Christopher Hitchens, once a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, has become a cataloger of the bungled mission. His latest piece is interesting:
http://www.slate.com/id/2157663/fr/flyout Here is an excerpt: The critical thing about the much-bruited surge<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/10/AR2007011002208.html>is that it, too, belongs in the all-important realm of the symbolic. A few thousand extra troops in Baghdad and in Anbar are of scant use in themselves, unless they in some way represent a commitment to stick to Iraq no matter what. And if the Iraq to which they stick is in fact symbolized by Maliki's surly confessional regime, then the United States is not baby-sitting a civil war so much as deciding to take part in it. The president conceded as much when he said that new patrols in Baghdad would not be determined by sectarian calculations: Such an assurance would not be necessary if the contingency itselfor the symbolic perception of itwas not so strongly present in people's minds. In these conditions, it's almost perfect that the Democrats have been discussing a symbolic vote against the surge (you cannot beat these people for moral courage), while our new secretary of defense seems to believe that what the surge really symbolizes is a renewed determination to hand over to the Iraqis and start drawing downas near to a flat contradiction in terms as you could wish. -- --------------- Robert Munn www.funkymojo.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Upgrade to Adobe ColdFusion MX7 Experience Flex 2 & MX7 integration & create powerful cross-platform RIAs http:http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;56760587;14748456;a?http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=LVNU Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:224994 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
