hmm

I'm still . . . disturbed. .. by the images I saw at Reuters, and then over at Billmon. Seeing death never gets easier, no matter how many times you watch the sexy teens get chainsawed in Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Goes to show that reality is always more real and more disturbing. Some of the sites I surfed . . . had no warning. It's still something that I think everyone needs to see and I am annoyed that our media shyed away when they had no problem parading pictures of Uday and Qusay which were gruesome as well.

I surfed through the blogosphere this evening after my various staff meetings. I was struck by some of the vitriol at some of the more Right-leaning sites. And concerned.

One, I'm concerned that there is no exit strategy. Kerry hasn't come up with one and when(if) he is elected President in November we're going to need one. After seeing todays horror which really has jarred me I don't think the "We broke it so we fix it" is going to work anymore. I think it's time to call elections and begin to withdrawl. Actually, to be honest, I think Iraq, a victim of the geography of colonial administrators, would probably be better off as three countries instead of one, although the world itself wouldn't necessarily be safer.

1. Kerry needs to start stating the exit strategy. He can trade barbs with Bush over rising gas prices all he wants (and I can snidely ask why gas prices are so high if we invaded an oil-rich country, and then others can snidely say it was all about liberation and never about the oil so that's why oil prices are up--but that's just being snide) but he really needs to discuss this. There's now 600 dead US soldiers, tens of thousands wounded, tens of thousands of civillians dead and a population that isn't being pacified as easily. They're not throwing flowers people. Its only a matter of time before Fallujah gets mowed down. . . which is something i've seen advocated on right-leaning blogs, which is why I'm concerned.

If we don't have an exit strategy (Bush doesn't...and Kerry ain't talkin') I don't think this will be the 21st century's Vietnam. It's going to be the 21st Century's Phillipines. Although, if you think about it, they were both pretty much similar.