Carry on up the Tigris

Max Boot, whose solution to every foreign policy problem is more troops --

I happened to be few miles away from the terrible bomb blasts that went off in central Baghdad on Sunday, but I first became aware of them when word spread around the conference room in the U.S. embassy, where I was being briefed.

This reminds me of what I learned long ago in Iraq: acts of violence that occur a few blocks away might as well be a world away. Once again, I learned the details from CNN, just as observers back in the U.S. did. I did not feel the roar of the explosion, nor see the smoke.

He seems blind to the irony of being "in Iraq" but learning Iraqi news from CNN. Inside the fortress that is the US Embassy.

Then there's the rest of his itinerary, for which one assumes the US taxpayer is being billed --

A few high-profile attacks — this one or the one in August — do not change the fundamental, day-to-day reality of life getting better.

I will have more to say on this in the future, but for now I have to get my body armor and head for the Black Hawks to take a trip to southern Iraq.

So this day to day reality of life getting better requires moving visiting Americans around by military helicopter.

This is delusion. Unfortunately, it's influential delusion.