As it turns out, predictably so, the tussle between neocon Republicans and their kissing cousin neoliberal Democrat relatives is not about ending the “war” in Iraq but rather over how many brainwashed kids will be sent there to be shot up, killed and maimed, afflicted with “mysterious diseases” that translate into a “debilitating death sentence,” thanks to depleted uranium (see Soldiers Face Debilitating Diseases).

“[Incoming House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer] said Democrats would continue funding the existing troop levels,” reports the Associated Press. “Our objective was to remove Saddam Hussein and create an environment in which a democracy could be established. That has been done.”

In Bushzarro world, a realm populated equally by Republicans and Democrats, in order for democracy to arise, a nation must be reduced from first to third world status. “Daily living conditions in Iraq are dismal, with families suffering from intermittent water and electricity supply, chronic malnutrition among children and more illiterate young than ever before, a new report by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Iraqi Government shows,” reported the UN News Center last year. “Almost a quarter of the children between 6 months and 5 years suffer from chronic malnutrition. In a country where 39 per cent of the people are younger than 15, the young today are more illiterate than preceding generations. Young men with a high school education or better are suffering from 37 per cent unemployment.”

“Iraq boasted a modern social infrastructure with a first-class range of health-care facilities, and the Iraqi people enjoyed one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East,” Ghali Hassan wrote a few weeks later. “In 1991, there were 1,800 health-care centers in Iraq. More than a decade later, that number is almost half, and almost a third of them require major rehabilitation. Iraq had used its oil revenues, which accounted for 60% of its gross domestic product (GDP), to build a modern health-care system with large Western-style hospitals and modern technology. Iraqi medical and nursing schools attracted students from throughout the Middle East, and many Iraqi doctors were trained in Europe or the U.S.A. Primary health-care services reached about 97% of the urban population and 78% of the rural population in 1990. But the Gulf war of 1991 and more than 13 years of U.S-Britain sponsored genocidal sanctions have left the country’s economy and infrastructure in ruins.”

In order for the Bushzarro version of democracy to work, not only are hospitals to be destroyed, but the decline in health must be irreversible. “The 2003 war not only created the conditions for further health decline, but also damaged the ability of Iraqi society to reverse it,” explains Gill Reeve, deputy director of Medact, the British-based charity organization. In order to realize freedom, large numbers of Iraqis must suffer from entirely preventable diarrhea and hepatitis. “Diarrhea killed two out of every 10 children before the 1991 Gulf War and four in 10 after the war,” Hassan continues. “The study indicates that only 54 per cent of households nationwide have access to a ’safe and stable’ supply of drinking water. An estimated 722,000 Iraqis, the report also notes, rely on sources that are both unreliable and unsafe.”

Democracy also requires insufficient electricity. “Although 98 per cent of Iraqi households are connected to the electrical grid, 78 per cent of them experience “severe instability” and low quality in the service, according to the survey. One in three Iraqi families now relies on electricity generators, most of which are shared between households. In all, daily living conditions under the Occupation have deteriorated markedly.”

According to Henry Kissinger, the mission was accomplished and, really, it is silly to stick around and attempt to achieve victory, whatever that is. “I think we have to redefine the course, but I don’t believe the alternative is between military victory, as it has been defined previously, and total withdrawal,” said Heinz. “If you mean by ‘military victory’ an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don’t believe that is possible.”

Kissinger wants a conference, of sorts, to hammer out a solution to the problems in the Middle East. “He called for an international conference bringing together the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Iraq’s neighbors—including Iran—and regional powers like India and Pakistan to work out a way forward for the region,” reports the Toronto Star.

Of course, merely chatting about “a way forward for the region” will accomplish nothing if the central issue is not addressed. And what is the central issue? It’s not Bushzarro democracy. It’s the Palestinian issue, left unresolved and festering for almost sixty years. “As a Lebanese-American, I know that Lebanon can never be free until Palestine is free. The same can be said of all the countries and nationalities in the region. So the Palestinian struggle is held important not only by Arabs, but by other Middle Eastern peoples as well,” notes Joyce Chediac. Even King Abdullah of Jordan, not exactly an advocate for the Palestinians, believes “that the Palestinian problem will remain Jordan’s central issue, adding that if it remains unsolved, the region will witness more violence and tension.”

Naturally, the Jabotinsky fanatics in Israel, that is to say nearly the entire political structure of the tiny outlaw nation, and their blood brothers infesting the White House and the Pentagon, will not address the central issue of the problem, not in a month of Sundays. Ditto the Democrats, beholden to AIPAC. For as David R. Obey, ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has noted AIPAC has “pushed the Likud Party line and in the process has crowded out other voices in the Jewish community.” Indeed, it has pushed the process out of Congress entirely.