Greetings from {anywhere but Baghdad}

News today that John 'Cheney Lite' Howard has sent a reprimand to his Iraqi counterpart, Nouri al-Maliki. Despite Australia's minimal military commitment -- under 1500 troops -- Cheney Lite thinks he's poised to cultivate the myth of Iraqi responsibility for the obliteration of their own society, and their subsequent failure to fix it in time for neo-con nutjobs to harvest political gain. It includes this howler:

In the letter, sent last week, Mr. Howard warns that if the Iraqis fail to make progress, the public support for Australia's military deployment to Iraq may not be sustainable.

First, there is no public support for Australian military deployment. Cheney Lite's abysmal poll numbers mirror Bush's, as the citizenry of this crusty isle have also sought accountability for the countless clusterf*cks brought to bear on coalition soldiers and Iraqi citizens.

Second, it seems Cheney Lite hasn't heard that the crumbling Iraqi parliament is on holiday for the month of August.

Here's my guess at Maliki's response to Cheney Lite's missive, written on the back of a postcard from an exclusive Qatar resort:

JH ... Having a blast, and I don't mean the kind we have every day in Baghdad! The only Green Zone here is at the hotel pool -- you have to swim underwater to reach it! I hear you've sent a letter. So nice of you to think of me. Reading it will be TOPS on my to-do list when I return. Wish you were here! N al-M.

UPDATE: Of course, US politicians are also on vacation, leaving troops to go at it alone, as veteran combat journo Joe Galloway points out:

It's their blood that stains the hands of politicians who are vacationing when they should be working to bring this insane war to an end, bring those American troops home from Iraq and redirect their energies toward Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan where the real enemy, the real al Qaida, plots real attacks on Americans at home and abroad.

There's no vacation break for our troops this August. Only another day, another week, another month on another patrol on an impossible mission in a war that their commander-in-chief and his men expected to be over, and indeed declared over, four years and four months ago.

"Mission Accomplished," that banner draped across an aircraft carrier crowed. A "cakewalk," one of them predicted.

Have a nice vacation all you politicians, and by the way, keep those bloody hands hidden. You wouldn't want to frighten the children on the beach.