The Iraqi Groundhog Emerges

The United States is stuck in “Groundhog Day” the movie, where the American people play Bill Murray's character, the frustrated weatherman Phil Connors. We are waking up only to realize that yesterday is today over and over again. American soldiers in Iraq are killed, Iraqis are killed in sectarian bombing that adds to a series of more bombings, and another bloodiest day in Iraq occurs. The American people are looking for an exit strategy out of Iraq, and President Bush wants to increase troops escalating the war declaring that this surge is now our only option for success. It is Groundhog Day, over and over again.

When Bill Murray's character, Phil Connors, first realizes he is awakening to the same day, he uses this “invincibility” to his advantage by engaging in risky behavior. As he continues to wake up on February 2^nd over and over again, he adapts to his situation and attempts to better himself and use his knowledge of the upcoming events to help himself and others around him. The US, on the other hand, is trapped in a “bizzaro” Groundhog's Day. After four years without success and a seemingly endless cycle of violence, lies, and political rhetoric, our government is not changing its course of action to get us out of this cycle; instead it maintains the same course. For Phil Connors, life and the lives around him kept getting better, but for the US, the occupation in Iraq continues to worsen with loss of life and suffering on all sides of the fighting.

As we have to adapt to the new pressures that this war places on both the US and Iraq, it may be necessary to alter the definition of success in favor of pulling out our troops. If the situations and the circumstances do not change around us, then we have to start changing around them. The joke must be on us, the American people, as we continue along the path paved since March 20, 2003, and yet we have had little success in the Iraq War and the river of blood keeps flowing. Congress may help block President Bush from sending an additional 21,000 troops into Iraq to help end this repeating cycle, however the president does not seem too willing to give in to Congress and the American people's wishes.

If we wake up in the morning and no longer hear, “It's another bloody day in Iraq,” blaring on the radio like Phil Connors no longer heard Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe,” then we will know an exit strategy out of Iraq has begun, and then we have seen the last of Iraq's Groundhog's Day. On the eve of the war we should have headed the advice of the nutty insurance agent in the film, Ned Ryerson, “Watch out for that first step. It's a doozy.”

This Article in "The Hurricane"