Juan Cole: 'Iraq is a failed state'

[quaoar]

Professor Cole shows that sometimes it is necessary to point out what should be obvious:

http://www.juancole.com/

On Saturday, Guerrillas in Baghdad targeted a convoy of vehicles of the sort used by notables with a massive bomb that tossed armored SUVs about like toys, and left 29 dead and 54 wounded, as a small mushroom cloud billowed into the sky. Two American security guards were among the dead. A school bus also appears to have suffered damage, but the casualties among the school children had not been reported when this Tribune story was filed.

Few commentators, when they mention such news, point out the obvious. The United States military does not control Baghdad. It doesn't control the major roads leading out of the capital. It does not control the downtown area except possibly the heavily barricaded "green zone." It does not control the capital. The guerrillas strike at will, even at Iraqi notables who can afford American security guards (many of them e.g. ex-Navy Seals). If the US military does not control the capital of a country it conquered, then it controls nothing of importance. Ipso facto, Iraq is a failed state.

[Disturbed]

1. How many more lives must be squandered...

in this failure to colonize Iraq by the Bush Junta?

My guess: Around 10,000 before the Congress gets their collective heads out of their collective asses.

[kentuck]

2. Wow ! That's a different way to look at it !

Realistically.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Well DUH. And how exactly did things go in Afghanistan?

[The_Casual_Observer]

4. According to the government of the United States of America

Juan Cole is flat out wrong. Iraq now has a new government, elected by the free and freedom loving Iraqis, a brave group of souls who, risked life and limb in the pursuit of these freedoms. Are things better in Iraq today than say, two years ago? Well, according to the government of the United States of America, you bet they are! Billions are being spent to repair the infrastructure that was largely abandoned during the 80's and 90's in Iraq, during the period that Saddam and his henchmen gassed their own population.
Mr Cole is probably a communist and surely a traitor to our great land for making up lies like this, his lies only serve the purposes of and are aid and comfort to the terrorists. God bless America!

I don't know why I felt the need to write a stupid and senseless freeper response to the Cole article, except to see how easy it is to write this kind of mindless shit.

[quaoar]

6. You left out the part

about how we got rid of Saddam's rape rooms.

[gulfcoastliberal]

5. But don't they need us for security, stability, and reconstruction?

I mean, what exactly we doing over there? What do the Iraqi's have to lose if we were to leave? All the arguments for staying there seem to be blowing up daily.