Look at the Great Middle East and we see nothing but kettles boiling slowly or boiling over, between Iraq and Syria, Turkey and Syria and Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iran and Iraq, Iran and Turkey, Iran and the Stans, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and those around the Caspian Sea, Egypt and everyone else, including Libya, Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Qatar and Yemen and SA, Hashemites against House of Saud, over border territories, water supplies, oil reserves, defense perimeters, tribal distribution, Islamic leanings, and more.

These are not the legacies of colonialism, they’re the consequences of absolutism, dictatorships, seedy and decrepit monarchies and the bloody-minded religious extrapolations that justify the killing and torture. Leave Iraq? We’ll only back, as long as we need oil

Via Bros. Judd:

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/1998/04/30/american_leftists_were_pol_pots_cheerleaders/

American leftists were Pol Pot’s cheerleaders
By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | April 30, 1998

Nope, history won’t be any guide, markus.

If we were a more serious country, with a less dysfunctional political system and a better educated citizenry and a less patronizing political elite, we would be having this discussion, rather than idiotic debates about which party wants to cut off funding for soldiers in the field, and whether we want to fight radical Islamists in the streets of Baghdad or the steets of Topeka.

I believed in the Powell dictum of “you break it, you own it” until very recently. The counterargument is that the presence of American troops in Iraq acts as a disincentive for the various warring factions in the country, and the various nations surrounding Iraq, to engage in serious negotiations over how best to live together. Far easier to take pot shots at each other when you have a giant Goliath trying to referree a civil war.

I admit there are strong arguments on both sides, and I wish everyone would admit that NO ONE knows the consequences of withdrawal. We DO have a much better idea what the consequences of non-withdrawal are — MORE OF THE SAME. Could things get worse than more of the same? Perhaps they could.

Hopefully, when we discuss the supplemental appropriations bill, we will have this debate, rather than the posturing we saw in Congress this past week.

My understanding of radical Islamism? It’s a diverse movement, with many internal rivalries, and a few commonalities: it’s reactionary (against modernism, secularism, and Zionism); largely defensive (wants non-Muslims and secular Muslims out of the Middle East, rather than trying to conquer Amsterdamistan); new and even faddish (it was politically marginalized among most Muslims until quite recently); and greatly encouraged by American foreign policy in the Middle East.

Even if Murtha didn’t break the law, he is just plain scummy bragging about his influence, going to the ballgame with the President and Tip O’Neil etc.

Ugh.

The concern at The WaPo is that Murtha and Pelosi will damage their party. Snort.