Cease to Resist Giving My Goodbye

Okay, so I was going to write about some very different topics today, but I cannot not comment upon Mr. Pat Robertson’s amazing interpretation of the New Testament offered on the 700 Club recently. In speaking of Hugo Chavez, and his wacky tendency to accuse the U.S. of plotting his assassination, Robertson put forth a fantastic example of other-cheek-turning: let’s kill him! Yeah! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! Wait, no, what? I thought that every life was sacred, that God wants us to love each other as we would our own brothers and sisters, and to not go around offing folks for being crazy and inconvenient for our foreign policy. I’m not exactly sure from which beatitude he draws the justification for assassination. It must be one of those books at the end of the Bible that I didn’t get to read.

So, is Robertson completely insane? I don’t know, but judge not, lest ye be... no, the guy’s totally mental.

Hmm, so actually I covered that pretty quickly. So, I’ll talk about signs and signals. They’re oh-so handy in everyday situations! They tell people where they’re not supposed to smoke, when someone is turning left, when you should cross the street, and when you should seriously concentrate on getting your country’s shit together. What was that last part about? Well, various members of the current administration, of which I’m not a fan, have stood firm in their resolve to not set a date for U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq. Why not?

“Well, think of the signal that would send!”

Okay, let’s think about it critically. If we announced that troops would stand down and withdraw in, let’s say 8 months, what signals would be sent?

First, the insurgents would realize they only had to hold on for 8 more months, and then they could have their sweaty way with the unprotected maiden that is Iraq. Yeah... I don’t know if anyone’s been paying attention or not, but these guys are holding on pretty well anyway. They think we’re going to be there forever, and it hasn’t really rained on their parade yet. I’m not entirely sure that our continued presence, or the spectre thereof, is not a prime recruiting instrument for the Iraqi insurgency. Now, this is not a jab at the U.S. military. They are the best in the world (ya hear that, China?!), and they’ve done the best job possible considering what a miserable fucking mission their Commander-in-Chief sent them on. Bad planning, poor supplies, unrealistic world view, and plain old hubris have left our military coping in a situation they should not have been sent to deal with in the first place. They toppled the regime, as we knew they would, and they should be allowed to come home with our (and the Iraqi people’s) thanks.

More importantly, however, the news of a planned U.S. pullout from Iraq would cause a massive and profound loosening of the bowels in the provisional Iraqi government. Which is just fine, because these kids need to shit or get off the pot. They need to realize that we won’t hold their hands forever, and that they had best learn to fight for themselves (I’m sure we’d be happy to sell them some guns, as well...seems we’re pretty good at that). Also, they would do well to remember that an imperfect constitution (one that can be amended, for example) is preferable to total anarchy.