The Dead Weep

River at Baghdad Burning tells a story about the new Iraqi constitution that ends with this:

"It is utterly frustrating to talk to someone about the referendum- whether they are Sunni or Shia or Kurd- and know that even before they’ve read the constitution properly, they’ve decided what they are going to vote.

Women’s rights aren’t a primary concern for anyone, anymore. People actually laugh when someone brings up the topic. “Let’s keep Iraq united first…” is often the response when I comment about the prospect of Iranian-style Sharia.

Rights and freedoms have become minor concerns compared to the possibility of civil war, the reality of ethnic displacement and cleansing, and the daily certainty of bloodshed and death."

Over at Kos, this diary from a military man bring back that great Vietnam cliché, "we are destroying the country in order to save it."

"As a solider I have been involved in this war in one way or another since 1990. I was in Baghdad early on when we actually thought we could rebuild the country. It was a tough decision then to cut down the trees on the airport road then but when you are getting shot at, you have to do something. Now we are blowing up bridges. For the first time I believe we have lost. For the first time as a military professional I think we have no way of winning this. We are willing to destroy the basic structures of the country to deny the enemy their use. This means we have no other way to deny them the use of these assets. We can't stop them, the Iraqi Army can't stop them, the Iraqi police can't stop them and we can't collect enough intelligence to make the enemy pay for using what should be choke points."

The American death toll is climbing to nearly 2000. For what did they die? What noble cause has been served by their death? The constitution is a joke and we are bombing the already nearly destroyed infrastructure of the country because we do not have the resources to stop the insurgents from doing what they want when they choose to do it.

What a colossal failure.