Like Fourteen Monkeys..

OK, here's the deal. Sen. John Warner, ancient Republican from Virginia, now calls for US troops-- some but not all-- to be withdrawn from Iraq.

The NY TIMES runs an editorial that says, in essence, "Well let's get the troops home even if there will be a genocide in Iraq". Oh, they don't quite say "genocide", they use the term "brutal".

The short-term sequels of American withdrawal from Indochina were brutal, as the immediate sequels of America’s withdrawal from Iraq will surely be.

How delicate, how precious, of the TIMES.

In the meantime, an Army general says if we pull troops out, we are ceding hard won gains.

Last week, the TIMES ran an op-ed piece from several NCOs which stated that Iraq was a mess. This coming Sunday, the TIMES Magazine will run a story which states that junior officers have lost faith in their senior officers. I have it from a source I trust that this assessment is spot on.

Senators just returned from Iraq says the government isn't governing. A recent National Intelligence Estimate says pretty much the same thing and that the situation there won't get better soon.

Our president first says the Iraqi PM better get his act together. Then, after the PM goes into a snit and says we can get other friends (let him!), Bush backtracks and says "Maliki, you're doing a hell of a job!"

Then Bush has what can only be a drug induced flashback and says this is 1969 and we had better stay in Vietnam or the Commies will take over (and excuse him while he blows off his Texas Air National Guard duty. Oh, and VP Dick Cheney had "better things to do with his time then to serve in Vietnam", so he got FIVE deferments!)

Soooo. let's put it all together, shall we? We have a president who is out of touch with reality. A vice president in the same condition. Republican Senators who say let's get out. A General who says stay. An officer corp that has lost confidence in its senior leaders. And enlisted ranks that publicly disagree with policy.

Want more? Look at thisTIMES story regarding a photographic exhibit of wounded American soldiers.

As a bosun's mate I knew used to say, "You look like fourteen monkeys fucking a football!"

Best damned description of this administration.

What hath Bush wrought?