The Condi-nental

Our Secretary of State decided to pay a surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday. I know this is confusing, because that's today here in America, but she was there on our yesterday...Try to keep up.

Here's a photo of her next to a conveniently-placed guy in a turban:



Thank Allah they had that photo, or I wouldn't have believed it. "Hell no, Condi wouldn't go to Iraq right now. It's too dangerous and...Oh, they have a photo of her, and there's a mustacheod guy in the background with some silly pink shit on his head? Okay, I guess it's legit."

This is one of those things that makes me go..."What is the point of this story?" Why did they feel the need for an Iraqi "things are moving ahead nicely" PR event at this moment? It kind of makes me paranoid, like something really bad is about to happen and this is a bit of pre-emptory damage control. I mean, check out this "news" article:

"Obviously there is a security situation ... I want and have wanted to go to Iraq at the right time, and the right time is when they had a new government," Rice said en route to this town in Kurdish northern Iraq.

The town is Salahuddin, in Kurdish Northern Iraq, although she did go down to Baghdad for some meetings later in the day.

But my point is, there's no real story here. She went to Iraq for one day, which isn't really enough time to get anything done. I mean, you can stop by and say hello, but if you really want to see all the sites, and go on every cool ride, you've got to plan for at least three days in Baghdad alone. And you'll still miss Tikrit's legendarily wild nightlife.

I mean, that whole long trip just for one day. You just get off the plane and then you've got to turn around and get right back on it. I hope that gives them enough time to change up the in-flight movie, because I'm not sure even the most tolerant and graceful diplomat's willing to endure Spanglish on two consecutive trans-continental flights.

Rice said she wanted to discuss the new government's upcoming tasks including writing a constitution, as well as addressing the country's security and infrastructure needs.

Rice told reporters the August deadline to write a federal constitution was imposed by the Iraqis, not the United States. The continuing political situation and security challenges in Baghdad have complicated the process and some in the Iraqi government now say that deadline may not be realistic.

Yeah, it does kind of complicate the whole Constitution situation when there are lots of people running around in the streets trying to kill all the politicians, police officers and soldiers. I mean, the deadline of August "may" not be realistic for Iraq to draft a new government? Most of them don't have electricity yet, okay? Running water's still a problem, let alone what truths everyone holds to be self-evident. (Yes, I know that's the Declaration of Independence, but it's just a joke.) Let's just slow the hell down. First, try to stop blowing yourselves up. Then worry about gerrymandering.

I purposefully wrote that last sentence so that, should someone Google "gerrymandering," they may mistakenly wind up at this blog post, which actually has nothing at all to do with gerrymandering.

I will admit, it wasn't all complete and total horseshit from Rice.

"Yes, the insurgency is very violent, but you can beat insurgencies not just militarily," Rice told reporters. "You can beat them having a political alternative that is strong," and in which all Iraqis are invested, Rice said.

I mean, I don't agree that this is what's happening currently in Iraq, but theoretically, Condi's right here. I do think that the better way to put down this insurgency would be getting our military the hell out of Dodge and letting the Iraqis figure it out without our direct, overt, visible intervention. (I say direct because we'll obviously have to have a presence in Iraq for a while. I was against the war to begin with, but now that we've blown the whole place to hell, brought down the government and killed a fuckload of poeple, we've got to help figure out a solution.)

I'm not sure how Iraqis feel about democracy, but I'm sure whatever their favored system of government, they'd prefer Iraqis calling the shots to vile heathen white American devils, you know? And I'd just as soon let them have their country. We don't need it. We have plenty of anti-Semetic ultra-religious assholes with moustaches right here at home.