Yes, I am a few days late… I wanted to get those other two post out, and the next few.. in the order I originally thought of them… to catch up as it were… so that of course means several posts are being posted days after they were relevant, and after many others have also said things, so they just don’t have the same oompf as if I’d posted them the instant I thought of them, which I probably should have done. For instance, I started reading the Iraq report the hour it was released, and thought of what I was going to say here that same hour, but just didn’t post it, until now, days later, when it is stupid, but what the hell, I’ll post it anyway, even though at this point many people have said similar things. Too bad, I’ll say it anyway.

Anyway… I have not read the whole report. I wanted to do so the day it came out, but then I had other things to do both at work and at home, so I didn’t. But even just starting, even on the very first pages, was a quote that told you everything you had to know. From the Executive Summary:

What we recommend in this report demands a tremendous amount of political will and cooperation by the executive and legislative branches of the U.S. government. It demands skillful implementation. It demands unity of effort by government agencies. And its success depends on the unity of the American people in a time of political polarization. Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy. Yet U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure—as is any course of action in Iraq—if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus.

And that ladies and gentlemen is all you have to know. Because if that is what is required, then the rest of the report is completely irrelevant. They just stated up front that it is impossible in the current climate to do what would in their opinion need to be done. There is no consensus. There will be no consensus in the near future. Any plan that requires it is nothing but a futile intellectual exercise. Let alone “skillful implementation”. Ha! We’re done here. No need to read any more of the report.