headline should be: Rummy Cuts and Runs

This is just to give the impression that everything is getting better ...

The really good news is that a phased drawdown is possible because of progress in Iraq with Iraqi forces handling more of the country's security needs.

Token reduction of forces. The troops will not be redeployed to iraq. These are the extra troops brought in for the elections anyway. Real question is when will Iraq be able to take care of itself?

But... this is going to make it harder to convince Congress and the public that Halliburton needs another 100 billion to rebuild Iraq.

Rumsfeld has said in the past something to the effect that a withdrawl would be less about sending troops home and more about not sending in new rotations. To know if we are withdrawing for real, we should probably look at whether or not troops that recently came home are scheduled to return or not.

What about our "permanent" bases around the Iraqi oil fields? Aren't we going to get paid? When are we going to talk about that?

The gullibility, stupidity, and lack of foresightedness of the Democratic leaders has been exposed once again. Had they gone full throttle behind Murtha's call for a withdrawl, this would have been a victory for them.

But now they hide silently in their rat holes not knowing what act of timidity to display next.

And they want to take back the Congress? Idiots.

Thank heavens - it's long past time to loudly declare victory and leave!! Suprised Rummy didn't have the plump codpiece W wore in the carrier.....

Rummy no longer gets "haircuts", he gets hairadjustments.

f F Al has hit it on the head; this is another smoke and mirrors/snake oil scam, because it is indeed the extra troops sent in to build up numbers before the election whom Rummy says he is withdrawing.

What is weird is that the DoD is withdrawing regular troops and leaving Reserve/National Guard forces in Iraq. This is yet again evidence that Bushco still does not take the Iraq Adventure seriously, as they have not from the outset by not planning either administration of the country (and especially securing records and weapons dumps), nor an exit strategy.

We are in the hands of defiant whacked-out 15 year olds.

It makes me feel really good.

JohnFH ---- still dreaming, eh, John. Denial is a wonderful soporific.

I think it was clever stefan who commented in another thread yesterday that Bushco's MO is to put on 100 pounds and then claim a weight loss of 5 pounds as a reduction.

Do I remember hearing that troop levels are around 160K right now, and the more typical level has been 140K? So doesn't Bushco get to have its cake and eat it too? They can claim they are "withdrawing troops" and they can claim they are maintaining a strong presence.

Shamming the numbers. So Enron of them.

Plus Republicans have an election coming in the fall. Can't forget that.

You mean, there might be some other reason to bring them home?

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. What you've got is everything, and I mean everything, being run by the political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
- John Dilulio

It doesn't matter what's happening in Iraq. Osama bin Laden could be at the gates of Bagdad declaring victory and an Islamic republic, and we would still have the troops come home before November.

Why?

Because Republicans winning in November is far, far more important to Bush than winning in Iraq.

The insurgency can (and just might) rage out of control and grow worse with each passing month, but Bush will withdraw the troops anyway to ensure Republican control of Congress.

Headline should be: US troops finish job, come home to grateful nation.

Well, most of us are grateful.

Let's see: y'all have been demanding for the last couple of years that Bush bring the troops home. Now we're going to bring some troops home, and you complain that it's about an election.

Y'all would complain if you were being hung with a new rope.

Y'all would complain if you were being hung with a new rope.

To the extent that I understand what that means, yes, you're right - I absolutely would.

In January 2004, we had 109,000 troops in Iraq.

Right now, we have 160,000.

Once the extra troops brought in for the election go home, and we cancel the tours of a couple of light-ish brigades, we'll have about 130,000 troops, with no solid plan or criteria for bringing home the rest.

This isn't big news - it's barely news at all.

maunga: I think it was clever stefan who commented in another thread yesterday that Bushco's MO is to put on 100 pounds and then claim a weight loss of 5 pounds as a reduction.

Sadly, I'm not responsible for that clever remark. It was someone else whose name I can't remember.

Beautifully done Kevin. Identifying the key dynamic that we have turned a corner now and it would be hard to ever turn back.

I'd say that this is like 1969 for the US in Vietnam. We are clearly going to leave, and we're clearly not going to "win". It's just a matter of how. We are at the end game now, with all the actors trying to extricate themselves as best they can.

Our "allies" are leaping off one by one trying desperately to balance between their ticked off home crowd and the irritable superpower.

The militias are arming and mobilizing, getting ready for the endless political and military struggle that's already started. Militarily they all are eyeing the US forces - who can get the most American eqipment and training?

We all pray that it doesn't become a rout in the hot summer to come.

Y'all would complain if you were being hung with a new rope.

Posted by: Steve White

True. But we wouldn't complain if you were. So, there's that.

US troops finish job, come home to grateful nation.

Finish job? So there are no more rebel and terrorist attacks in Iraq?

Convenient, isn't it, that the attacks finish as soon as the Republicans close their eyes and pretend they're not there anymore. And they wonder why the American people don't trust Republicans when it comes to Iraq and national security.

Damn I'm glad my physician doesn't say "Y'all"

Remember, too, that the original Cheney/Rumsfeld plan was to have 30,000 troops left by November 2003. Instead we'll have 100,000 more than that over two years later. So by the standards of their own plan this is still a huge gigantic fuck-up.

Steve White: a person is hanged, a picture is hung.

In the 1860s, Colonel John "Fighting Pastor" Chivington, a former Methodist pastor, made quite a name for himself with his military "exploits". Rev JohnFH of the frozen tundra must be a descendant.

The one major drawdown I would like to see is at the pinnacle of DoD.

And isn't odd that Tony Blair - whom just refused to set a deadline for troop withdraw is now say that troops will be withdrawn as if on cue.

Why is Tony Blair taking his cues from Rumsfeld?
Blair is surely a well trained hoop jumping poople if ever there were such a well trained circus dog in Bush line up of many amazing terrorist turn unlawful term of art escapades.

bring on the air war!

Although I started to complain about that new rope, it did have a rather pleasant aroma. Y'all know freshness and all is very important for Southern Belles.

Headline should be: US troops finish job, come home to grateful nation.

Isn't that what Dems have been saying we should do for about a year now?

Wait, when are we coming home to a grateful nation and when are we "cutting and running"? I can never get this straight, as both events seem to look awfully similar.

Y'all would complain if you were being hung with a new rope.

Hanged. Actually, for various reasons related to elasticity, being hanged with a new rope could make the experience much, much worse for the victim. Didn't think of that, did you?

This "troop reduction" is the equivalent of Kissinger's "Peace is at hand" pronouncement before the '72 election. Which was promptly followed by the extensive Christmas bombings with B52s.

This is nonsense. They increased the force level for the elections. The elections are over. Now they are going back down to the baseline and they are playing it as a reduction. And you and the British press are swallowing it whole.

ThirdPaul,

and a merry Christmas to you as well!

27 of my ancestors, before it was possible to be Methodists, fought in the Revolutionary War. That war, like the war in Iraq, was a war of choice and not of necessity. I assume you would have opposed it.

I imagine you hope as I do that the Dems will take back the House or the Senate in the next elections. The question is, how to make that happen. I don't think dooming and glooming on Iraq or the environment or the economy serves that purpose. The better course would be to say to the American people, we applaud the good that is happening, but we could do better. We can acheive victory in Iraq more quickly by [fill in the blank]. We can make the economy work for you and not just for the wealthiest by [fill in the blank]. We have a plan for producing more of our energy needs here in the US, and it goes like this.

Sadly, the doom and gloom that many liberals project out onto the world seems to be a reflection of what lies deep within their souls.

Be that as it may, doom and gloom will not win elections. A positive narrative is needed. Barack Obama knows this. When will the base of his party catch up to him?

Cheryl There was a wonderful cartoon in England in '03/'04 of the Preznit sitting with his hand up the back of a T Bliar dummy on his knee. Bliar is saying "Gottle of geer, gottle of geer!"

Seryozely, though, as the BBC has been saying this morning, withdrawing the British forces is extra dodgy in view of the communications on south being through them. The Shi'a militias are thought to have infiltrated the local police and army so thoroughly that withdrawing could be an instant conflagration, like handing axes to a room full of ax murderers!

They are slowly moving towards the same sort of conversations over there about the legitimacy of the Iraq Adventure, too. As the papers there have discussed there has always been some doubt as to the legality of sending HM Forces to Iraq, there having been a specific vote on the House of Commons on the subject. If and when Bliar is shown to have lied about the evidence on which the vote was based, he could face trouble for lying to the House. His skate could be clearer and sharper than the process for Bushco. Who knows, if someone has the wit and balls to see that it would benefit the Rupublican Party to nail their own Pathetic Stumblebum, he/she/they might join up all the dots, the latest wire-tapping, Able Danger, Plamegate, AIPAC/PNAC/WHIG, Jack Abramoff, T Delay......... could be a lot of new candy-dates come the election.

Damn I'm glad my physician doesn't say "Y'all"

Whoa there, our esteemed parasitologist. "Y'all" is a perfectly useful and perfectly decent word, used by people of all educational levels and backgrounds.

Steve White is a perfect waste of space, however. Thanks to Poindexter for the laugh.

Ha to Mary Surratt, while I'm at it.

JohnFH, you're a smart fellow, and it's too bad the Dems won't listen to you.

If I were a Dem Senator (heh) thinking of running for President, I'd support the President completely in Iraq, I'd shake hand with the troops, I'd support the wiretaps, and I'd work hard to help the administration finish the job in Iraq with a well done.

Anything, anything, anything to get Iraq off the front page, so that as a Dem, I could talk about health care, education and the environment, and do so without the dreaded 'soft on national security' moniker.

So maunga, do you want the British troops to leave or stay? It wasn't clear from your note.

Steve White on December 23, 2005 at 12:23 PM:

Headline should be: US troops finish job, come home to grateful nation.

No, more like: Dubya caves to domestic and international pressure, schedules troop withdrawal.

Or how about: Democrat pressure on Bush triggers signal for troop withdrawal.

And my favorite: Bush plans for troop withdrawal in time for mid-term elections.

The encouraging sign is that if Dubya is hammered with enough reality, he'll cave in. Not that he'll ever admit being wrong, but I'll take what I can get.

JohnFH on December 23, 2005 at 1:32 PM:

Be that as it may, doom and gloom will not win elections. A positive narrative is needed.

Well, all that, along with smear tactics and a friendly voting-machine manufacturer...Look at the causes for Republican success in the past two Presidential elections...'Fear, smears, and queers' did wonders for them....

Get real, folks. Everyone here is making the mistake of looking at the situation from our point of view, not Bush's. George is more proud of his war than any other "accomplishment" of his administration. It made him, made the Republican Majority, and is in his mind his greatest legacy. Read Strauss if you want to understand the importance of war to the neocon philosophy. He has of course had to reduce troop levels- it's common knowledge that current levels were not sustainable. Of course he will have to announce, and to a limited extent follow through on further reductions until November- otherwise he could well lose one or both houses of Congress. We'll have some comforting five figure (94,000 is my number in the betting pool) out there in early November.

However, if the Republican Party maintains their control of Congress, we will suddenly discover that the security situation no longer allows further troop withdrawls, bombing will further increase, and the number of troops will begin to rise again.

Tom O

Y'all can say Y'all all you want. I personally just don't want to have my physician saying it.

The smart way for Democrtas ( and I am one) to play this is to say, "Yeah for troop witdrawals! Thank you Bush for listening to us and doing what Murtha and others have suggested!"

"'Fear, smears, and queers' did wonders for them."

Fear mongering is a pathetic approach to life, not to mention winning elections. Winning an election based on a positive narrative means that you have the political space afterwards to forward that narrative.

A fixation on overblown threats like global warming wins you brownie points with enviros but few others.

Smears sometimes work, especially if they have some basis in reality. This was "war hero" John Kerry's problem.

I could be wrong, but pushing a gay rights agenda right now is counter-productive.

So, how long will it take the American public to realize all the blood and money spent in Iraq has produced an Iraqi government that looks a heck of a lot like Iran circa 1979? Troop withdrawals are very important, but we'll soon be leaving Iraq quickly and this will be symbolic of the strategic political blunder this president made w/ the invasion of Iraq.

Steve White --- Are you new here? How long have you got? Digression into Iraq to help Our Oil Pals Steal Oil. OBL is too difficult tucked away in Those Awful Mountains, etc etc.........

Stefan, Sec Animist, P Rider, Craigie, cmdicely --- there are many of them, (Sorry to have left out so many worthies) have all said it better than I, but I think some of them will have noticed that I am fiercely against the whole adventure in its entirety and believe we should quit immediately.

In reply to your question:

Sending the British troops was a constitutionally shaky act was one thing I was saying. The second was that withdrawing them is possibly even more difficult than for most of the US forces.............

But I have said for months the whole adventure is a fraudulent proxy war on behalf of Israel, ill-conceived, badly planned, poorly executed by troops with no legacy of being Occupying Forces in a Hostile Colinial Environment, and managed badly still. We have lost, whatever gloss the Administration puts on the debacle.

There can be no 'Victory'; there will be a fierce civil war, whenever we leave, and the sooner we get the Hell out the better.

R'feld will have to have been dumped and some real Army planning done in step with real professionals from the State Department, to work out how best to minimize the outside interference whil the civil war works its way out.

The sooner we get out the sooner we might get an Administration which contains policy and international professionals rather than pathetic bully-boy city dirty dealers, and thus the sooner the US can begin attempting to restore its position in the world, and thus collect a bit of income and afford My social security! In case you had not noticed, the days of our strutting the world as the Big Strong Boys are over. We have carefully and deliberately handed our present economic selves to China, and that much bigger and more dynamic economy, the EU, has been inexorably telling us more and more often what we may and may not do on the world business plateau.

Bushie's daft tax giveaways and then putting us further in hock are the sort of thing that killed off the Roman Empire. All those Huns and Visigoths got in because Rome could not pay its bills......

Oh, and Steve, it is 'hanged'.

Rumsfeld is pulling troops for exactly the reason Murtha said he should. If you read the GAO report about the state of recruitment, the Army targets 35% of this year's level through delayed entry. In FY05, the army hit 92% of recruit target and went into the year with 25% delayed entry. The Army goes into FY06 with 8%.
The Army hit 128% of career (over 19 years) enlistee retention and were over target in the other categories but spent $400 million more than budget to do it.
If he doesn't start to reduce the deployment cycle,the Army will end up as Murtha said: wrecked.

"that much bigger and more dynamic economy, the EU"

Pretty funny, Maunga. Tell that to Angela Merkel and Tony Blair.

And you blame the war in Iraq on us serving the interests of Israel? At least we now know how much you care about what happens to Israel.

Not only is it time to bring our troops home and let the 4,000,000 military-eligible Iraqi males decide whether they want a country or if they want permanent chaos, it's time to hold people accountable.

The Department of Defense has sent tens of thousands of Americans into harms way without the necessary gear to protect themselves. Over two and a half years after the start of this war and over four years since 9/11 and we have shortages of everything, from recruits to bullets, from vehicles with armor to track pads for the Bradley fighting vehicle. The lack of working body armor has placed not only the lives of our military personnel but our secret service personnel as well in jeopardy.

The New Year should begin with the firing of Secretary Rumsfeld and our troops should be completely out of Iraq by the 1st of June. Every single official who has sucked up to Rumsfeld and failed to do their job should follow him out the door into retirement. If this was 1945, Truman would be helping thousands into prison garb for outright theft from DoD to defrauding soldiers on their return from deployment. The way our troops have been treated by their DoD leadership and by the communities in which they serve has been a national disgrace. Enjoy Christmas, Republicans. How about another round of tax cuts and by all means--keep cutting the food stamps so that our returning soldiers have to use pawn shops and payday loans to feed their families.

Not one American life is worth Iraq. Not one.

How would we know if troops level were decreased? Maybe they're being increased.

You're a smart guy Kevin, but can you name one time that Rumsfeld, Bush or the Pentagon told us the truth about what was happening in Iraq? I can't. So I don't trust a single word these guys say.

Fool me once, I won't get fooled again!

JohnFH on December 23, 2005 at 2:17 PM:

Fear mongering is a pathetic approach to life, not to mention winning elections.

Agreed. Dubya's use of fear to win the '04 election was pretty damn pathetic. But effective.

Winning an election based on a positive narrative means that you have the political space afterwards to forward that narrative.

Agreed. However, the concept of the 'positive narrative' seems to elude Republican campaign operatives.

A fixation on overblown threats like global warming wins you brownie points with enviros but few others.

Soooo...the Pentagon's conclusion that the results of global warming is a greater threat to national security than terrorism is 'overblown'?

Smears sometimes work, especially if they have some basis in reality. This was "war hero" John Kerry's problem.

Agreed, except for the 'some basis in reality' part. The Swifties were debunked, but the damage had already been done.

I could be wrong, but pushing a gay rights agenda right now is counter-productive.

Yup, you're wrong. And here's why: This issue of gay rights was another example of manufactured outrage designed by Rove to pander to homophobes for the '04 elections. The meme of a militant 'gay rights agenda' was created as a result of a militant 'anti-gay rights' agenda...

maunga on December 23, 2005 at 2:20 PM:

it is 'hanged'.

Thanks. I'll remember to do a grammar-check next time someone tells me that I'm well-hung...

...I mean, well-hanged...

/snark

"The New Year should begin with the firing of Secretary Rumsfeld and our troops should be completely out of Iraq by the 1st of June."

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the International Monetary Fund today approved a new $685 million loan for Iraq. A Christmas present to the Iraqi people. Who'd have thought that the IMF would be taken over by a cabal of starry-eyed neo-cons? What do the Fund people know that most people on this thread do not? If P Rider really wants to see our troops come home ASAP, he should change his slogan to:

Not one yen, euro, or greenback is worth Iraq. Not one.

But hey, no one at the IMF seems to have gotten the message that we've lost in Iraq, so they are acting otherwise.

Next in line will be the World Bank. Wolfowitz at its helm is starting to look like a smart move.

The smart money expects victory to be achieved in Iraq, and is betting heavily on that outcome.

Coalition troops in reduced numbers will quite possibly be stationed in Iraq for years and even decades to come. That depends as much on what happens in Iran and Syria in the future as it does on what happens in Iraq.

JohnFH. Ask Jack Welch and the Gates thief about the EU's power, and whichever Secretary looks after the steel industry. They all got reamed by the EU. Look at the relative GDP and populations, Padre: have a decko at GM's and Ford's balance sheets. Have you heard of Calpine? You might get some idea of the shaky ground our economy is on and the inherent strengths of the EU members'.

Israel, a US (economic) colony which spies on us, which learnt how to treat the indigenous people of Palestine from Stalin and Hitler: a country with neither economic, historic nor moral right to exist. If it does, Padre, a very tenuous proposition, --- the Jews have a right to a small circular area about thirty miles in diameter which has Jerusalem at 2 o'clock. In case you did not know, but then I have no idea what sort of parson you are, the inhabitants of 'Israel' --- an organised functioning entity with administration and taxes, populated by a people who were 'Israelites', a mixture of Canaanites, Philistines, Arameans and probably Assyrians, had no connection whatsoever with the people from the hills to the south who at that time were unorganised hill tribesmen with no ordered society.

Around 750-730BC the Judahites, their numbers enormously swelled by, and possibly overwhelmed by, refugees from the northern kingodm, now destroyed by the Assyrians, produced a book written out of whole cloth purporting to be the word of God.

There is copious external and archaeological evidence which proves this. Thus any biblical justification for the existence of the place called "Israel" today is a crock of shit. What is left? Europeans and Americans, to salve their consciences, assisted a group of largely, at that time, Europeans to steal the ancient land of a people from them. The US's uneven-handed behavior towards the countries in the Near East, and in its support for Israel, is largely responsible for the excesses of Islamic Fundamentalism.

Please do not shout "Anti-Semitic" at me..... many Turks are Semites, as are all Arabs. It is "Anti-Zionist" which is the correct label.

BTW, Padre, been to Mt Nebo??? You cannot see a lick of Palestine but nasty inhospitable arid hills. How come Dan and Beersheba get mentions in the Old Testament as being in existence a couple of thousand years before they actually were there?

Did you know neither David nor Solomon built a lick, and had no 'kingdom' beyond being wee-time sheikhs of aforesaid hill tribesmen. J'lem was only perhaps a couple of buildings then, too. There is no evidence for Moses, and the Egyptians would have mentioned it if there had been a number of Canaanites there, and their departure........

So yes, I am agin the existence of Israel, for all the above, historic, political, economic reasons. It is a suppurating boil and its existence harms the US and its future. Added to which, I would much rather its population was spread about the world adding richly to it and not spending so much of its energy pissing on those around it.

And...... why is the US not climbing all over them about their nuclear weapons?

You did know, did you, Padre, that the Israeli Air Force deliberately bombed the hell out of the USS LIberty in 1967 because it was listening to the Israeli Army murdering captured Egyptian soldiers?

tomeck wrote: This "troop reduction" is the equivalent of Kissinger's "Peace is at hand" pronouncement before the '72 election. Which was promptly followed by the extensive Christmas bombings with B52s.

Unfortunately, that is a very relevant comparison. Although it is hardly reported in the US media, the war in Iraq is increasingly becoming an air war, and we can expect more and more US bombing as the troop levels are inevitably reduced. Recommended reading:

Up in the Air: Where is the Iraq war headed next?
by Seymour M. Hersh
The New Yorker
November 28, 2005

Hidden in Plane Sight: U.S. Media Dodging Air War in Iraq
by Norman Solomon
CommonDreams.org
December 5, 2005

the International Monetary Fund today approved a new $685 million loan for Iraq.

Secured with what for collateral?

Oil revenues.

Thanks for playing, got anything else to add? Didn't think so. Enjoy Christmas. Hopefully you'll get that dildo you've been dying to stick in your ear.

The State Dept. weekly report also notes that France has approved an 80% reduction in pre-war debt as has Austria. These Paris Club arrangements continue to benefit the Iraqis no matter which party or sect ends up with control of the government.
Since the bulk of Iraqi revenue is oil revenue, debt reductions and the loans are based on a return to pre-war production levels enhanced by more modern methods. But the country is barely over 2 mm bbl/day versus 2.5mm target. One bad loan on the heels of years of bad loans; can forgive that series of loans too.

There are no permanent friends,there are no permanent enemies,there are only permanent interests.

grape_crush

Well, meat Is hung, of course, but I suppose, if one was to be 'terminated with extreme prejudice' by the noose having been placed about the Person instead of the neck, then one would be both well-hanged and well-hung. I love it, but the language is a pain. ....'You will be taken from here to a place of execution and there hung by the neck until you are dead!' is what they used to say, more or less, but the language then says that as a result of that unhappy event, I should have been "hanged". Incidentally, that this was before the modern long drop with the neck-break; in those days it was strangulation: charming.

What a shame the vote about which language was not the couple the other way, then we should all have been talking nice regulated German with many fewer irregularities. Can anyone tell me when that vote was?

Take out the ground troops; bring in the air force.

Same old, same old..

(" they'll do anything for oil, those fuckers...")

P R --- You add whole new levels for me to a London expression I could not quite fathom. The expression is an exhortation when one has slightly-to-somewhat pissed someone off: one is told, "Oh, stick it in your ear!"

Ditto the rest of your comment, too. Don't beat me up too hard about my Israel stuff, please: I am much happier when you are being fierce at someone else!

I was, um, making a (poor) joke, maunga; the topic title Signs of Withdrawal sent me off on a slight tangent...

Their enthusiasm for troop withdrawals is such that they are even drawing down in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and AQ are resurgent, and where bin Laden lurks closeby. Do these clowns have any idea what they are doing?

g_c We had better behave or Kevin will get at us, though he might let us off in view of it being De-Mob Day before a holiday. Gawd, can I even say 'Good Point' without asttracting wrath? Well, it is Kevin's fault in view of his title, eh?

Kevin won't can this off-topic conversation; anyone who can watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail over and over has to have a sense of humor...

Now, if he had listed Left Behind as one of his repeated-viewing choices, I wouldn't be quite as confident.

Thank you, Maunga, for clearing up a few things for me. I now understand far better where you are coming from.

Your claim that US foreign policy is responsible for the "excesses" of Islamic fundamentalism and your comments about Israel tell me one thing: you will be forever disappointed by US foreign policy. That policy will always be supportive of Israel, regardless of whether the President or Congress is controlled by R's or D's.

You are a contrarian on many issues, and I respect that. For my part, I continue to believe that Islamic fundamentalism as you call it is best opposed by introducing democracy into the Middle East, and letting the fundamentalists win and then lose power through the democratic process.

Success of elections?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/22/AR2005122201828.html

Yes JohnFH, sadly, you are right and it will continue to be the case as long as the US is so ingenuous as to put in high influential places those whose first loyalty is to Zionism and not to the US. I hope you have followed, for example, the intertwinings of PNAC/AIPAC, the probable originators of the forged yellow cake documents, Lon Cheney's WHIG, and their attendant Libbys, Wurmsers, Hannahs. Then we have Mr Abramoff, also not entirely unconnected. Mr Perle, is I believe, already tarred with supporting Israel above the US, and his pals Wolfowitz and Feith have been suggested as doing so too.

So yes, you are right. More than 40 years ago Mr CIA of a neighborhood round about There told a dinner table I was privileged to be at that the US's one-eyed uneven-handed support for Israel was already creating long-term diplomatic and economic difficulties for us. He was really sorry that successive higher echelons of the Sec of State's department being political appointees with no long depth of international affairs knowledge meant that it was more or less impossible to get them to understand that Perfidious Albion succeeded because it treated everyone the same, with no favorites. Our problem is that we appoint guys who have "arrived" via venality.

John. the US is not a democracy: it is a plutocracy, or perhaps oligarchy, trying to become a dictatorship, so probably it has noone qualified to deliver demnocracy to the Near East. (The Middle Eaat is India, Ceylon, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan ---- the countries the other side of the Gulf, and some of them, actually being democracies might not take kindly to being interfered with.) Is it not arrogant to try to force people of cultures we plainly do not understand, to change the systems of government with which, for now, they are happy, for one we do not practise ourselves?

Now we could force Israel, not a democracy, a country we control, to apply democracy, but we should have to get some Europeans in and pay them to make the Israelis become democratic.

And while I continue to think these reductions would do us even more good if we were more forthright about our plans ...

You always miss the main point. The troop withdrawals were previously announced as probable given a good election, and the election has been held. The election results are in some dispute (as in most democratic countries much of the time), but there's no doubt that it was carried out pretty well. As additional milestones are passed, there will be additional withdrawals.

The elections in 2006 will have as "talking points" lists of accomplishments in Iraq and lists of US troop withdrawals. I expect that Presidential rhetoric will continue to drive wedges between the "Dean wing" and "Lieberman wing" of the Democratic party. [in your case, between your fear of victory and of your despair of defeat.] Merely pointing out that those are "Republican talking points" will not help the Democratic party.

While the Republicans will have their talking points, a correct response would ask “at what cost?” Great, Iraq is now a democracy. Well, it looks like it will be a theocratic state like its next door neighbor Iran, which is also a democracy. Oh, and they had voting in Iraq under Hussein, so really the big change is that they have a lot less infrastructure, tens of thousands of dead, and one less dictator. We have thousands of dead soldiers, billions of dollars wasted on this, and a President who believes he is above the law.

Here's a hint papageno, Iraq wasn't a threat to us before Bush invaded. That makes him, and anyone who supports him knowing that he invaded a nation that was no threat to our nation, someone not to be trusted with the vital task of National Security. Saying that he didn't know just marks him as incompetent. The information was there, he chose to take the easy path of being a “War President” rather than the difficult path of being absolutely sure there was a threat.

So remember to include the costs and the lack of WMDs, lack of ties to terrorism, and Bush's disregard for the law when you are listing your talking points. You want to be honest don't you?

The latest news out of Baghdad is that the bloc of Shiite parties who won the most votes in the election is open to forming a coalition government with the Sunni parties who did well in the election.

If such were to happen, it would be an exceedingly positive development.

It has become a meme among left liberals that we've lost in Iraq, and what's more, we never could have won in the first place. If instead the Iraqis muddle through, despite our errors and theirs, it will be quite a testimony to the power of democracy.

You know, the kind of thing liberals used to believe in, before they became agnostic about everything.

Hey Rummy, real Marines (or other soldiers) don't cut and run!

But, Neil, it is not cutting and running if the bosses, the pols, --- order them to "leave". It is highly unlikely that a single American serviceman or woman has not done his or her best with the orders given, the environment, and the equipment. Our shame is that the politicians did not issue them with a clean bill for any of those three grounds.

JohnFH "Hope springs eternal" and I do hope you are right. It is likely, however, that too much filthy dirty Yanqui water has flowed under a bridge or two to permit Shi'a and Sunni to accommodate until after some blood letting. These are raiding amnd shooting people. I have seen what were almost certainly raiders, on their camels, in the Eastern Syrian desert, and that was not too too long ago.

So do not hold your breath. Whatever, we need to let them get on with it having screwed the place up.

BTW do you no Herbert Spencer? "There is a bar against all information.................. contempt prior to investigation."

They better conduct this retreat more professionally then they've conducted the occupation, or a good number of our soldiers are going to get their asses shot off.

Remember, the Iraqis are no amateurs when it comes to war, especially the ones we're facing. And they've got a score to settle.

JohnFH, you can claim victory all you want, but you can't explain how invading a nation that wasn't a threat to us in the first place is a sign of a competent national security policy. Your guys got tens of thousands of people killed. You need more than "we won" to explain to the families of the dead why they needed to die. See, real Christians don't root for needless death. If you knew any, you might know that.

Here's something to consider, if we had merely given Hussein a $10 Billion bribe he would have gone away and we could have spared the lives of all of those tens of thousands. But that's not good enough for death fetishists like you is it?

Headline should be: US troops finish job, come home to grateful nation.

Yes, I'm so grateful - God knows Hussein was JUST ABOUT TO ATTACK US with all those scary WMD of his.

You're such a clown, dude. Drop the platitudes for a second and look at what you're saying. We're supposed to be grateful for something we didn't ask for and something that didn't benefit us in any tangible way (but did benefit Teheran, I'll give you that).

Yes, Kevin, this is good news. But, as you know, it has nothing to do with you.

It means we've won.

Too bad for your team. Better pray for another national disaster.

JohnFH:
I remember so well several months ago when accused me of wanting to “cut and run”. You told me it would not happen and that it wouldn’t happen even if there were a President Kerry or President Hillary. I tried to tell you that my idea (and the idea of many others) was not to cut and run, but “declare victory and leave”. I tried to point out to you that we had many opportunities to do so. Now you are saying the same thing to Neil’ that I said to you.

I see that now you agree with me.

And, incidentally, in my opinion it would have been better to do it earlier. Now we have a situation where the militias are more established than ever. The Kurds, more than ever, are relishing their independence, exploring for oil, and reportedly finding it. The Shiites have continued to solidify their militias and their relations with Iran, exact revenge on the Sunnis, and further their plans to dominate resources and politics in their region(s). The Sunnis are still convinced they are being screwed by the United States, the Shiites and the Kurds.

But you seem confident, as ever, that improved “Iraqi” security forces are a reality and “now” we can begin to draw down. I don’t buy it. Iraq seems to be very divided, more than ever.

I hope we leave, regardless. But, honestly, I don’t think you know what you are talking about... still.

You still make crazy statements. Do you honestly think there was some truth in the swift boating of Kerry? That’s disgusting and very disappointing. I would like to know exactly what truths you detected.

Do you really think that the American Revolutionary War was a war of choice in the same manner that the Iraq war is a war of choice? That is so crazy. Iraq was not a threat. We traveled thousands of miles to kick around a truly weak country. On the other hand, we were directly being kicked around by the British.

Do you really see no ways in which the United States has exacerbated its problems with Islamic Fundamentalism? That’s hard to believe.

You are a very polite guy, but these statements are crazy.

Little ole jim,

I still think what you are advocating is a cut and run policy. To declare victory and leave IS equivalent to cutting and running, unless you really have achieved victory.

It's too early to know for sure, but there's a good chance that things will work out in Iraq. In the meantime, we are going to stay put in Iraq even as we draw down forces. Even if Iraq and Afghanistan stabilize completely - I wouldn't expect either to do so in the near term - we are likely to maintain permanent bases near Kandahar for example, and in Iraqi Kurdistan.

That's my understanding of the situation. But the goal cannot be to declare victory in the sense of accepting defeat, and getting out. A Democratic president would not and could not settle for that either. Way too much is at stake. Shall I count the ways?

(1) The war on terrorism: both sides have decided to make Iraq the key battlefield

(2) Geopolitical considerations related to our long time regional allies (Israel, Turkey, Jordan) and our long time regional enemies (Iran, Syria)

(3) The project of facilitating democracy and capitalism in the Near East

(4) Energy security (i.e., keep the oil flowing out of the region)

That's how I would list our priorities. I put (4) where it is because I would rather have us shift to nuclear power and clean coal produced in the US than continue to depend on oil and gas from the Gulf and elsewhere.

In my view, and I have stated it before, if a formula for distributing the oil revenues of Iraq can be worked out based on demography, not geography, then there is a chance Iraq will have a bright future. Most Iraqis are hopeful about their country's future. How about you? If not, why not?

maunga,

Usually, you're more correct than I am.

JohnFH,

The elections in Iraq were a sham. Grand Ayatollah al-Sistani issued a fatwa to his Shia followers, and the people followed the fatwa. Iran sent cash, operatives and stuffed the ballot boxes.

Well, no more of a sham there than here. Luckily, we're seeing Diebold voting terminals and equipment begin to be decertified throughout the country.

Maybe someday, we can have as honest an election as the Iraqis.

1) No, you are simply wrong. Al Queda is an opportunistic opponent. Bush sent soldiers to die, and Al Queda has taken advantage of the high profile, inadequately armored targets provided to them.

2) You haven't explained how invading a nation that wasn't a threat to our national security and murdering thousands of Iraqis will win friends and influence enemies. In fact, Bush's blundering looks more and more like Nixon bombing Cambodia. But then death fetishists like you didn't care about Pol Pot either did you?

3) You think that “democracy” will spread after being enforced with the barrel of a gun? That's some powerful wishful thinking.

4) You've misplaced the number one goal of the two oil men running this country. If they cared about any of those other things then there would have been serious people planning the invasion, not clowns who told us that the Iraqi oil fields would pay for the war and that we would be out of there in six months.

As I've said JohnFH, you and those you support cannot be trusted to take either foreign policy or national security seriously. Until you admit that the invasion wasn't a serious effort in either of those arenas you are a joke.

Good gracious John, hopeful about Iraq’s future, of course. But that’s hardly the same as optimistic, especially as long as we are there.

Here’s one of your statements that’s almost neither here nor there as it relates to the U.S. military presence in Iraq:

“...if a formula for distributing the oil revenues of Iraq can be worked out based on demography, not geography, then there is a chance Iraq will have a bright future.”

Again, of course this would be good, really good. We can both say things like that, but how do we expedite that by leaving our military there to take sides against the Sunnis? Our military will not be allowed to referee or dictate.

Wouldn’t it be great if Iraq would pass a sustainable constitution that did not put anybody at a disadvantage? Yes, but it did not happen, so we have a constitution that hurts rather than one that helps.

Note that the Sunnis are already calling for another election. They are calling for a new constitution. They will never accept the current constitution, nothing close to it.

Let the Kurds not get there way about something and note how long it will take them to use force. I’m betting that they will continue to consider any oil found in their region as “theirs”. They consider themselves as Kurds first, Iraqis second.

I do not pretend to know for sure what will happen, but chaos, bloodshed, and destruction have increased, not decreased with our presence. Why would any American be so arrogant as to pretend he has the answers, thus, he will use military force to ensure an outcome.

The ethnic/religious divisions (and some corresponding geographical division) are very real. For a democracy to work in Iraq, there would have to be strong democratic institutions. I don’t see any of major groups as interested in building democratic institutions.

You say “both sides” have decided to make Iraq the key battlefield in the war on terrorism. I would not allow the terrorists to select the key battlefield. Do you think terrorists will run the show in Iraq if we leave? I don’t. But they are reaping great rewards as long as we are there as a military occupation force.

As for your “... project of facilitating democracy and capitalism in the Near East”, that is also hurt by our presence. We are giving elections a bad name. We are giving democracy a bad name. You know that the Iraqis do not trust us.

We need to announce a timetable and get out.

This is slightly OT, but not by much. From an older thread with our friend the good Doctor Steve. It's about the GWOT (say it loud. Shout it at your pets. GWOT ! GWOT GWOT GWOT! Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it), not Iraq per se.

Oh and ... Merry Whatchamacallit to all to whom it may apply :)

Steve White:

> Bob, one is not 'crazy as a loon' to think that al Qaeda could
> threaten our existence when they've already killed several
> thousand Americans (embassies + barracks + Cole + 9/11).

Well, if "crazy" is defined against consensus reality, of course
you're not crazy because it's US policy to believe that al Qaeda
poses an existential threat. But US consensus reality is crazy.

Consensus reality was crazy for the Nazis and the Soviets. None
of their citizens were allowed to think so. Dissidents surely did.

Reality is reality, though. Ultimately it's not defined by consensus.

Auto accidents, heart disease, homicide, all kill more Americans
more regularly than al Qaeda. Katrina's death toll didn't quite
reach 1000 as I recall, but the social and economic dislocation are
easily comparable to the aftermath of 9/11. Bad as all of these
things are, none of them threaten or have threatened our existence.

9/11 was a whopping blow and deserves special mention, but its
psychological impact far exceeds the devastation at Ground Zero
and the Pentagon. It was a gut shot to our self-esteem as a
nation and our historical sense of invulnerability. It changed
our national direction, stampeded us into two wars and, in the
name of security, altered our fundamental notion of civil liberties.

The ideology behind 9/11, the minions of hate who stand ready to
attack us again -- odious as they are and lethal as any other attack
would surely be -- still do not threaten our existence as a nation.

And it is frankly unpatriotic and cowardly to think that they might.

How many al Qaeda are there total in the world, Steve? 2000? 5000?

Here's a threat to our existence: Thousands of nuclear warheads
aimed at American cities and industrial centers. Millions of
men under arms ready at short notice to invade our allies in
Western Europe. An ideology that, no matter how loathesome
in practice, was held by a third of the globe, and which had
strong appeal for the discontented and impoverished masses.

That's an existential threat. Al Qaeda isn't even hitchhiking on a
country road that connects to a highway that leads to that ballpark.

> It seems that you think there is some threshold: they
> need to kill x number of Americans to be a bonafide,
> 'existential' threat, and they haven't yet met that threshold.

If that were the yardstick, then car wrecks and heart disease would
have them beat hands down. It's not, obviously. It's, as you say,
capability x intent -- and they hate us as much as hate is possible.

But al Qaeda has no follow-through. They mount an attack, and then
sit back, hifiving each other on their Islamist websites with one
band while beating off to Osama's picture with the other. They
have no armies, no logistics, no hoard of followers. They can't
even wage a halfway effective war in a sympathetic country like
Iraq. The Sunni insurgency is just about done with the jihadis,
whose ideology of fratracide and suicide is literally self-defeating.

What they can do, though, is score huge and hugely disproportionate
propaganda victories, which we are only too happy to provide for them.
And this is why I'm so disgusted at the Bush Doctrine. War with al
Qaeda is an Affirmative Action program for thanatophilic misfits.

Steve -- regardless of our diametric politics -- I hate these
turdbreaths every bit as much as you do. I want to do the cruelest
thing you can possibly do to a psychotic nusiance -- ignore him.

> It seems inconsistent that you would dismiss their threat to
> us and yet worry about gangland killings. Tookie only killed
> four after all. And while the Bloods and Crips are a problem
> for your neighborhood (one I hope you and your neighbors are
> addressing), they're not into wholesale death.

A word about my nabe. I live in a suburb on the edge of a mid-
sized city. I've lived in that city for over two decades. The
crime rate is moderate but regularly spills over into the university
campus. While rapes, burglaries and break-ins of student apartments
are routine, the driveby was anomalous in that part of town. I only
mentioned it to compare the odds of that happening to me vs being
the victim of a terrorist attack, not to elicit personal sympathy.

But thank the gods I don't live in Compton or South Central LA.
You want to talk about terrorism? These people live with terrorism
on a daily basis. What's the annual murder rate from street gangs
in LA? Close to 1k? Imagine that, Steve. Imagine driving through
a neighborhood and seeing a group of young adult males who are
dressed a certain way and who comport themselves a certain way,
and then getting that tightening lead gut from not knowing whether
you might get casually shot at or carjacked. Or having a friend who
just happend to be at the wrong streetcorner the wrong time of day.

We don't hear about this much, Steve, because the victims of this
are the least powerful people in our society. But this is terrorism,
Steve, if anything is. Ever listen to some of our soldiers talk who
grew up in neighborhoods like this? How it prepared them to deal
with Iraq? The rap songs they write which compare the experiences?

But oh, when it affects the upper middle class in a steel tower
downtown do we ever hear, nonstop, about living with terrorism.

> For me at least, that's the issue with Islamist terror:
> they're not into retail killing, though they're happy to
> do it. They want death on a large scale. That makes them
> qualitatively different than the Crips and Bloods -- for
> the gangs, large scale killing is bad for business.

The only thing that keeps this from a slam-dunk argument is the
tiny chance -- outrageously overhyped as it has been -- of al
Qaeda getting a nuke or some biological agent. The nightmare
scenario is a devastating attack on DC. Not something atrocious
in itself but ultimately half-assed, like a bomb in the Metro or
a sarin attack, or a lone suicide belt in a government building
or a few more anthrax envelopes. I'm talking at least a dirty
bomb or maybe a suitcase nuke, or some perfectly-executed
contamination of the water supply that sickens and/or kills most of
the city. Something that would shut down the government for weeks,
maybe months, and in the ensuing law enforcement confusion several
score of al Q slip over the border and then blow up chemical plants,
nuclear installations. That's the al Qaeda doomsday. That would
be an existential threat -- more than a threat -- to our nation.

Boy oh boy, how many blinking red LEDs did I just set off at the
NSA with *this* message, eh? Hiya, spooks! Pull up a chair ...

But I think it's the plot of a bad made-for-TV movie and the odds of
it happening are infinitesimal. And the way you protect against it
is with prudent surveillance of our borders and ports -- the things
recommended by the 9/11 Commission. Ultimately, it's law enforcement.

> Finally, you're mistaken about Saddam and Islam. Saddam
> embraced Islam, particularly in his final years in power.
> He did so in part cynically; it was a useful tool for him,
> and Saddam is ever practical. It was also genuine in that it
> formed, along with Ba'athism, a big part of his core beliefs.

Well, that's a terrible insult to Islam, truthfully (uh, oh, the
guy's defending Islam -- better look up his Social Security number
-- does Carnivore have an irony filter?). All you need to know
about Saddam's true beliefs (and this is highly amusing to prewar
Saddam-watchers) is being revealed at his trial. Saddam's the
classic delusional megalomaniac. He has "core beliefs" the way
a paranoiac has obsessive thought patterns. His self-image is
grotesquely overinflated and he goes to great lengths to defend
it in his own eyes. He's the Father of the Iraqi People, so he
talks condescendingly to the judge and demands better treatment
not for himself, not at all -- he is selfless -- but for the good of
all Iraq which he personifies. The Iraqis are a conservative Muslim
people and thus of course he is Muslim, how can he be otherwise?

This is not a "core belief," it's a delusion. After the Iran/Iraq war,
at best a pyrrhic victory, at worst a withering stalemate, the Iraqi
people turned inward toward religion, as people often do after a
devastating war. Saddam turned with them, naturally. After Desert
Storm, he built the Mother of all Battles Mosque. It's a way of
saying that Allah is still on his side desipte the terrible outcomes.

Is it a sincere expression of faith? More like l'etat est moi.
During the buildup to war the New Yorker ran a long and quite
revealing profile. In '02, Saddam liked to write romance novels and
enjoyed a glass of red wine with dinner. A religious conservative
he's never been. When he ostentatiously faced Mecca during the trial
this week and began to pray loudly while a witness testified, was
this piety? Did a single Muslim in that courtroom feel compelled to
join him? It's about as sincere as his complaint that day that we
tortured him. Heh. You know what's absolutely devastating to me
as an American, Steve? The fact that I can't dismiss an outrageous
allegation like that from that mass-murdering bastard out of hand.
I'm inclined to, but I can't. Because of Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.
Because of Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo and Dick Cheney. This is why
you don't fucking torture people, Steve. Because if you do, you have
to listen to the fucking Butcher of Baghdad accuse you of it and have
to take it seriously, even for a fraction of a second. I hope --
pray -- that we weren't STUPID enough to do that and turn Saddam
Hussein of all people into a motherfucking human rights martyr.

But the issue relevant to this argument isn't whether or not
Saddam shared the garden-variety conservative religion of his Sunni
confreres. Has Saddam felt an affinity with radical jihadis? --
and the answer to that one is a flat NO, because radical jihadis
would never submit to the ego of Saddam. A true fascist regime
like Saddam's Iraq cultivated an identification with the power of
the state and its leader, and the glorious history of the Arab people.
Islamic regimes, no matter how conservative and repressive, cultivate
submission to Allah -- at the point of a scimitar. And that's wby
no truly Islamic state can ever be properly-speaking called fascist.

> In the West we have this sense that hard-core socialism, fascism and
> communism are incompatible with religion (and I think that's true).

Fascism and Communism are not inherently anti-modern. Radical
Salafism believes that answers to all life situations for all time
can be found in the Koran and the hadiths. This leads inevitably
to conflicts with every modern state in which they exist,
including Saudi Arabia. While al Qaeda uses modern technology
to wage war of course, its worldview is blisteringly anti-modern.

That's why the idea of al Qaeda hooking up with an Arab dictator
or even a Mideast theocracy or quasi-theocracy is ludicrous.

> The Islamists don't have that problem. They have no problem at all
> being completely Islamic and completely fascist at the same time.

No. Fascists submit to the State. Islamists submit to Allah.
The two most repressive conservative Islamic states, Iran and
Saudia Arabia, are not fascisms (although in practical terms, their
more Western-leaning citizens certainly have good reason to note
the similarities) -- and both are ripe targets for al Qaeda.

> Their religious beliefs, particularly the Salafists, fit
> a fascist model of economic and social control very well
> (I note that the Ba'athists, even when they claimed to be
> socialists, really weren't by any standard Western definition).

There is no Salafist country. The Saudi state religion is Wahabi
Islam, a close cousin that certainly drives purist Islamic rage.
But Saddam's ideology is apostasy to Wahabis because it's strongly
influenced by Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual father of the Egyptian
Muslim Brotherhood which assassinated Anwar Sadat -- probably the
first act of this kind of terrorism. Qutb was in turn influenced
(as was Ayatollah Khomenei while an exile in Paris) by many of the
same writers and intellectuals who influenced the 60s radical Left.
Add the particular Salafist idea of tikfir -- the righteous killing
of a Muslim or taking down of a Muslim regime for following a false
path (something frowned upon, as you'd imagine, in Saudi Arabia),
and you have an explosive recipe for revolutionary nihilism.

But this is not an ideology that's capable of running a state.
Taliban Afghanistan was "run" by a bunch of deeply ignorant
battle-scarred young men with Kalishnikovs running around blowing
up precious ancient statuary and shooting women in soccer stadia.
The country was a failed state, hardly a fascism, with no diplomatic
relations save to Pakistan. The atmosphere al Qaeda and the
Afghan Arabs ran around in training their fighters was anarchy.

And once again -- I am glad we took out those training camps.

But declaring war on al Qaeda -- with the full force of
the US military -- would be like the USA declaring war on
the Baader-Meinhoff gang or the Red Brigades, or declaring
war on the IRA for practicing "Catholic terrorism."

Not that there's anything morally objectionable to violently
opposing any group with an expressed desire to kill you and
wipe out your way of life. Just that the practical result
only aggrandizes such a pathetic group of self-immolating
misfits by equating their power to that of a nation's.

> It's a mistake to think that the jihadis, because they're
> religious zealots, aren't also fascist at their core.

They're authoritarian at their core. Because their primary
allegiance lies with their extreme purist vision of Allah and not to
the appurtenances of state power, the fascist analogy is overdrawn.

Bob

Pale Rider,

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO DUBYA: Rasmussen's robots show Bush's approval breaking fifty percent, and investor confidence at a 17-month high.

Consumer confidence, and approval of how the war is going are also up.

All of this is before news of the troop withdrawal has percolated and GWB starts hammering home the good news on the economy. JP Morgan is predicting above trend growth of at least 3.5% in 2006 with strong jobs growth. The forecast for December jobadds is for 250K with an upward revision for the prior two months. Core inflation has also been running below expectations.

Part of the reason the domestic picture is so good is because the global economy is getting better. We will sail into the 2006 elections with a very strong economy, unemployment below 4.5% and GWB speaking over the MSM to remind Americans of these fact.

Combined with this positive results in Iraq acheived by our steadfast policy versus the Dean/Murtha/Kerry/Kennedy/Pelosi 'retreat and defeat' policy you'll have no shot at getting the house back in 2006.

maunga,

Life has to be hard. You can agree at least it's a nice political touch making the last piece of news in Iraq before the holidays being very successful elections and for Xmas Eve a gift wrapped announcement of troop withdrawals.

In fact they are real and over and above the 20K surplus maintained for the election. In total it's about a 20% reduction.

It's important for a number of different reasons domestically and in Iraq as well. We've told the Iraqi's we are leaving as promised. We're telling the Iraqi's soldiers we believe in them. We're showing the Iraqi people the insurgents are not fighting America but democracy for Iraqi's. The fact it's big politically for the GOP is just a bonus.

Expect and other 20K in the spring and 20K in the summer. Got to get ready for those elections don't you know. If we draw down too quickly we always have the option of sending them back after the election.

rdw

Just switched on ----- if you really do believe the flannel you wrote at 1011EST, despite having read all which is written in here, I have another bridge for a dumb Yankee to buy.

Did you read Pale rider above? The election was a crock, about as big a crock as Florida last time out or the state one in Ohio lately. It does not matter who won --- our electoral processes are probably flakier than Mugabe's. It is very sad that that so few Americans have sufficient interest to find that out.

The reduction of troops has been explained to you over and over again: the numbers were pumped up for the election and now they are being reduced again. Twelve months ago there were 109,000; this 'reduction' brings it down to 136/138 -000.

Why have none of you Goons not addessed the question of why RumBum is withdrawing regular troops and leaving National Guard and Reserve troops there? Because the Administration takes this colonial action they persist in calling a war with absolutely no level of seriousness, perhaps???

BTW -- Microsoft is wrong about where to place apostrophes: it is not for plurals, or whenever else you add an 's', but to show the possessive, genitive, case, and signifies the absence of the 'e' which used to be before the 's'. Thus an Iraqi's AK47, but thousands of Iraqis have AK47s.

Maunga,

The baseline for our troop presence is 138,000 since before the 1st elections. Yes they had 109K last year and Zero 4 years ago but 138K has been established and accepted as a political matter.

This reduction is to drop from the current 160k to 130k - 132k. 22k 'extra' were in Iraq for they election. They are on their way home and will be joined by as many as 7k more.

You can argue with yourself all day long this isn't a true drawdown, and find complete agreement withn the echo chamber. But as a matter of the national discussion 138K is the baseline and we ARE in a drawdown.

I expected the drawdown to be bigger. The administration is being cautious in choosing to focus on the symbolism of the move rather than the magnitude allowing for a still huge presence. They will be drawing back on national guard first and they will also be continuing to adapt the mission by reducing their visibility and focusing in logistical support and training.

GWB has plenty of time to pull out the troops for GOP political advantage. They're giving the Iraqi military every chance to become dominant.

Our team at netpowersoft studied what a loan seeker want from the internet.

We found some information about them from their websites and few by writing emails to them.

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My math says it's now at 138,000 and 3-5k reduction is 3-%5...statistically insignificant. As for all those projected 20K staged withdrawals...I can't help but feel they're fairy dust, you know, like when you were 12 years old and you projected how if you saved your allowances for 4 months, you'd have BIG money. About that real, rdw.
Alas, the only cure for the Republican Party is to join Conservatives Anonymous and dry out. Why should you guys be any different than liberals? We took our medicine, our cure and are no longer trying to save the world.
Your turn.

games now

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