the situation is depressing in any case!

I'm getting depressed!
I guess it's about time to just forget about Iraq. Not that I generally believe that ignoring the truth makes it any better, but once you reach the point when you can't keep up with your work, because reading news, comments and other blogs about the same situation, it's getting depressing. I can't change it, it is bloddy and it won't stop in the nearer future, but than the world has always been a bloody place, so we're just continuing the tradition. I wonder at what casulty rate the Americans will finally get out? 10 years like in Vietnam? Not a nice prospect for the Iraqis, and neither for the Americans, but they don't seem to comprehend it. They prefer being proud that they can kill more than the other side and for the moment, that seems to satify them. Well it's not exactly new, is it?
Still I don't understand why Europe only send it's foreign ministers to Arafat's burial. I mean if we are so concerned about democracy in the middle East, why don't we fully honour one of the people's leaders? Yes, the institutions he formed were democratically questionable, and yes he might have had an approach to peace that was less pragmatical - as in he wasn't prepered to compromise enough, namely he didn't accept that the refugees can't return to Israel (which admittedly is unacceptable to the Israelis) - than we might have wished, but he was clearly the choice of the Palestinian people.
Having some of our Heads of States there, would have indicated that we accept, even if we might disagree, the choice of the people and are prepered to deal with them. As it is, we only showed once again that we don't really know what we want and where we stand. It's not like Sharon is going to change his policy of scorched earth without preassure from the outside. So if we do disagree with ethnic cleansing, human rights abuses, and the right of the more powerful, why not openly saying so and letting some actions (even if only symbolic) follow? But I guess it's easier to sit back and still believeing in the Utopia that America will do this for us.
I guess that is what Blair is trying to achieve at his best friends Bushes place.
Blair: 'Ah hi George, well how is it, I mean, I gave you everything you wanted in Iraq, I even provided you a token force when you needed it for your election, couldn't you just say something to Israel that might help getting back towards a peace settlement? Just a bit, not much! You see at home they are asking all these nasty questions, and I'm slowly running out of smart ways to avoid answering them, so please, please couldn't you say something I could sell as a evidence that I do have some influence? Really not much, and it doesn't really have to be seriouse, just has to sound good??' (Looking at Bush with nice longing doggy eyes)
When is he finally recognising that the maximum payback he'll get is that Bush won't meet Howard and the occasional nice phrase about him in a speech. He is not going to compromise any of his policy, because he doesn't believe in compromise but in force. And so is Sharon. Both strongly believe that the best way to solve a problem is by dissolving it, and I can't really believe that Blair shares this view, but maybe I'm wrong.