Dark Mesopotamian daze: the blowback of hubris in Iraq

Of course most of us have heard that one before. Yet that was America's stance towards Saddam and his ilk then, and remains so now. And that was that 'commie/pinko' subversive Trotskyite termite cum New Dealer FDR talking fer chrissakes, the man who in 1941 all but invited the Knights of Bushido albeit sans RSVP to bomb Pearl Harbor and fry a few thousand American service personnel on their day off!

For my own part I've seen, heard or read little in the past few years of studying closely - and reflecting upon - America's sordid, subversive, sorry-ass history and self-serving, 'play-by-our-rules-or-else' foreign policy machinations and geopolitical manipulations of the past 80+ years on the Big Blue Ball-purportedly carried out in the interests of that nebulous, movable feast known as 'national security'-to think otherwise.

It is apposite to round off ruminations with an observation from Canadian academic and author Alasdair Roberts. The following is from his book The Collapse of Fortress Bush – The Crisis of Authority in American Government, published at the fag end of the Bush era:

"...the usefulness of Iraq as a precedent for a bolder foreign policy was undone by the inability of the United States to govern the occupied territory properly. The invasion was seen as an abject failure, largely because the US [government] lacked the administrative capabilities to assure success. In important respects, the Bush administration was a prisoner of institutional constraints and policy inertia – both in its decision to go to war against Iraq and in its inability to guide its reconstruction."

So much for "snatching defeat from the jaws of victory" eh?

Unless America begins some serious soul searching and housecleaning, and stops trying to be the ROW's self appointed Police Force, Prison Guard, and Pest Controller rolled into one, it is well on the path to becoming its very own Empire of Graveyards!

Folks, here endeth the sermon. Now can I gets me that all-important, much sought after "Amen" from de choir? Or am I just preaching to the unconverted?