Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

With Gen. Petreaus and Amb. Croker hauled before both Senate and House committees, as well as three presidential candidates, we have an opportunity to witness, in one fell swoop, a bunch of people displaying their total ignorance.

Everyone trots out their statistics to buttress his or her position: we are winning , we are losing, we have already lost. We leave tomorrow. We leave next year. We stay for one hundred years.

It seems to me that the truth is very simple but no one wants to say the dreadful words: "We really don't know a damned thing!"

we don't know if we are "winning", however you might define that . We don't know what the Shiites will do. We don't know what the Sunnis will do. We don't know what the Kurds will do. We don't know what the government will do. We don't know what Muqtadar al Sadr will do. We don't know what Syria will do. We don't know what Iran will do.

We don't even know what we will do!

That's a hell of a lot of ignorance on display! And that's why we have our hands wrapped around this tar baby without one solid idea of what to do next.

If anyone says they "know", run, because their sole intention is to pick your wallet, pluck out your teeth and settle in some nice villa somewhere!