Ah, Dear Gentle Reader(s), the vicissitudes of language are many.
Remember Senator McCain’s oft-repeated slogan of “victory” in Iraq? One wonders what he meant.
Today The New York Times reports of housecleaning in Iraq’s government. It isn’t what you’d usually expect for housecleaning.
Get this; it’s from a piece titled “Iraq Quietly Dismisses Its Anticorruption Officials”:
BAGHDAD — The government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is systematically dismissing oversight officials who were installed to fight corruption in Iraqi ministries by order of the American occupation administration, which had hoped to bring Western standards of accountability to the notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy here.
Nice, eh wot? They’re getting rid of the good guys. Yea, Victory!!!
The Status of Forces Agreement, now before the Iraqi parliament, states the U.S. will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. While this agreement was being negotiated, the U.S. knew the Maliki government was dismantling the anti-corruption offices. We’re leaving a “notoriously opaque and graft-ridden bureaucracy” in place.
So we preemptively invaded Iraq to depose a tyrant, and what will we be leaving in his place? What will this “victory” accomplish?
The next time the American public votes into office, a guy, or gal, with whom they feel comfortable enough to “have a beer with,” one hopes that there will be time to think and
Trust, but verify.
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