While I agree that putting Iraqis to work while they are being shot at by their insurgent countrymen is a difficult situation at best. However, there are two aspects of that situation that are notable...the root cause of it, and some possible solutions to it.

The root cause of the insurgency (among Iraqis) is the desperation caused by the occupation. Winning the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqis has been, and unless something changes, will continue to be a dismal and abject failure.

The occupation creates the self-perpetuating problem...so long as we are there to fight the insurgents, we will be indefinitely creating more insurgents to fight. There is no "exit strategy" or "final victory" to be had in such a context, at least not one that makes any sense whatsoever.

(The only one, which is nonsensical, is to keep killing Iraqis until there aren't any Iraqis left...now that would be some liberation!)

As for the imported insurgents, they, too, will keep coming as long as we are there...again, the occupation causes their growth and anger, and treating the symptom of the insurgency, without going straight to the illness of the occupation, will end neither the insurgency nor the deaths it causes.

If the occupation were to end, then the great majority of the insurgency would end...the Bushism that the insurgents "hate our freedom" is just as ridiculous now as it was in 2001...they don't hate our freedom, they hate our oppression, and they hate not having a country, and they hate not having jobs, food, water, and all the other elements of infrastructure that make life livable.

Insurgents kill other Iraqis because they are seen as either collaborators, or unfortunate but necessary targets that make the occupation more difficult to control. Remove the occupation, and there are no more "collaborators", and there is no more occupation to target.

Despite what the Bush Administration will tell us, they aren't just running around killing people because that's what they like to do...they're doing it for an actual political reason. No occupation, and the reason evaporates.

The arrogance of this Administration and its corporate allies, not to mention greed, will not allow itself to view the problem objectively...there's always someone else to blame for the insurgency. If this Administration wasn't so beholden to its corporate cronies it might be able to admit that the occupation is the problem, not the solution...but since the occupation is the bread and butter of the corporations, and this Administration has a difficult time admitting any errors in judgment or execution whatsoever, even when they are obvious and massive...well, here we are. Stalemate.

We keep killin' 'em, and they keep a'comin'...and winning the hearts and minds by killing all the bodies that hold the hearts and minds is ridiculous on all levels except the corporate contract level. They make out like the bandits they are.

The purple finger crowd does indeed deserve better, but they aren't going to get it from us. Thanks to us, they haven't really voted for anything yet...they have a leadership not of their choosing, they have laws not of their choosing, and they have a Constitution written by us that they haven't even seen.

More on that Constitution...not only does it pretty much just incorporate the Bremer Orders, and not only did enough copies of it get printed to distribute to less than a third of the citizenry, but the few that were printed were handed out just days before the vote, and significant changes were made in the interim, and none of those were even made public, much less distributed to the voters.

The "purple finger crowd" deserves much more than what we have given them...and the unfortunate outlook is that they aren't likely to see anything but "worse" in the foreseeable future. So far they've got the same from us as the got from Saddam..."Here's the ballot, cast your vote by checking here".

Those who are buried in mass graves sure aren't any better off now than they were before we ousted Saddam...they were already dead. The tens of thousands dead since might have some issues with the "betterment" of their society, though.

Fish on...

Todd