So much to write about, so little time, so little space. I’ll do the best I can. Today, while I was continuing the process of mentally digesting how President Obama should take on the unbelievable mess left to him by George W Bush, I had the opportunity to see pictures of the American Embassy in Iraq. Now, I’ve heard about this place and it bothered me that our government was building a multi-billion dollar embassy in an Arab country where at the minumum 75% of the population don’t want us there, while our troops in Iraq are being electrocuted in their quarters taking showers because of faulty work by American contractors. And when I saw this embassy, I quickly realized the chance of someone being electrocuted taking showers there are probably pretty slim. The place is bigger than the Vatican, its got fancy swimming facilities, basketball courts, and who knows what else. Nothing but the best for our diplomats – in a country that we have virtually decimated for the past 6 years. Now, isn’t that just the American way to show people what we really think of them. Do you think the American embassy will have electricity for 4 hours per day???

What bothered me even more was the report, by Thomas Ricks – the highly acclaimed author of “Fiasco” – that the senior American military personel are planning on upwards of 35,000 troops in Iraq as late as 2015. And, why would you build a multi-billion dollar embassy and then abandon it? OK, it looks like President Obama is going to have another round of trying to placate Republicans and Democrats at the same time. Let me tell you why I believe that is a bad idea.

First, nothing is more clear to me than that the Republicans want Obama to fail. I’ve written before that the only way for them to have any chance of regaining power, which is what they’re all about, is for Obama to fail. Now, everyone knows who created this terrible mess, but evidently, the Republicans think that if Obama can’t solve all the problems they created from the previous 8 years – and do it in the next 4 – then the American people will be ready for Sarah Palin. Should that happen, then I will agree with all my Christian friends that we are in the last days. Obama MUST FIGURE OUT SOON that the time to be bipartisan is after we get the wave of economic destruction imposed upon us and the rest of the world by the “trickle down” Republicans led by GW Bush for the previous two terms under control. By that, I mean unemployment figures going down instead of up, middle class income going up instead of down, and the Federal budget deficit getting smaller instead of exponentially bigger. None of this will happen if the Republicans have anything to say about it.

Furthermore, if Ricks is correct, then President Obama is soon to begin to prepare his most devout followers that the 16 month withdrawal from Iraq is not going to happen. Even if that made some Republicans happy, especially the ones profitting from our occupation, I’ll give you several reasons why that’s a bad idea – not the least of which would be Republicans calling Obama on breaking his word moreso than Democrats. They would delight in some kind of decaying of Obama’s base support, and believe me, it will happen quickly as soon as he says we’re staying in Iraq. According to Ricks, one of the main reasons the Generals are lobbying for this is because they say the “Civil War” hasn’t happened yet. I guess their thinking is that we should stay indefinitely in order to prevent it from ever happening. What they’re not taking into account is that the so-called surge didn’t accomplish any of its main goals – which all had to do with the necessary political progress allowing for the assimilation of the Sunni and Shia sects, the sharing of Oil revenues, and more. What happened is that the US armed the very Sunni insurgents who were killing Americans (the ones who were originally in Saddam’s Army and “let go” by Paul Bremer – in one of the stupider [is that a word?] moves – in the early stages of the occupation). They then paid these insurgents to “turn” on the Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia insurgents who the Americans were unable to defeat up to that point.

The Problem: There is still no Sunni/Shia reconciliation – and there very likely won’t be – and now this so-called “Awakening” is heavily armed and capable of taking on the Shia government at some time in the future. In addition to that, Moqtada al Sadr is away in Iran, preparing to return in a year or two as the Grand Ayotollah – somewhat in the same vein as the Ayotollah’s in Iran. Don’t kid yourselves, this guy has a huge following in Iraq and these people will “go to the well” for him. (In case a Republican who can’t add two plus two happens by – Sadr is a Shia Cleric, he’s not very nice, he’s still REALLY MAD at the Sunni’s, and he will have the full support of Iran when he returns – Bush’s worst nightmare) Eventually, the you know what is going to hit the fan in Iraq – whether we stay there or not. Of course the Army Generals and the leftover diplomats from the Bush era (Ryan Crocker) are going to argue otherwise. Obama would be very foolish to listen to them and turn his back on the millions of Americans who voted him into office. We’ve been trying to get our troops home from Iraq for several years now – the last two elections for sure – and Obama would be wise to fulfill this campaign promise. Can you imagine the outcry from his supporters if they have to witness more placating of Republicans because of a campaign promise and then to break this one???

And, of course, the Republicans would like nothing more than to get Obama to lose his base while trying to cozy up to them. Isn’t that what you would call the ulitimate “win-win” situation. They would get what they wanted as far as the illegal occupation of Iraq and they would bring down Obama at the same time. Now, in my heart, I believe President Obama to be smarter than that. But Thomas Ricks had it right on in “Fiasco” and he now has another book out (which of course I will be reading ASAP) which is implying maybe Obama hasn’t learned the lessons as well as we all thought. I can tell you, if he doesn’t start standing up to these Republicans, AND SOON, there is going to be a disenchantment in this nation that is unprecedented. There are many people such as myself who are feeling like “finally” we have a President who will represent the will of the people. It’s only the first month, in fact not even quite a month yet, but I’m getting a bit worried.

Bush/Cheney HAVE TO BE PROSECUTED whether Obama likes the idea or not – they’ve publically admitted to war crimes. We are still, I’m sure being wiretapped by the NSA – that needs to stop soon or Obama is going to own a piece of that disgusting legacy. The troops HAVE TO COME HOME! And sooner rather than later. Iraq is going to break out into civil war whether or not we stay there – WE SHOULD HAVE NEVER BEEN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE – And our nation is going bankrupt carrying on two wars while we can’t even take care of our own people. The true world hotspot is in Pakistan which will take every bit of Obama’s and those aroung him’s genius to figure out without some kind of huge disaster happening. I mean, Bush left things in such an unimaginable state – that it’s probably going to be too little and too late – whatever Obama does. But today, just to spite myself I think, I tried to listen to Republicans for Obama (I wrote this the other day and it’s not too clear – I didn’t mean that there are any Republicans “for Obama” – what I meant was that I would do Obama’s “dirty” work for him – and actually try to listen to some of these guys – I couldn’t handle it for more than a couple minutes. And it wasn’t just the commentators – they’ve brainwashed their listeners – the people calling the shows were about as uninformed as it gets – but they sounded as if they were very confident that what they were saying was actually true – the mantra of Republicans. They’ve told so many lies that they actually believe their own lies to be true). I was listening in order to get a better idea of the people Obama’s trying to win over. I listened as long as I could stomach it to a couple right wing radio talk shows. This one guy – his name was Lars Larson – the guy was spewing out one lie after another (I’m a teacher, he was attacking Public education – the one thing he said that I felt was the truth, he wants to see the end of all Teacher Unions – the Republican mantra since Reagan) and the other guy was Sean Hannity of Fox “News.” These guys and their audiences continue to believe that they have no culpibility in the sorry state of this nation and the world. Tonight, incredibly, I heard a former Republican house member say that he believed another eight years like the last eight years would be better than what President Obama is proposing and the people voted for. He blamed the economic nightmare on Chuck Shumer (Senator from New York) and George Saros! Really, I’m not kidding you. These guys are NUTS!! It’s like they are hoping for President Obama to fail, evidently believing they are imune from a total collapse of our nation. Obama must ignore these people. Republicans are betting their future on Obama’s (and America’s) failure!