Why I agree with George Bush
(That's right, Scott.)

In a recent CBS interview, McCain said:

When we left Vietnam, there wasn't a fear that the Vietnamese would come after us. If we fail in Iraq, it will be cataclysmic. You'll see factionalization and eventual Muslim extremism and terrorist breeding grounds that would, I believe, pose a direct threat to the security of the United States.

Our beloved leader keeps pushing his "stay the course" rhetoric on us - louder and louder as the "get out of Iraq now" cries notch up. For the reason that McCain stated above, I agree with Mr. Bush. We can't just pull out of this petri dish for terrorism that we've created, because it will most certainly come back to bite us in the ass.

Now, I want to be clear about something: This is where my agreement with Bush (and McCain) ends.

We need to stay the course, but it needs to be a different course than we're on, and a different course than any one the Bush Administration has pursued.

We need to stop the war profiteering.

We need to focus more efforts on getting electricity, water and sewage systems back up to at least where they were under Saddam.

We need to acknowledge the administration's larger role in the torture and murder scandals -- especially where we've admitted that the victims were innocent. We need to punish those responsible. We need to offer restitution. True, we're not as bad as Saddam. But "not as bad as Saddam" is not an appropriate benchmark for the United States.

We need to spend the money to properly arm and armor our troops.

We need to listen to our military experts when they say our troop strength should be better.

We need to remove the Iraqi military and police trainees from their country, train them, and the re-insert them.

We need to incent the Sunnis through soft power (diplomatic and economic means) to be an active part of the democratic process, and we need to incent the Shiites and Kurds to allow that to happen.

We need to take a more active role in fixing the Palestinian situation.

Right now, we are doing exactly the opposite of these things, repeatedly and belligerently. And it looks to me (and to a hell of a lot of other people) that the Administration is purposely exacerbating the situation so that they can (a) reap personal gains, and (b) strengthen U.S. hegemony in the region.