Today has been the anniversary of Bush's surge in Iraq. Clearly there is no political reconciliation in Iraq so the surge is and always will be a failure no matter how many times Joe Lieberman and John McCain proclaim it so. This has been an immoral war started by neocon warmongers and the end result at this point is that the Iraqi people have suffered dearly for our sins.

They cut deals with the Sunnis, but soon those same Sunnis will be targeting the Shia government. That's just grand. clammyc at DKos breaks down Bush's big speech on 01/10/07 and all it's failures. NSN also writes about what has not happened there in the last year that McCain is so proud of. I have to tell you that I'm not happy about the "it's time for the Iraqis to do their part" bit. We invaded them. We have no right to complain about how they are handling this situation. I might have said the same thing myself a few times and on further reflection realize that it's just a talking point to point the blame on them for not getting with the Democracy program when we have no right to say that.

Juan Cole writes about the nine US soldiers just killed there and the tremendous amount of civilian deaths that we've brought to the Iraqis as some sort of sick gift basket:

A new World Health Organization study estimates the excess numbers of civilians killed in violence in Iraq from April 2003 through June 2006 at between 101,000 and 224,000. They settled on 151,000 or so as the most likely number.

And Juan's most compelling quote is:

How many orphans have we created? How many widows? How many people who weep and cry every night while trying to fall asleep on straw mats?..read on.

Who cries for them except us? Not Cheney. And let's not forget all the Iraqi people that have fled their country. Oh, what about troop morale?

Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here say that morale among U.S. soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed "search and avoid" missions.

And yet the PNACers live in in utter prosperity, getting jobs at the NY Times to flaunt their destructive ideas.