Why Do We Fight? Whom Do We Fight Is a Better Question

If I were an American soldier in Iraq I don’t think I’d know exactly who to shoot. Which side am I on? I guess I would shoot at whoever is shooting at me, but who isn’t shooting?
Is everybody who isn’t a Kurd my enemy?
We’ve got the Shia armies (conveniently called “militias” in our media—making them sound somewhat less like a military force and more like a police department). We’ve got the Sunnis and the remains of Saddam’s army. We’ve got Al Qaeda. They’re all fighting and the American soldiers are somewhere in the middle of it.
Do we protect the Shias from the Sunnis? The Sunnis from the Shia? Everybody from Al Qaeda? The Kurds from everybody including the Turks? Or do we just guard the American bureaucrats and the cash they brought with them and try not to get blown up while driving around?
The Bush administration been unsuccessful at everything it has tried in Iraq with the exception putting their hands in our pockets, taking out our money and handing it over to their friends with a smile. Oh, and bankrupting America. Why is it a surprise that thousands of FEMA-bought house trailers sit empty in a field in Arkansas. I could go on and on.
The tide is rising against the Republicans. Even the weaknesses of the Democrats may not be able to stem it.
The problem is that when faced with defeat, despots often destroy everything they are able. What we can look for in the remaining years of this administration is too awful to imagine. And every time one tries to imagine, the next day’s headlines prove our nightmares to be real.
There’s no place for the American military in Iraq’s civil war. There’s no place for them in Iraq, period. They are there to protect what?
I wonder if Bush found out about the escalation in the Iraq civil war by seeing it on TV, like he found out about the UAE port deal?
These are the dark ages and there’s no escape. Fifty Daily Shows won’t make this funny.

This also appears on huffingonpost.com