The Lack of Daily Postings Did Not Precipitate The Use Of The Term "Civil War"

After all that brouhaha about me making a post a day, and my comment about losing momentum came back to bite me in the delete key. I have to apologize, but my son got sick and my wife and I have been dealing with high fevers, infant Tylenol, and ibuprofen. I had to give my son so many cold baths to bring his temperature down that he developed a Pavlovian response to the sound of running water. Needless to say, he ate some of the gumbo I made, which of course included the use of freshly made turkey stock boiled from several carcasses of this Thanksgiving's feast. I love it how my son likes spicy foods accented with citrus.

Speaking of spicy, the political heat embroiled in the spin of our media has cooked up a new term for our presence in Iraq: civil war. This smacks of Cronkite commenting on the conflict in Vietnam as unwinnable, and no doubt is tied to the current political shift we've seen as a result of the recent election. Once the general perception of our presence in the Middle East, namely Iraq, moves from one of enhancing personal freedoms and potentially establishing a democratic society to the issue of how apropos our presence is in a country that is undergoing power struggles within its own factions, we're going to see more and more people questioning the validity of remaining in the country and putting our sons and daughters in harm's way.

I keep thinking of something interesting I heard on NPR the other day. The announcer was interviewing an official (sorry, I don't have the transcript) who mentioned that in order to cement a democratic foundation in a country, there needs to be an overwhelming desire of the people to have such a government. Now this is just my limited opinion, but Islamic countries are very very different from democratic societies, and there is little or no separation from church and state. Of course, Iraq is a tad more secular, but in the vacuum of power that we helped usher with the removal of Saddam Hussein, we've seen explosions (pardon the pun) of violence erupt across the Shite and Sunni landscape. While there's the beginnings of democracy taking root, we see that decisions made as a result of the new governing body culminating in the assassination of elected public officials. We don't see the populace accepting majority opinion.

Of course, I'm familiar with the phrase "...it takes a few rotten apples to spoil the barrel", however, given that we've assisted in destabilizing the region it doesn't seem like there's any way we can ethically and immediately extricate ourselves from the country until there's some semblance of normalcy unless we want to let the barrel implode. Sound familiar? Sounds like Vietnam to me.

I'm dying to hear what our politicians will propose for foreign policy in the next Presidential election. What do you think, gentle reader?

Something completely unrelated - are you looking for a new book and want something new, fresh, engaging, brilliant that takes place in a land depicted from the hand of the man that created the Sistine Chapel (ok, I'm stretching that one?) Try China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. This author introduces a myriad of topics, ideas and characters upon which lesser authors would base an entire novel.