally regardless if they be Kurd, Shite or Sunni.

Currently Iraq has none of this. There is no cohesive stable government, there is no actual equality under the law as the police forces have all splintered along religious and ethnic lines – and there are no jobs, rampant poverty and little clean drinking water.

Basically what Bush did was remove Saddam and set up a coalition government comprised of several different gang members who all hate each other and want to keep the power for themselves!

Imagine if China invaded California and killed all the local politicians including Arhn-old. Now imagine that the Chinese government promoted the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, Earth First and the ACLU into a coalition government (Seems like a bad idea, right?) Now imagine China proclaiming they don’t care what “laws” they come up with so long as they all work together(!) and agree(!) on sweeping legislation that will determine how the entire state of California operates.

The massive political in-fighting and bloodshed that erupts in the streets rips the state apart.

Streets gangs begin shooting each other in the streets. Those bomb throwing Lefists The Weather Underground reunite and start blowing up police stations to protest China illegal occupation of California.

China decides to “stabilize” California by sending in 200,000 troops armed with machine guns – none of whom speak any English or have any idea what American culture is like. The idea is that just by being there the fighting will (magically?) stop and the Bloods, Crips, Latin Kings and Earth First! Will all (magically?) start working together – and then there will be victory!

Sounds like an insane, unworkable idea doomed to failure?

Yup.

And that is the situation you have in Iraq.

Gang leaders are the “government” citizens are shooting each other over religious differences and the cops are only looking out for “their own kind.” Meanwhile you got 100,000 US troops who don’t speak Arabic wandering around getting shot at trying to figure out who the bad guys are for this week (it changes almost hourly).