Iraq is the nightmare version of Alice’s surreal Rabbit Hole.
There’s blood on the walls.

(Illustration was found here).

When Decider George invaded Iraq in 2003 — carried out over the bodies of US GIs and countless numbers of Iraqi civilians — it was because Saddam Hussein was such a nasty sonofabitch and a threat to world peace.
As it has turned out, Decider George was/is the real nasty sonofabitch and the real threat to world peace.

Alan Greenspan, that grand OLD financial wizard, who this week is being grilled (and squirming) on Capitol Hill about the current Wall Street meltdown, earlier this year told a little bit of the truth when he said the reason for the Iraqi war was/is all about the oil.
And now with all the oil going elsewhere, Iraq is still Iraq — an endless, never-ending hell hole.

One of the best sites on the Internets for current affairs is TomDispatch and today posted a searing analysis on the horror of Iraq as a worse-than-failed enterprise.
TomDispatch regular Michael Schwartz compiles a short essay off his current book, War Without End: The Iraq War in Context and paints an ugly picture of the reality of Decider George’s decision to invade.
The entire post can be found here.
A few snippets:

• By the time Bremer left Iraq in the spring of 2004, the inhabitants of many cities faced 60% unemployment.
  Meanwhile, the country’s agriculture, a key component of its economy, was also victimized by the dismantling of government establishments and services.
  The lush farming areas between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers suffered badly.
  The once-thriving date palm industry was a typical casualty. It suffered deadly infestations of pests when the occupation eliminated a government-run insecticide spraying program.
  Even oil refinery-based industrial towns like Baiji became cities of slums when plants devoted to non-petroleum activities were shuttered.
  …
  The dwindling central government presence made schools inviting arenas for sectarian conflict, with administrators, teachers, and especially college professors removed, kidnapped, or assassinated for ideological reasons.
  This, in turn, stimulated a mass exodus of teachers, intellectuals, and scientists from the country, removing precious human capital essential for future reconstruction.
  …
  The Iraq that has emerged from the American invasion and occupation is now a thoroughly wrecked land, housing a largely dysfunctional society.
  More than a million Iraqis may have died; millions have fled their homes; many millions of others have been scarred by war, insurgency and counterinsurgency operations, extreme sectarian violence, and soaring levels of common criminality.
  Education and medical systems have essentially collapsed and, even today, with every kind of violence in decline, Iraq remains one of the most dangerous societies on earth.

Decider George has the touch of an anti-Midas and has created a deep, swallowing suck hole in the very midst of the Middle East.
And from the worse president in US history to the worse candidate for the Oval office — this sweet, SNL skit from last night tells it all.
See it here via HuffPost.

Alice would be scared shitless.