Abu Ghraib
I am saddened and sickened by the news from Abu Ghraib (scroll down to "Appalling" if the permalink isn't working). I realize that between the news from Virginia, Sinclair Broadcasting Group's craven show of disrespect for our troops, and some singularly awful news from one of the brightest and funniest people on my friends list, this has been lost
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Yeah. I'm a bit more hawkish, but I come from the Realist "Was is an instrument of national policy" school. Hawkishness, is inherently neither good nor bad, except how it's tied to a coherent national policy. Hawkishness, for hawkishness' sake, which is where the administration appears to be at, is disastrous.
I have no clue what we do now that we're into this.
Neither do I. On the one hand, we've staked a lot on completing this endeavor and it would be an embarassement to quit, and to fail, and would continue to have dire consequences for out long-term security. But, it's a sunk cost - you don't keep investing because you've already paid a lot - you measure the cost of future investment against what you expect it to be worth. And this might not be worth it.
For the most part, we've already blown our chance to get meaningful, international military support beyond what we have. There were a lot of countries on the fence to begin with because most people in the world didn't want the war - and the Admin decided not to use any honey to woo them. It's probably not going to work now.
The administration has made a mess of the war, and creating a failed state and breeding ground for new Anti-American hostility hasn't helped our security picture. And fighting a war while lowering taxes while you're at it, doesn't really help the fiscal situation of our government either.
I'm at a loss for policy options right now.
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