Location, Location, Location....

Since when did a ghetto become a "gated community?" Just heard a report on NPR's Morning Edition about a 12 foot high concrete wall that the US military is constructing around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad. And something snapped in my brain...like the last straw that broke the camel's back. Just like that. We've lost this war in Iraq...actually lost it years ago, on the day that looters ransacked the National Museum of Antiquities, but if attempting to wall in an entire ethnic/religious neighborhood in a futile effort to control the insurgency doesn't somehow represent a "tipping point..." well, to quote Mr. Lincoln "I tremble for my country when I remember that God is just."

I've never been a supporter of this war. Felt right from the get-go that it was a bad idea, both strategically and on general principles. Suspected even before the shooting started that all this talk about WMDs was simply a smoke screen to justify pursuing Dubya's personal vendetta against Saddam. But like any patriotic American, once our soldiers were in harm's way I wanted to support them as best I could, even if I didn't agree with the mission they'd been asked to perform. And I also felt the moral obligation of Colin Powell's "Pottery Barn rule" -- that once we'd broken it we were responsible for fixing it.

But this is just too much. After Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. After legalized torture (which we're told isn't really torture) and the creation of "special military tribunals" beyond the jurisdiction of normal judicial review. After the Patriot Act, and Blackwater, and...it's just too much... We can't win the War on Terror by becoming more terrible than the terrorists. It's a losing proposition, no matter which way you look at it. And more to the point, it's EXACTLY what bin Laden and his cronies have been counting on all along. We'd be better off simply stashing Bush at the bottom of a "hidey hole" in Baghdad, armed with Saddam's captured pistol and a big bag of cash. Or sending Dick Cheney and his shotgun to Afghanistan.

Our current strategy for defeating "terrorism of global reach" is failing. Has failed. We need to come up with a better plan, and quickly. Not to mention better leaders to carry it out....