News to America: It's a Civil War

If this is not a civil war, Wolf, I don't want to see one when it comes.
-- CNN Correspondent Michael Ware in Baghdad to the Situation Room's Wolf Blitzer.
Today's news has several stories on whether what's happening in Iraq can now be called a Civil War. News Flash, Newsmedia: This question of "Is Iraq a civil war," was predicted for Iraq in 2004. I guess now that the violence has reached a point today were NBC can declare 'officially' that "Civil War" is the correct term for what's happening in Iraq, we can all freaking agree that it's a Civil War! Whooboy, thanks for that clarification, you news reporting, vanilla ice cream brain frozen media numbnuts, because I thought for the past few years that I was just going out of my fucking mind, cause to me, it looked like a Civil War a while ago. Dear Flying Spaghetti Monster in the beer mountain firmament, who in their right mind COULD NOT THINK A CIVIL WAR WAS A'COMING NOT TO MENTION, ALREADY HERE?!?

Jiminy freaking cricket!
Jumping jehosophat!

Ack.

I guess now we can 'safely' discuss the facts of this war.

The facts as I personally see them are:
Fact #1: We started this Civil War.
Fact #2: We started this fucking Civil War because our leaders are incompetent boobs who lied to us and adeptly went about this war to help their bottom line.
Fact #3: It's a Civil War. End of story. Move on.
Fact #4: We Americans, as a unified nation (some fucking how) have got to get off of our asses and really tackle the problem of Iraq. Together.
Fact #5: Unfortunately, we have no fucking clue what to do to fix the problem.
Fact #6: We're all fucked.

OK, there are some things we can do to fix Fact #5:
1. Get out of Iraq. I don't know what's going to happen to the people of Iraq. I do care about what happens to the people of Iraq. I care about what happens to our men and women there as well. I know that us staying there is not the solution and is only making the problem worse.
2. Go back to the drawing board. Go back to the place where we dropped the ball first: Afghanistan. Shore that up now.
3. Start talking to not only the Israelis, but the Palestinians, the Syrians, the Russians (and shall I add, tell them to stop killing journalists and ex-spies), the Saudis, the Koreans, the wooly space monsters. Talk to anyone about anything. Talk about the weather, for all I care, just start talking.
4. Start using diplomacy. God, I wish Colin Powell were at least still Secretary of State. Condi is too contaminated to be affective anymore. Powell still has some modicum of respect in the world, if only an iota.
5. Smack the American people up side the head to get them involved in this war thing. How do you do that? The draft legislation that Rep. Charles Rangel, of New York, talks about might be one thing to do, but another way is to actually have an administration that will stop using bullheaded rhetoric laced with Christian eschatology. Lou Dobbs tonight asked three former military leaders what they thought our biggest mistakes have been in Iraq. Retired General Bernard Trainor said, "We have failed to mobilize the Nation." To do what, I don't know, but it's better than not even knowing we are at war.

Here's some more coherent things we can do, as suggested by this 'gold-leafed' er, "blue ribbon" (whatever) panel, the Iraq Study Group.

Other that, I got nothing. I'm willing to put my head together with the rest of the Nation to figure this crap out. Fact #6, though, is that we're still all fucked. It's mindboggling. But at least we now know it's a freaking Civil War.


iOblivious t-shirt, in the RottenApples series, may be purchased from Good Storm.