The Hurricane Exit Strategy:
At some point here, some wise, ambitious, and none-too-cynical member of Congress, perhaps Chuck Hagel, perhaps Russ Feingold, needs to say the obvious: Hurricane Katrina offers the ultimate exit strategy from Iraq. What other excuse need there be to pull vast numbers of troops and billions of dollars out of our overseas failure?
The patently absurd waste of billions of dollars will be brought to light by the suffering along the Gulf Coast. A couple of months from now, whenever some worthless, stupid right-wing fuck puppet declares that the U.S. has built schools in Basra, it'll simply be a reminder of how much faster things could have been done in Biloxi if all those funds and all that personnel were readily available.
Instead, a brave politician can step forth and offer a resolution about the magnitude of the disaster being nearly unprecedented in U.S. history and that a nation needs to take care of its own before it secures another country. (If he/she wants, he/she can even say that it's a homeland security measure because, with all the attention being paid to Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, the country is wide open to attack.)
The exit strategy works on so many levels: it's actually a graceful way to pull out of Iraq. We're not cuttin' and runnin'. We need the troops back home. And even bloated hogfuckers in Congress and the Administration, who wanna keep the government largesse in the pockets of Halliburton and other companies, can get on board. Fuck, get private contractors to take care of various and sundry shit along the way. Move the whole goddamn "rebuilding" operation to the southeast U.S. They need bridges, infrastructure, water, food, shelter.
Sure, some will say that the sponsoring members of Congress are opportunists, that they're kicking the President when the nation is down, but such courage from a politician, such logic in the face of disasters here and abroad, will be hailed by the majority of Americans, inundated with images of suffering, trees down, high-flying rescues, and Superdome holes.
For, yes, and it can be said, right now we are facing a choice in this America, where the Bush administration has looted the Treasury as surely as any desperate parent or disgusting opportunist running through the Walgreen's on Canal Street in New Orleans, leaving the coffers as empty as the diaper shelves and the pharmacies: Iraq or the U.S. South?
And those who say we can do both do not comprehend exactly what has happened down by the Gulf of Mexico. We haven't even begun to see the poisoning done by the toxic gumbo that now covers New Orleans. Besides, we couldn't even do Iraq's reconstruction right. Now we can do both badly or try to do one well.
Probably not, though. For, if there's anything we know about this Republican government, if there's a way to exacerbate a fuck-up into a mighty fuck-up, they'll do it.
