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Unlike many here, I don't see a real solution other than forcing the Republicans to take the lead and make whichever mistake gets made.
Leaving now would help the place go up in flames, and that would be shirking our moral responsibility to fix what we broke. Staying, however, also fans the flames and there's no real hope of us restoring order. Our troops are just sniper bait and whatever patrols they do are seemingly pointless.
From a purely selfish political stance, however, if the Democrats take power and force through a "solution", it'll be seen as weak-kneed and cowardly. It's sad to sit in my comfy home office and parse the tactics by which ever more numerous people get killed and maimed, but this is truly the most important issue of the day.
Junior wanted to strut and show the world how tough we are, but in the end, we will leave with our tails between our legs and the local radicals will be proved right: we don't have the resolve; we're weak and self-indulgent. I don't think we'll actually "leave", but I do think we'll hunker in the bunkers and not try to fight among the locals; we're there for the oil and to secure Israel, so we're not going to pull out.
What a colossal bunch of epic fuckups these thugs are. By their blustering puffery, they've made us more vulnerable than we even imagine. Trying to force us into the mindset of besieged victims, they've forced us into the role of conquerers. We've failed. It will only get worse.
They need to be left in the driver's seat, or else we'll never hear the end of the carping from the reactionaries about how "we weren't allowed to win" and "we were betrayed by lily-livered traitors at home." Ever notice how the conservatives' revisionist bellyaching along these lines about Vietnam sounds like German conservatives in the 20s and 30s complaining how they were a victorious army in 1918 that got betrayed by leftists? It's the same crap all over.
There's no easy solution, and it's going to be messy and costly. The only thing that quells my disgust is my dismay.
I don't want this petty, vicious little nobody impeached, I want him called to testify before the House on the deliberate lies and distortions used to sucker us into giving him his ugly adventure. It needs to be shown how calculated and cynical the whole thing was.
As for ending the conflict, I want the Republicans to be the ones to pull the plug. Even they will get the message at some point.
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