A Middle Eastern "Who's On First" History Lesson

Let me get this straight.

We attacked Saddam in GW1 and then promised the Shiites that we would help them to overthrow him. Then we shrugged and said, "Nah, never mind," freeing Saddy to kill them, while the Baathist Sunnis remained in power.

Then we attacked Saddam again, killed a lot of Sunnis, and we threw the Baathists out and made friends with the Shiites who were building armies of their own, some of whom were killing our soldiers. Then we tortured a lot of Sunnis and put the Shiites in power.

Then somebody told the home office that Iran was full of Shiites who liked the idea that Iraq was going to be run by their home boys. Then the Sunnis started killing everybody, our soldiers, lots of Shiites and a few Kurds.

So then to stop the Sunnis from killing everybody, we made a place for them in the new "government," while building ourselves a palace/embassy which would enable us to stay in Iraq in perpetuity. For what reason, we've never been told.

Then the Shiites and the Sunnis decided that maybe they should concentrate on killing each other. "Oh, ok," they said, "we'll kill a few Americans, but they're not much of a factor anymore, and those Americans will probably be ok with whoever won, as long as they can hand out fat contracts to their friends and be involved in oil."

That particular civil war has been raging for several months, although the liars in government and the scaredy cats in the media alternately said, things were getting better or (at worst) things were "verging" on a civil war. Meanwhile, to anybody in Iraq, civil war was a fact of life and death.

So guess what happens then? The Shiite Hezbollah sparks a new war vs. Israel. They get their weapons from the Shiite Iranians, FWB of the Iraqi Shiites. Hezbollah also gets support from Sunni Syria. All of a sudden, it is suggested we might begin playing diplomatic footsie with Sunni Syria against Shiite Iran.

Oh, wait a minute. We're not involved in diplomacy. It's the Democrats who are suggesting that we bring Syria into line with the Saudis and Jordanians and against Iran and Hezbollah.

It's the home office which is helping fill orders for missiles and watching the price of oil rise (their version of Viagra). How much money do you think they could make with just "one more week" of carnage?

And the deaths? I can see them sitting around a table, like the representatives of the Five Families in The Godfather and hearing Cheney say, "Let them lose their souls."

So let's add this up. We set up the Shiites in Iraq. They're FWB with Iran which we might invade. The Sunnis whom we defeated in Iraq, and who have killed the bulk of the American military in Iraq and may now end up on our side in the Israel-Hezbollah war.

We have made friends of our enemies who still try to kill our men and women. We have made enemies of the guys we brought to power in Iraq and we have given Israel a blank check and a lot of death machines to kill them. And now the Iraqi Shiites just announced that they want Hezbollah to win.

Third base.

Cheney is Abbott. W is Costello. The problem is the jokes aren't funny. And the movie is out of control.

This can also be found on huffingtonpost.com