the Jig is Up

The U.S. had never lost a war, but now men padding around
in black pajamas and flip-flops fashioned from discarded tires
gave every appearance of battling the mightiest military on earth
to a stalemate
--Still Reeling After All These Years, Bob Herbert

What has defeated America in Iraq , apart from the failure of the
state and its own incompetence, are a bunch of radicals
with nothing more sophisticated than reengineered artillery shells
and RPG's.That is a loss of cataclysmic proportions
--Planning For Defeat, Toby Dodge
___________

Mike Luckovich rendered the above question in 2005, when the U.S. death toll stood at 2,000. Double that for your New Year toll.

So what was 2007 all about, and what does 2008 bode for America and its taxpayers? If there is one outstanding fact, it is that America is no longer calling the shots, despite George Bush's bravado about invincibility.

We may believe BushCheney's, Rice's and Gates' fantasies about progress, but Bhutto's assassination and the attendant disarray indicate the entire Afghanistan/Iraq/Pakistan arena is tenuous, at best.

Pakistan is a keystone in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT©), yet one assassination has rocked it harder than a U2 concert. A trip down memory lane is in order.

How did the U.S. even get embroiled in this implacable region? Terrorism? No, try the U.S.S.R.'s invasion of Afghanistan. In our world where the media is the message, moviegoers are watching Charlie Wilson's War and feeling good about the thing.

You've got lovable, mediocre Everyman Hanks playing the Good Ole' Boy senator trying to do right by his country, in a movie pretending that the U.S. government did not totally support the mujahadeen fighting the Soviet Union. But this was good, since the U.S. opposed Soviet aggression.

Unfortunately, today's al-Qaida operatives find their genesis in those seminal groups sponsored and funded by CIA American tax dollars. Those Islamists were animated and empowered courtesy the U.S.A., and they learned they could face Western combat power.

Today, their scions are fighting the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, using the same tactics and weapons, with the additional employment of terror. The is the reason the U.S. is now hogtied to the unholy trinity -- Iraq/Afghanistan and Pakistan. The implications posed by Iran need not even be considered in this discussion.

We enter 2008 with leaders and leader wanna-bes selling the citizens snake oil by the case. The snake oil is the message that the U.S. can control or influence the events in the region. The fact that a few minor Sunni tribes are pretending to dance to our tune is heralded as an indicator that al-Qaida is on the run.

So a neighborhood in Baghdad is secured, and Pakistan is teetering on the abyss. Who has got the initiative, and who is controlling whom?

The hole just gets deeper.