I tend to find Atrios a bit negative on most things, but his post today on the Iraq war seems about right. There really is no way to “fix” this without a change in the country’s priorities. As the rhetoric is now, the only reason we continue to spend the massive amounts we do on the war is because we’re “supporting the troops.” There really hasn’t been the kind of appetite needed to sustain a large-scale foreign aid package on the same order of magnitude as the war funding, nor are we likely to do something like that without continuing to prefer the U.S. contractors who are doing such a great job at overcharging us right now.

That’s why I end up supporting redeployment plans that pull the troops out faster than slower. Keeping troops in Iraq at these levels simply isn’t helping, the surge itself is folly, and no intermediate plan will happen while this President is in office. The best we can do is redeploy now and then work on convincing the American people that the way to fix this mess is to fund reconstruction in Iraq with an open contracting process that respects local needs as much as it does our own foreign policy interests.

Every time I think of this, by the way, I think of what Rep. Ron Paul said during the debate that go Rudy to pounce on him. We need to face the fact that foreign policy choices lead to consequences, and that terrorists don’t “hate our freedom.” They are responding to decades of short-sighted foreign policy and either perceived or real slights.

Think about some of the stupidity displayed just planning and executing this war. The latest examples just boggle the mind. The litany of errors and the sheer naiveté shown in planning this war will have consequences. To say otherwise is being dishonest.