Unforeseen Contingencies

As a sort of footnote to American Catastrophe, I should mention another possibility for Iraq. Rather than withdraw, the U.S. might try to maintain a continuing occupation, as neocons such as Rumsfeld originally proposed. All four of the leading Republican presidential candidates (the ones who won’t to speak to blacks), take the neocon position, and so far as I can tell, so do Clinton and Obama. If one of these becomes the next president, it would be unsurprising if they tried maintaining the occupation for a very long time. In some respects this might even be a reasonable thing to do, since the status quo in the mid-East might well be better than what happens after an American withdrawal. But the drain on American morale, moral status, and wealth will accelerate.

It’s depressing. As Barack Obama tells us, we need more hope! But unfortunately he, and the rest of that pack of power-hungry rats, are hell-bent on driving us down a hopeless course.

Well, it could be worse. At least no idiots are proposing dividing Iraq into three separate countries, or labeling the Iranian military as a terrorist organization. So at least there’s a limit to idiotic ideas...

Oops. That’s right, I forgot about Congress.