As my brother said, "We shouldn't be dropping bombs. We should be dropping hot tubs and six packs."

I'm of the "You broke it, you bought it," too, just like Loc. We were lied to in order to get us into the war, but we went more-or-less willingly, as a country. Before we went in, the country was ruled by a vicious dictator, who would kill anyone who stood against him. That resulted in tens of thousands of deaths.

But, the country was stable. Sunnis were marrying Shiites. Women could go to college, and didn't have to go around covered up. Iraq was the most secular country in the middle east, and becoming more so all the time. Water and electricity were readily available, and people could walk down the street without worrying about being shot either by an invading force, or by one of their own countrymen.

Now Baghdad doesn't have regular electricity. There isn't sufficient potable water. The death toll over the last five years is an order of magnitude greater than all of Hussein's regime. The quality of life for the living is atrocious. Mosques and markets are blown up regularly.

There is no solution. None. We won't be able to rebuild until their civil war is over. Our presence is exacerbating the problem, giving the resistance a rallying point. Their government isn't moving towards democracy -- it's in the middle of anarchy, and sliding into chaos.

Here's what I think we should do, from the standpoint of what's best for Iraq:

We should pull out, and put all our forces guarding the oil wells. Stop all oil production. The oil belongs to Iraq, after all. Tell the Iraqis that they can have their oil back once they've put a stable government in place, *any* stable government, someone to whom we can hand the keys to the oil fields.

Provide scholarships to American universities to those who were going to university in Iraq, so they can continue their education while their country stabilizes. This has the added benefit of exposing them to US culture, which isn't bad, aside from the fact we're uber-conservative assholes. Hire hookers to make sure they fall in love with American culture. Then send them back home. Their scholarships are contingent on them going back to Iraq to help rebuild.

Then we should drop hot tubs and six packs.

That's just a quick, off-the-top-of-my-head idea. I'm just making shit up, but somebody's gotta do something. We're not winning in Iraq, unless by "winning" you mean, totally fucking everything and everyone up.