Horrible cure for insomnia: Defence Appropration discussions. Garunteed nightmares after connecting a few dots.
It seems that since everyone on the ground had finally figured out that there is no way to defeat the insurgency by shooting people (shooting an insurgent just creates more insurgents) the Bush admin and the defence department is going to look into ways to deploy our judges, lawyers and bankers.
While listening to the republicans question Rumsfeld and the joint chiefs, I think I've seen the steps they're thinking about to turn America down a dark and dismal road.
The way they are going to frame it is this. The commanders in the field and the legislators back here have finally gotten it through thier skulls that there is no way to defeat the insurgency, until the political issues in Iraq are corrected. As long as the various factions don't agree on thier constitution, and the process of creating it, there are going to be insurgents. Yes, everyone here knew that before the first shot was fired, but we're talking about repugnicans, so it took a while to sink in.
Of course what Rumsfeld and the generals are thinking, is that since the problem is political, we should deploy our beurocrats. Since Iraq's judicial, law enforcement, financial and support systems are in chaos. We should deploy judges, lawyers, police officers and accountants. They want to change policies inside the Department of Justice, the Department of the Treasury and a few other departments, so that they could deploy people to do those jobs in Iraq until the Iraqi's can do for themselves.
While at first glance, the idea of sending lawyers into combat zones sounds like a fantastic idea! There is a downside to what they are planning. Basically it would alter the most of executive branch of the government so that it could be deployed to another country on demand. Wich means America would no longer be a benign super power. We would be set up and equipped for nation building.
At the moment, it would be useful in Iraq to have that capability. The real question though is tomorrow. Do we really want a government that is set up and primed to pull the trigger on any other government in the world? Do we really want to be that much of a threat to the world?
To put it in laymans terms, they want to change the US government so that instead of being the neighbor that happens to have a shotgun in the closet, to the neighbor that sits on the porch with a loaded gun. How safe do you think the neighbors are going to feel?