The King Is Mad

The quagmire of Iraq was getting so irritating that Cheney was ferreted out of his dungeon and dispatched to the Middle East. We don't know of course what foul plan he took with him but we are about to find out I think.

Whatever it is and whatever it was he put in Maliki's coffee, it caused the Great Democratic Leader of Iraq to immediately order his men into a democracy-building firefight in Basra which he personally led, or followed, or flew over, or so it is said. His men, of course, defected to the Mahdi Army as soon as they got there, taking their weapons with them.

Maliki has since backed down on his previous offer of immediate death and is now generously giving the Sadrists until April Fool's Day to come out with their hands up. The entire population is locked inside their houses and cannot leave, even on foot, for any reason. Entire cities have been turned into prisons and any poor fool leaving his own home trying to get water for his children will be shot on sight.

And still president insane-head pounds the lecturn shouting about the brilliant progress.

Sidebar, Al Jazeera Iraq Page

So brilliant is the progress, in fact, that as he was speaking US forces were fighting the Mahdi Army in Basra. You know, the Mahdi Army, which four days ago extended their truce with the US. You know, Basra. The city where democracy was so successful that the British pulled out and refuse to go back.

So there you have it. Three trillion dollars, 4,000 dead Americans, a million dead Iraqis, the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet and now the mighty US armed forces are being used by the puppet leader of a failed country to slaughter members of a rival political party.

Democracy.

The word has been soiled. It will have a whiff of stink on it for the next three hundred years.

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