Common Sense

(Ed. note: This is an actual book title and if I had a lawyer, I’m sure he would tell me to point out that Truman CapoteJohn Kennedy Toole was the author and originator of said title and that it was a fantastic book and you should go buy it so that somebody gets a big, fat check and I don’t get sued.)

I have identified what the problem is in Iraq. It happens to be the same problem that I have with my doctors.

I should say that today I have not had any opioid whatsoever to relieve the rather severe pain in my leg. None, nada, not going to take anymore. It’s not like I had a choice; my surgeon, Dr. Ellis, wanted me off narcotics when I went through physical therapy again. The third time for physical therapy. He was afraid that I might get addicted.

You are either a fool or a fanatic if you believe that we can have some kind of military victory in Iraq. Even if we could come up with the 100,000 troops it would take to make a real difference in fighting the insurgency, we couldn’t sustain that level for very long. And as Gen. Barry McAffrey says everytime he appears on TV, the army faces a $61 billion equipment shortfall. Not only do we have to have bullets and working guns and batteries for radios and new boots for every American soldier (some of who are on their 5th tour of Iraq) but for the Afghani national forces and for the Iraqi military and police that we are training.

It’s not like the American economy is on a war footing. Only the military is fighting a war and they’ve just been using the supplies that they’ve had stocked up since the last Gulf War that didn’t get used in Somalia or Bosnia. Rumsfeld was doing a two-theater war on the cheap while the Congress was cutting taxes and abdicating responsibility.

So America is going to pull out. If you doubt that, I don’t know what to tell you except I’ve got a great bridge to sell you. The question is how fast and under what terms. There are still those, however, that say we cannot leave because that might lead to instability.

You see where I’m going with this. Too many people are concerned with what might happen that they aren’t paying enough attention to what is happening right now.

If the reason we’re not leaving Iraq is that Henry Kissinger is worried that terrorists might rejoice at the defeat of the American military… I mean, does he think terrorists don’t rejoice everytime an American soldier gets killed, whether they did it, the insurgents did it or it was crossfire from sectarian violence. And why is Kissinger part of this? Only a complete, total fucking moron would listen to Kissinger after Vietnam.

My doctor is worried that I might get addicted to opiates, so he takes me off of them, even though we know that they work in relieving the pain, and sends me back to physical therapy, which hasn’t worked two other times. That’s the kind of thinking that is keeping us in Iraq and that’s why my leg hurts so damn much that I can’t fall asleep no matter how many Tylenol PM I take.

(Ed. note: This is an actual book title and if I had a lawyer, I’m sure he would tell me to point out that Truman CapoteJohn Kennedy Toole was the author and originator of said title and that it was a fantastic book and you should go buy it so that somebody gets a big, fat check and I don’t get sued.)

I have identified what the problem is in Iraq. It happens to be the same problem that I have with my doctors.

I should say that today I have not had any opioid whatsoever to relieve the rather severe pain in my leg. None, nada, not going to take anymore. It’s not like I had a choice; my surgeon, Dr. Ellis, wanted me off narcotics when I went through physical therapy again. The third time for physical therapy. He was afraid that I might get addicted.

You are either a fool or a fanatic if you believe that we can have some kind of military victory in Iraq. Even if we could come up with the 100,000 troops it would take to make a real difference in fighting the insurgency, we couldn’t sustain that level for very long. And as Gen. Barry McAffrey says everytime he appears on TV, the army faces a $61 billion equipment shortfall. Not only do we have to have bullets and working guns and batteries for radios and new boots for every American soldier (some of who are on their 5th tour of Iraq) but for the Afghani national forces and for the Iraqi military and police that we are training.

It’s not like the American economy is on a war footing. Only the military is fighting a war and they’ve just been using the supplies that they’ve had stocked up since the last Gulf War that didn’t get used in Somalia or Bosnia. Rumsfeld was doing a two-theater war on the cheap while the Congress was cutting taxes and abdicating responsibility.

So America is going to pull out. If you doubt that, I don’t know what to tell you except I’ve got a great bridge to sell you. The question is how fast and under what terms. There are still those, however, that say we cannot leave because that might lead to instability.

You see where I’m going with this. Too many people are concerned with what might happen that they aren’t paying enough attention to what is happening right now.

If the reason we’re not leaving Iraq is that Henry Kissinger is worried that terrorists might rejoice at the defeat of the American military… I mean, does he think terrorists don’t rejoice everytime an American soldier gets killed, whether they did it, the insurgents did it or it was crossfire from sectarian violence. And why is Kissinger part of this? Only a complete, total fucking moron would listen to Kissinger after Vietnam.

My doctor is worried that I might get addicted to opiates, so he takes me off of them, even though we know that they work in relieving the pain, and sends me back to physical therapy, which hasn’t worked two other times. That’s the kind of thinking that is keeping us in Iraq and that’s why my leg hurts so damn much that I can’t fall asleep no matter how many Tylenol PM I take.