Who Could Have Imagined?

Who could have imagined that someone would hijack jetliners and fly them into buildings?

Who could have imagined that the New Orleans levees would fail?

Anyone with a functioning brain and basic reading skills, that’s who. 

Not long from now, in the aftermath of their latest failure to comprehend the mysteries of cause and effect in the reality-based world, we’ll probably be hearing the same BushCo shitheads proclaiming, “who could have imagined that The Most Dangerous Damn in the World would collapse?”

Not that anyone in that criminal administration gives a damn, but: 

The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.

Serious danger.  A trillion-gallon wave of water.  The deaths of thousands of innocent people.  Fortunately, we can rest assured that the best minds in the Bush Administration are on top of this, are heeding this warning, and are taking immediate action to prevent catastrophe.

Wait.  I forgot.  They’re too busy plotting the annihilation of Iran and demonizing 7th graders to bother with a minor problem like a trillion gallon flood surging across northern Iraq to bury 500,000 temporarily alive Iraqis under 65 feet of water: 

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. “The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability,” in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

Have no fear Iraqis, your Liberator has useful experience with disaster prevention and relief, and knows just what to do:

Steve Benen at C&L observes: 

Iraqi and U.S. officials realize how serious the situation is, but have decided not to tell Iraqis, for fear of scaring them. I’m not an expert on such matters, but if a trillion-gallon wave of water may burst through an unsafe dam and put much of Mosul under 20 meters of water, shouldn’t the Iraqi citizens be frightened? Maybe if these citizens knew, the problem may be more likely to get fixed in a hurry?

Steve, Steve, Steve, you should realize by now that BushCo never resorts to fearmongering, except when fear is unwarranted.  Besides, if everyone in northern Iraq is dead, the Turks won’t invade and fuck up all of this magnificent progress the Iraqi people are making, thanks to the brilliant strategerizing of the Commander Guy and the casual strolling of our highly paid troops and troopettes through that Wonderland of Democracy that used to be such a sinister wasteland of mass graves and tyranny. 

I’d close by noting that it’s Halloween in America, but every day has been Halloween in America ever since January 20, 2001.