Oh but what if.... (repost of an unpopular think piece from 2003)

What if we don't win in Iraq?

I know that Bill Murray said our record was "... ten and one." in Stripes

but he was wrong. It's not that good. He neglected to mention any of the following:

We invaded Cuba in 1851, but couldn't get it done.

We invaded Mexico, but that dragged on, and although Black Jack Pershing and his African American troops chased Pancho Villa's ass up and down the hills and valleys, that border just south of the Texas Republic still tells us that Mexico is another country.

And then we invaded Russia in 1918 -- for a regime change! We put together a force consisting of the English and German troops and went in at Archangel. The Bolsheviks had been weakened by seriously drastic in-fighting, so it looked like we had a shot. Those weakened Bolshies whipped our asses and pushed us back into the sea. (They don't talk about that a whole lot in high school history.)

And of course, our glorious invasion of Vietnam turned out so well we really want to do that again, do we not?

So how about it? What if we lose?

We should at least consider the possibility.

In the words of the great, late Lord Buckley:

"If you get TO it,

And can NOT do it,

There you jolly well are, aren't you?"

They all say: "Oh, of course we're not going to lose..."

Well, in the words of Former Love Goddess and Media Harridan Judy Tenuta, "It could happen."

First of all, remember this -- winning does NOT consist of taking Baghdad. 

This is not a video game, regardless of what Georgie might think from his 2-hour-a-day habit.

Winning means holding on to the place once you've taken it:

Taking it AND Holding on to it.

The Brits in Palestine ... whoops, there goes the King David Hotel with 800 troops in it.

Vietnam ... Hamburger Hill being the epitome of examples, with people bleeding and dying and taking the hill and losing it and taking the hill and losing it -- what passes for the "old in-out" with the sexually twisted murder freaks, forerunners to Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Perle -- the ones who don't actually fight but just sit in command centers jerking off to reports of those who actually do the killing and dying coupled with fantasies of power they seem to feel they lack in their real lives. Mean little motherfuckers.

"Sexually twisted -- really over the top, isn't it? 

well:

"But for added amusement, George W. Bush and his friends used to tuck firecrackers into the mouths of frogs, throw them in the air, and watch them explode." a story told by a childhood friend described in a New York Times profile for the 2000 election campaign.

 

Animal cruelty is the big alarm bell every teacher and psychologist is taught to look at a potential sociopath and murderer.   Despite that, the U.S. media chose to overlook at violent murder of frogs as nothing more than an amusing anecdote from Dubya's childhood -- and, as someone already pointed out, "How would that fact be treated if it were being said of Saddam Hussein as a boy?"