I think Bush shaves his eyebrows, Lobot.

I worked for a few months as a metallurgist, right out of college, and every time I told someone my job title, I'd get the puppydog-head-tilt, like "wuh?"

I can't wait to send this to all my W loving friends & family. (I live in goddamn MO, what am I supposed to do?)

I have a feeling a lot of them would give the puppydog-head-tilt @ "metallurgist" too. And "Brezhnev", for that matter.

Too bad they never asked who would go broke second.

That link is *excellent*. I'll have to slog it later. Thanks!

How are we defining a loss, here? Saddam displaced (yeah he was America's buddy in teh past but he was an identified target before invasion) American troops all over the place, shooting people up (to expend some of that munitions stockpile and justify their inflated budget), American contractors everywhere making a damn fortune.

I think he won that one.

I honestly don't think anyone could call what happened and is currently STILL happening in Iraq a "win" or a "loss".

A quagmire, maybe. A disaster, sure. A mess? Seems pretty accurate. A massive money pit where our political leaders openly lied to get us into? Why not!

What cannot be said, however is that we've "won" or "lost". Because neither work in this situation. And we likely will never truly be able to define what we were in this conflict, no matter how many years we distance ourselves from it, no matter when our troops can finally pull out. It, frankly, solved very little, and has likely solidified us as the Big Evil to the Middle East. But it also dethroned a rather cruel dictator. Unlike WW1 or WWII I doubt we will ever see a clear victor in this "war"- most likely because the enemy here, outside Saddam, was an idea. A form of Guerrilla Military Tactic. We were fighting Terrorism. And how, exactly, can you label yourself the loser or victor against an idea that is easily taken up by someone new the minute previous practitioners are silenced?

"The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, The Politburo and the Council of Ministers of the USSR announce with deep regret that, this morning, after a protracted illness and without regaining consciousness, Comrade Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev returned to work."