So now what?

From the Washington Post:

Iraqi leaders argue that sectarian animosity is entrenched in the structure of their government. Instead of reconciliation, they now stress alternative and perhaps more attainable goals: streamlining the government bureaucracy, placing experienced technocrats in positions of authority and improving the dismal record of providing basic services."I don't think there is something called reconciliation, and there will be no reconciliation as such," said Deputy Prime Minister Barham Salih, a Kurd. "To me, it is a very inaccurate term. This is a struggle about power."

So the surge was undertaken to provide stability so that the Iraqis could forge some political reconciliation. Did someone actually ask the Iraqis about it? Wait, don't answer that. So, what do we do now that every stated reason for our troops to be in Iraq are no longer operable? At what point can we start to say that US soldiers are dying for no reason? At what point does "support the troops" come to mean "get them out of the meat grinder"?

Oh shit

This could complicate things:

Several thousand Turkish troops crossed into northern Iraq early Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas who operate from bases there, Turkish security officials told The Associated Press. Two senior security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the raid was limited in scope and that it did not constitute the kind of large incursion that Turkish leaders have been discussing in recent weeks. ''It is not a major offensive and the number of troops is not in the tens of thousands,'' one of the officials told the AP by telephone. The official is based in southeast Turkey, where the military has been battling separatist Kurdish rebels since they took up arms in 1984.

This could be very bad. Of course Turkey has been signalling for a while that they were going to do this, so I bet the administration has a plan, right? Sure. Do we side with the Kurds or the Turks? Could we possibly sell the Kurds out for the second time in a couple of decades? Wait, don't answer that.

How are we different from those we fight?

Who said this:

As Army officers on duty in the war on terror, you will now face enemies who oppose and despise everything you know to be right, every notion of upright conduct and character, and every belief you consider worth fighting for and living for. Capture one of these killers, and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away. These are men who glorify murder and suicide. Their cruelty is not rebuked by human suffering, only fed by it. They have given themselves to an ideology that rejects tolerance, denies freedom of conscience, and demands that women be pushed to the margins of society. The terrorists are defined entirely by their hatreds, and they hate nothing more than the country you have volunteered to defend.

Your vice-president.

Yes, so for those of you who are going to go out and fight, do not be concerned with giving our enemies the comforts of the Geneva Convention or the rights under our Constitution if they apply. No, treat these savages savagely, for it is by acting like our enemy that we distinguish ourselves from our enemy.

Or something like that.

Hot off the press!

The Senate is going to pass a supplemental bill that also has a withdrawal timetable in it. That's amazing. I really can't believe the Dems got it done. Now, it remains to be seen what comes out of reconciliation and gets sent to Bush, but I suspect the dates may stay in.

Bush has said that Congress is failing the troops by not funding them. He says they are not funding them because they are sending him a bill he "cannot sign". That is simply not true. They are sending him a bill he will not sign. That's different. They are fully funding the troops (and are in fact giving them more money than he asked for). It will be Bush who puts the funding in jeapordy by choosing not to sign the bill Congress has sent.

That's the choice that underlies all the coming rhetoric.

Today is the 4th anniversary of the Iraq War

I really don't have anything else to say about that right now.