face to face with a ragged truth

In a decision that didn't surprise me in the least, Senate Republicans killed the Iraq troop withdrawal proposal with some procedural voodoo. I won't bemoan the injustice inherent in such tactics to outflank the will of the majority because I applauded their use when shoe was on the other foot. I'll choose instead to lay the blame where it deserves to be -- on the Republican senators who still cling to the dubious reeds of party unity rather than face a reality that can no longer be denied.

This line from the above linked article really bothered me:

It was a sound defeat for Democrats who say the U.S. military campaign, in its fifth year and requiring 158,000 troops, cannot tame the sectarian violence in Iraq.

I suppose, yes, technically, it is a "defeat" for the Democratic Party, although I'd consider it a defeat for America, full-stop, with graver implications than the political box score that the AP reporter presents it as. Besides, it's not so much a victory for the Republicans as a short-sighted deferral of a future day of reckoning.

The Iraq War assessment report issued last week has laid bare the fact that the ill-advised and reckless enterprise has failed on every level. Even the benchmarks that have supposedly been met were couched in so many caveats and qualifers as to have no actual subtance to mitigate the gaping failures cited elsewhere -- failures that are beyond the ability and resources of America to rectify. While more and more members of the public have copped on to truth, and desire a way out of the mess, the Republican establishment has decided to tie its wagon to a boat anchor and hope that the principles of mass and specific gravity might miraculously change prior to next year's elections (or that the Democrats will screw things up for themselves, as is their usual modus operandi).

Long live party unity, long live the status quo, long live the utter disavowal of empirical evidence and rational thought. If this self-deluded postponement of the inevitable comes at a great expense of blood and wealth, those borrowing those dwindling minutes can take comfort in the fact they themselves aren't picking up the tab.

The Alarm - Where Were You Hiding When the Storm Broke? (from Standards, 1990)