Hiatus.

I took a nice, long break from blogging here about the increasingly discouraging war, and the impact it had not just in Iraq, but also here in the U.S.

When last I wrote, there was great excitement about the change in the balance of political power in the U.S., and anticipation that many of the wrongs that had been done in recent times would be undone in short order, including (of course) a dramatic change in course of U.S. policy in Iraq.

That hasn't happened. It seems that many people who had hung their stars on the political winds no longer admit that they had ever dreamed so big.

The lack of political effect does manage to be surprising, if only because poll after poll in the U.S. has shown ever increasing opposition to the continuation of the current war (and opposition to the start of any new wars, a menu of which is continually floated before us). However, the Democrats may be more perceptive than I am in one particular regard: Americans are firmly against the war, but primarily because the U.S. is losing, not because of ethical factors or differing geopolitical priorities. If this is the case (and I fear it is), how do you exert the political will of people who elected you who are mostly sore about losing, when you've already realized that the war is fundamentally unwinnable?

This riddle has tied up too many otherwise useful minds, and kept them from doing the obvious: ending the disaster.

And so, years into this, the U.S. finds itself in much the same place it had been, only more so, and with a frustrated public along for the ride that, at one point, many claimed they thought was a swell idea. And so the American people, the Iraqi people, and a lot of people around both are suffering from the lack of vision that started all of this.

War resistors still aren't openly discussed in the corporate media, but they are there. 28 arrested in San Francisco as Ltd. Watada faces pre-trial hearing in Ft. Lewis, WA. : Indybay (indybay.org): "Lt. Ehren Watada, the first U.S. commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq, is being courtmartialed."

It will be interesting to see at what point the tide in the military will turn, as we approach yet another anniversary of the beginning of this particular war. War resistors have always existed, but they complicate the historical picture: it is one thing to say that "everyone" supported a war, or "everyone" believed the propaganda that led to an invasion, or even that "everyone" had no choice but to obey orders and do as they were told. War resistors prove that isn't true.

High speed, frontier justice. I don't think I know anyone who believed that Saddam Hussein would not be found guilty of any and all crimes that he has been accused of by the strange Iraqi court that has been set up under U.S. occupation. It also seemed very, very likely that the past rosy relationship between Hussein and various U.S. historical governments was an embarrassment - aiding Iraq with chemical weapons and other behaviors of which the US was not proud - and that many in the US who had a relationship with the dictator in the past would like to see him executed. Just the same, it was a surprise as to how quickly the ex-despot met his end in the gallows on the eve of an Islamic holy period.

Before Hanging, a Push for Revenge and a Push Back - New York Times (nytimes.com, 1/07/06). The execution seemed abrupt and hastily thrown together, and a smuggled in camera recorded the event made the event seem especially... how to put it. Ill planned? Vengeful? Old west?

Even before a smuggled cellphone camera recording revealed the derision Mr. Hussein faced on the gallows, the hanging had become a metaphor, among Mr. Maliki's critics, for how the "new Iraq" is starting to resemble the repressive, vengeful place it was under Mr. Hussein, albeit in a paler shade.

Americans, always looking for an end to an ugly chapter, are eager to count this as a positive outcome in an otherwise untenable post-invasion situation.

U.S. Toll In Iraq Reaches 3,000 (washingtonpost.com, 12/31/06).