Bush wins, Iraq occupation goes on, get over it.

Actually it's very simple, really. Despite Democratic wins at the ballot box back in November, and the recommendations of the so-called Iraq Study Group, chaired by Bush Family consigliari James Baker, III, President George W. Bush will do exactly whatever he wants in Iraq.

Look, Bush is probably the most ignorant, ill-informed...aww hell, he's just plain stupid...president in the country's history. But some one has been coaching Dubya on Constitutional history; undeclared wars have long been a feature of American government and a prerogative of presidents*. Add to this toxic brew of Constitutional precedent and magalomania, within the form of "our" president, the modern mainstream media, a pack of fat, pampered lapdogs, plus "bi"-partisan Democrats (Joe Lieberman) and you have the receipt for more of the same in Iraq.

Here's what I mean. In the New York Times ,"...Representative John P. Murtha of Pennsylvania...said he expected Congress to move to restrict funding for new troop deployments — or at the very least tie approval to a set of stringent conditions the White House would have to meet first.

But a couple of paragraphs down Democratic chairmen of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin, says, "...he did not believe Congress should 'use the power of the purse' to halt the president’s plan and should go no further than approving non-binding resolutions opposing it."

Got that. A U.S. Representative, the power of the federal purse resides in the U.S. House, predicts, not a cut-off but a reduction in funding for new troop deployments. What that really means is that funding for American forces in Iraq at present levels will continue, just nothing for throwing additional fresh bodies into the mix. Meanwhile across the Capitol Hall, a supposedly staunch Senatorial critic of the president says Congress should do nothing more than wag its finger at Bush.

This same article then goes on with a prescient observation by pretty-boy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley, after disclosing there already exsists a sufficient funds to carryout the presidnet's wishes of an Iraq troop increase,“I think once they get in harm’s way, Congress’s tradition is to support those troops[.]” And so they shall.

And so shall this bloody, pointless conflict will spiral down to its inevitable conclusion, whatever that may be. My best quess is that it will end in some sort of defeat of American forces concentrated in Baghdad, along the lines of Stalingrad or the Tet offensive of 1968 or the the Black Hawk Down incident of 1993. By that I mean claustrophbic, urban warfare, brutal and bloody.

But defeat in the streets of Baghdad would never prevent the United States from wandering into future ill-favored military advesntures. Our history is replete with military debacles, disasters and defeats that are transformed, through the magic of time, prejudice and propaganda, into heroic feats of arms in the face of a superior foe, usually foreign or non-White.

The best possible course to conclude the Iraq adventure would be a general mutiny by the soldiers stationed in Baghdad; a general refusal to leave their bases or pick up their weapons. I believe the majority of the American people would support a mutiny at this time since the president and political leaders of both parties have failed to admit a monumental mistake. And if Marines stationed in Iraq's Anbar province were sent in to resort order, I do not think the American public would stand for the sight of American Marines turning their weapons on American soldiers. Nor do I think the American people would support mass drumhead courts martial of mutineers.

I hold out little hope of a mutiny. Historically mutinies by disaffected troops have toppled more corrupt governments than elections, coups d'etat or revolutions combined. I don't think our troops in Iraq have the stomach for mutiny though, they don't have the guts. They'll go on griping and bitching and doing their duty of killing some people while oppressing the rest, and dying. And this thing, Iraq, will not end in a bang but a whimper and our leaders will have learned nothing.

*America's first undeclared war was the so-called Quasi-War against France during John Adams' administration. The United States Senate never officially declared war against the Confederacy.