Four candles.

It's been four years since the invasion of Iraq - four flaming candles on that bitter cake. (Make a wish!) Dubya, Cheney, and Rumsfeld's "six days, six weeks... I doubt six months" war is now nearly old enough to attend kindergarten. How fast these little catastrophes grow up... my word! Seems like only yesterday we were stoking the furnace of martial fury, seldom very far below the surface of American life. Cheney and his "there can be no doubt" speech about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction; Bush's yellowcake uranium scare and "mission accomplished" fan dance; Powell's "slam-dunk" case before the U.N.; Condi Rice's certainty about the sole utility of those bloody aluminum tubes. I can see them all scrolling by like tired old hits on a K-Tel "Sounds of the Seventies" collection. (Right up there with Billy, Don't Be A Hero.) Now, some 48 months later, you would think by listening to our leading politicians that America's entry into Iraq was the result of some involuntary process, like an extraordinary rendition. In the land of "the mother of all battles", Operation Iraqi Fiefdom is surely the most motherless of all battles.

Still, these deadbeat dads and moms all seem to have their own ideas about how this little four year old should be brought up, and most of them involve having other people's sons and daughters remain on Iraqi soil for a good long time. They are virtually all talking about some kind of "victory" and a Nixonian "peace with honor" - the peace of the grave, though invariably someone else's grave. And as I mentioned last week, all but the most principled of congress members appear convinced that the Pentagon is incapable of withdrawing troops from a war zone in a safe and orderly fashion when so directed. If we follow this logic to its conclusion, they're saying our troops can never leave Iraq, because to do so is just too damn dangerous. Of course, a long-term U.S. military presence doesn't comport well with what we know of Iraqi public opinion, which overwhelmingly - something like 70 - 80% - favors our rapid departure. You'd never know it, listening to the Iraq war debate over here. I guess those Iraqis are just supposed to accept the blame for this disaster and keep their mouths shut.

We're like a nuclear Rome, except somewhat less subtle. I heard a report on NPR about the U.S. takeover of a key bridge in Diyala province, where Sunni insurgents have held sway. There were the usual horror stories - probably true - about Al Qaeda types committing public execution and intimidating the locals. Of course, when the U.S. troops arrived, they took over a group of houses near the bridge, displacing the owners with a promise of compensation. Much of the report is taken up with an Army lieutenant telling Iraqis that, no, he didn't have their money and that "we don't come into town with a trunk of money to hand people cash for the things that have happened." He was later heard impatiently turning away Iraqi soldiers who hadn't been paid in god knows how long and who were complaining about 12 hour duty shifts with no salary, directing them to their dysfunctional government. I've seen similar stories over the past week or two - Iraqis being sent out into some very uncertain streets. This is how we made friends in Fallujah... and in the Mekong Delta, come to think of it. There it took us more than ten years to leave. So far, in Iraq, it's four.

Rachel. Another grim anniversary. Four years since young Rachel Corrie was killed while doing what we all should be doing - stopping an out-of-control Israeli government from bulldozing Palestinian neighborhoods in the occupied territories (while collecting billions from us each year). Not forgotten.

luv u,

jp