The New Road

Frontline: Gangs of Iraq

As usual Frontline is doing some amazing work reporting in Iraq. This most recent one, "Gangs of Iraq" is excellent.

If you don't want to watch the whole thing I recommend just watching part six. In it you see our soldiers treating the trained Iraqi militia like idiots. While all the while the militia guys are talking behind their backs. In one scene they find a weapons cache and blow it up. But the Iraqis are caught on film talking about how it's just a small cache and that they know where bigger ones are, and they don't tell us.

Part five is also great. It shows Iraqi politicians talking about how torture isn't bad and it's done all around the world.

We are being played. Right wingers like to talk about how they are 'liberals who were mugged by reality'. Who are the ones getting mugged by reality right now? Iraq was never going to be anything other than what it is. The insane idea that we could turn it into a free market utopia should be clearly crushed by now.

From what I can see the left has always had a very clear idea about exactly what the reality was in Iraq, and what the consequences were and are. And they are right now when they say that the war is lost and that we need to get out of there.