Billmon: Blowback

One of the more outrageous things -- among many -- about the war in Iraq is the way it has become deeply entwined with the Republican Party's war for political hegemony at home, thanks to the Bush administration's unabashed belief in the slogan of every successful political machine: "To the victors go the spoils."

Considering how the war in Iraq is going we could perrhaps amend that to read: To the losers go the spoils. But the principle, or rather utter lack of principles, remains the same.

We saw this in the staffing of the occupation authority in Baghdad with GOP hacks and the sons and daughters of the conservative apparat, and even more spectacularly (not to mention obscenely) in the Pentagon's various contracts with Halliburton.