Who lost the war?

So we hear from the brownshirts that us liberals are responsible for the U.S. losing the war in Iraq. How is that? They have gotten everything they have asked for. Maybe they didn't ask for 500,000 troops, because they knew they wouldn't get them. Newsflash: it wasn't just liberals who wouldn't have gone for that. No one would have.

Bush had his invasion, his surge, his 'Let's pick our ass for six months before going back to Fallujah so I can win reelection' strategy, his criminal attack on Fallujah after the election, his torture chambers in Gitmo, Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and Eastern Europe, his 'mission accomplished' party, his plastic turkey dinner, his lovey dovey 'Iraq is sovereign' note from Condi, his $40 billion profits for his oil company friends, his 'Plan for Victory', his 'Stand Up Stand Down' strategy. He wants to scoot out of town with the U.S. still in Iraq so that the blame and embarrassment go to his successor, hence the 'pause'.

Dave Lindorff points out that when the tactics shift from paying enemies to actual fighting, the result are not so good for the American and Iraqi armies:

The battle of Basra ended-at least for now--with Moqtada al-Sadr stronger than ever, his fighters still armed and in control of the city, and of their stronghold in the slums of Sadr City, Baghdad. It concluded with a cease-fire agreement-negotiated by Iraqi governmet offials who, embarrassingly, had to go hat in hand to meet al-Sadr in his headquarters in Iran--under which the Iraqi army and police must stop attacking al-Sadr's forces, as they have been doing for months, and must release members of his forces currently being held captive.

As a "defining moment," this battle, in which US forces played a significant role in directing Iraqi military actions, provided air support, and injected special forces, was the definition of a defeat.

Paying enemies to not fight seems like a good idea in comparison. The name "Awakening Councils" for the former enemies on the dole seems backwards, though; we are paying them to sleep. And why do you need 30000 extra troops for this policy? To carry the bundles of cash? This is an operation worthy of Lt. Milo Minderbinder.

Make no mistake about it, Bush is the individual responsible for this war and its losing, with copious assistance from Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gates, Powell, Rice, Lott, and Hastert, and significant aid from congressional enablers such as Joe Lieberman, John Edwards, and Mrs. Clinton. As one who opposed the war from the start and the continuing occupation without exception, I do not feel any pleasure in seeing the bad policy unfold in disaster. I feel like the Siamese Twin of Monty Python's Black Knight. But neither I nor any of the opponents of the war are responsible in anyway for causing the disaster. We only failed to stop it.