Stick around and all your money gets spent on the kids, the house, her car and her upkeep. Leave and all your money gets spent on the kids, the house, her car and her upkeep. Sort of a micro Iraq.

That's been true all along, and it goes with their other meme: that no matter what happens in Iraq, we're winning. If violence increases, it's because they're "desperate" and in their "last throes." If violence decreases, it's because "the Surge" is working. Either way, you need to "stay the course."

It echoes the conservative attitude toward taxes: if the economy is good and tax receipts are up, people should get to spend more of their own money and therefore, tax cuts! If the economy is bad, reducing taxes will stimulate the economy and therefore, tax cuts!

In the year 2525
If man is still alive.
If woman can survive, they may find...

...that we're still in Iraq.

This is a novel observation? Let's get to the cats already. Maybe even a double dose.

This is simply because the people who are charged with telling us how things are going in Iraq, be they in government or in the media, were for the war and are perfectly willing to risk other people's lives in perpetuity so long as they don't have to face up to their mistakes.

Is there a word for that? Craven perhaps?

Amen, enozinho. The very sad part is how many progressives have bought into this myth. I heard Rahm Emmanuel on NPR this morning, talking about the federal budget and he said something to the effect that "we have to invest in Iraq". WHY???

We don't have to spend another nickel there, if we don't want to. The place is an utter catastrophe now. If we leave tomorrow, it isn't going to get appreciably worse. And no matter how many times the conservatives say it or how loud, AL-QAEDA IS NOT GOING TO TAKE OVER IRAQ IF WE LEAVE. PERIOD. FULL STOP!

Don't buy into that crap. It is a right-wing fairy tale.

The new version is still better: If violence is low in Iraq, elect McCain as he supported the surge, and if it is high, it's because Al Queda wants a Dem to be the President, so to show them, elect McCain.

Impeccable, airtight logic.

We have always been at war with Eurasia.

Eric Martin's explanation is false.

Next posting, please.

If things in Iraq are chaotic and violent, well, we just can't leave can we ... On the other hand, if things in Iraq are quieting down, we can't leave lest we disturb the peace.

If only this logic had been used for the military occupation of the South after the Civil War.

"Eric Martin's explanation is false."

am's post is stupid and pointless.

"Next posting, please."

Smarter monkeys, please.

Bush took a country that, albeit under a cruel dictator, was largely secular and a major oil producer and turned it into a chaotic mess with various religious factions vying for power, energy production down the toilet and a level of violence that makes most people long for the old days of stability. And that’s just talking about Iraq. Heck of job, W!

Boy, is that stupid or what. We could paper several barn walls with the faces of stupid people of this time period, 2000-2007. I have made a rule that if B&C do start a war with Iran, then all Americans who voted for Bush should be the first drafted into the war.

'capisce', not 'capiche'.

You silly Americans.

You think that when and under what circumstances you leave Iraq will be your decision?

Karl Rove playbook theory: if it's bad news - rush headlong to paint it as a postive.

Hence McCain says: "he fears that al Qaeda or another extremist group might attempt spectacular attacks in Iraq to try to tilt the US election against him."

Oh, that is why the surge isn't working - Iraqis hate McCain.

And it's right on QUE too.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 11:02 GMT

Less than a month after the decision of Sayyed Moqtada Al Sadr to extend Al Mahdi Army cease fire, a new statement by Al Sadr has hinted about a possible retraction of his decision or amendment therein. In a four pages statement sealed by Al Sadr, he allowed Al Mahdi Army to defend itself before US and Iraqi Forces.

Oh my, whatever shall we do? If McCain is making some Iraqis mad, perhaps we should elect a Dem. You know, because peace is the last think Mr. "War for a 100 years" McCain wants.

Do it for peace, do it for democracy in Iraq. Why should we do it for McCain latest, cheapest BS. whereby McCain practices doing the same ole Bush bullshit for another 4 years of cheap, stupid lies.

Is there ANY doubt that McCain is just another Bush?

Kevin quotes: "... who even knew Iraq had the second largest reserve oil supply in the world ... "

Iraq's oil is even more valuable than that. First of all, it may actually have more oil than Saudi Arabia. Second of all, much of the rest of the Middle East is already at or past peak production, whereas much of Iraq's oil is completely untouched.

If you want tens of trillions of dollars in profit from the world's last, biggest, best reserves of high-quality, cheaply-extractable oil during the post-peak oil period of steadily declining supply and accelerating demand, then you want to control Iraq's oil.

And if you are a giant oil corporation, that means that you need your bought-and-paid-for servants Cheney and Bush to launch a war of unprovoked aggression based on lies, to install a subservient puppet government headed up by convicted criminal Ahmed Chalabi as the "new improved Saddam", that will hand over control of Iraq's oil to the western oil corporations and acquiesce to a large, permanent US military occupation to enforce that control.

That's the course that they still hope to stay.

Standard issue reply by the US government/MSM on Iraq War progress:

Things are going well. Freedom is on the march. Less bombings and killings but we still have a long way to go since the country is in ruins, there are no jobs, soldiers get blown up regularly and a few stray rockets always seem to go off in the wrong places. Overall, we're cautiously optimistic.

Repeat over and over again for the next 50 years (which is what the British did before they finally left) or when the oil runs dry.

It's bad news alright.

US Military Says Spike in Iraq Violence Not a Trend
Voice of America - Mar 12, 2008
US coalition and Iraqi forces have been fighting rogue elements of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The anti-US cleric declared a ...
Growing violence in Iraq shakes security gains Xinhua
Dozens Killed Across Iraq The Associated Press
Iraq violence spikes Arab Times
Detroit Free Press
all 1,334 news articles....

The surge was ONLY suppose to last till spring...the us faces a major break-down in available military troops after that - so it's either a military draft or withdraw time, and the surge of course was nothing but Bush's political gimmicks.

Bush's surge DIDN'T work, but then EVERYONE knew it would not work - just delay the obvious, the US lost the war in Iraq.

So McCain paints it as al Qaeda's "doesn't want him for president". You can NOT trust anything McCain says - Mr. Straight Talks lies EVERY bit as horribly as Bush lied over and over again to the American people.

The two-headed coin flips both ways:

If violence is up, we'd better cut our losses.
If violence is down, we're not needed anymore.

Iraq--staying or going? You and I don't have much of a say,

However--

All empires end. Here in the USA, the rich don’t pay taxes, won’t serve in the military and the leadership is foolish–just like Rome, the Ottomans, the Dutch and on and on.

On the other hand, when our propertied founders steered the country between monarchy and democracy–guess what? They choose oligarchy and we still have it! They feared democracy–mob rule, they called it. So it goes.

I say let’s go democratic/Populist and kick the corporations and lobbyists out of the temple!

If things in Iraq are chaotic and violent, well, we just can't leave can we — I mean, what about the oil (which was so totally not a reason for this invasion at all, in any way, whatsoever, I mean, who even knew Iraq had the second largest reserve oil supply in the world)?

Well, we don't need to police all of Iraq to protect the oil.

Get the soldiers who are in harm's way policing people who hate them and will always hate them, out. So long as we do it effectively, even the Iraqis will have to sort of love us for protecting the oil. If we had a hand in what people see as an unfair distribution of profits, that will be one thing, but no Iraqi wants the country to be totally poor, which is what it would be if the oil couldn't be sold.

I hope I'm not being too naive in assuming that a lot of the profit from Iraq's sold oil makes its way back into Iraq's economy (and into the hands of the common Iraqi)-- I don't follow those details too closely.

Kevin,

You used to be someone that could be counted on to provide a deeper level of thinking and analysis when compared to many of the commenters that read your blog, but I really can't say that is true any longer, and that is a great shame.

I am not an Iraq hawk, and I thought invasion and occupation was a bad idea because it made Iraq and it's people the direct responsibility of the United States- a responsibility we were undertaking without a clear plan for how to make their lives better after the removal of Hussein and his government. However, there is no neat and easy undoing what has been done- we can only ameliorate the effects.

One can certainly argue that the presence of American troops in Iraq today makes the situation worse for the Iraqi people than it would otherwise be if the troops were withdrawn, but so few actually make this argument lucidly, and you don't even seem to be trying. You would rather lazily link to nearly incoherent, snarkridden drivel written by the likes of Eric Martin.

Kevin, you are better than this- I have seen it over the years that I have read your blog. This isn't a fucking game where one side is trying to snooker the other with word games. The people in charge of the policy have valid reasons for thinking a continued commitment of American troops is a necessary thing. Like it or not, we have accepted responsibility for what happens in Iraq going forward. If you want to advocate the withdrawl, then either make an argument for how a withdrawl will be a beneficence to the Iraqi people, and a step towards fulfilling the responsibility our country has taken on, or simply make the argument that withdrawl is good for the United States regardless of what happens in Iraq and the Middle East afterwards.

"Heads they win. Tails they win. We stay in Iraq no matter what. Capiche?"

That's the Republican Plan for Endless War in a nutshell, Kevin.

This isn't a fucking game where one side is trying to snooker the other with word games.

That is exactly what it is. This word game started by conflating Saddam with "the people who attacked us on 9/11" in order to justify an invasion. It was used to evoke images of death drones and mushrooms clouds over our cities that had no basis in reality. It was used to construct impossible condundrums as litmus tests for invasion, such as demanding Saddam to disarm himself of weapons he did not possess and then using his inability to comply as a substitute for a real reason for waging war.

The word games continued into the occupation, with terms such as "dead-enders" used to diminish a real and growing insurgency not limited to any one religious group. The term "terrorist" instead of "insurgent" was used to stoke fears about withdrawal. "Progress" was used ever more hysterically as conditions in Iraq deteriorated. And on and on.

This whole endeavor has been nothing but word games.

You and I may not feel that way, and the troops on the ground may not feel that way, but the White House sure does. They have displayed no sincerity or dispassioned analysis, and surely no true sympathy for the plight of the Iraqis; only Orwellian doublespeak meant for domestic consumption and political gain.

One can certainly argue that the presence of American troops in Iraq today makes the situation worse for the Iraqi people than it would otherwise be if the troops were withdrawn, but so few actually make this argument lucidly, and you don't even seem to be trying.

The Iraqi people themselves have made it lucidly. The parliament passed a resolution demanding a timetable for withdrawal, the Iraqi people have said the American presence there is single major contributor to violence and unrest and over 90% believe attacks on American troops are justified.

That would seem to be lucid enough. If not, Iraqi self-determination and sovereignty and our inability to pay for this war any longer suffice.

Kevin's post accurately enough describes the logical contortions of the pro-war Republicans, an absurd set of requirements that point to a third, actual but hidden requirement for withdrawal, which is something like:

"The only time that would be right for withdrawing troops would be when George Bush says so. That way he will be in control of the process, be vindicated as a leader and not a failure whose hand was forced by any other party, and by association all of us who supported him will be vindicated by choosing along with him. "

Sounds like the Drug War.

Does this mean we must redouble our efforts?

Yes, son. Yes it does.

Yancey Ward: "The people in charge of the policy have valid reasons for thinking a continued commitment of American troops is a necessary thing."

Of course it is necessary -- from their point of veiw. The US-based transnational oil companies won't be able to steal Iraq's oil wealth without a permanent, large-scale US military occupation to act as enforcers and prop up a subservient puppet government. "Staying the course" means a massive US military occupation of Iraq until the last drop of economically recoverable oil has been pumped from beneath its soil.

Anyone who thinks that Bush's deliberate, repeated, elaborate and sickening lies about nonexistent "threats" from nonexistent "Iraqi WMD" and nonexistent "links between Saddam and Al Qaeda" covered up any other reason for invading Iraq than to seize control of its oil, is an idiot.

Swan wrote: "I hope I'm not being too naive in assuming that a lot of the profit from Iraq's sold oil makes its way back into Iraq's economy (and into the hands of the common Iraqi)-- I don't follow those details too closely."

With all due respect, if you did follow the details about the US-written, so-called "Iraq Hydrocarbon Law" -- passage of which is the singular "benchmark" that any Iraqi government must meet to be regarded by Cheney/Bush as "legitimate" -- then you would know that you are in fact, being quite naive.

The whole and entire purpose of that law is to make sure that the giant western oil corporations, predominantly those based in the USA with a smaller role for British and French companies, reap the overwhelming majority of the profits from Iraq's oil and that as little as possible of it winds up in the hands of the people of Iraq. These corporations controlled Iraq's oil from the end of World War I until the early 1970s when Iraq's oil industry was nationalized and they were kicked out. They want that oil back.

Our occupation of Iraq will be a flyspeck in Mesopotamia's vast history. They've seen conquerors come and go (some stayed for centuries), but the land and its people are still there. In fact, the United States itself is a smudgemark compared to Mesopotamia's vast history.

Mr. Ward has always flattered himself into thinking that he was a reasonable voice of conservatism here. That this was never the case has been made quite clear here where he demands, as is typical of the nutcase-right, that those who favor ending the illegal occupation of Iraq demonstrate their seriousness by enumerating the obvious benefits of NOT BEING FUCKING INVADERS IN A LAND WHERE WE DON'T EVEN SPEAK THE FUCKING LANGUAGE.

Sorry, gross and unrelenting stupidity occasionally overcomes my good nature. Fucking morons like Ward claim, without a shred of evidence that our great and powerful leaders (you know, the idiots who failed to follow the wise counsel of our Mr. Ward) have a reason. Why doesn't he provide any of those reasons? Because he's another fucking clueless twit who supports the brutalization of the Iraqi people - purely because we're already there.

The Bush Cabal broke Iraq you thick-headed supporter of the spilling of other people's blood. There is no way to make it whole again. It's just that simple. Assholes like you were willing to send tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese to their graves just so you wouldn't have to admit that the cause was lost and that it was never just.

The only thing to do is beg Iraq's neighbors (all of them, even the ones who hate us) to pick up the pieces - and to pay for their efforts. Generously.

You and yours have created a nightmare. Too bad there is nothing that will ever make you understand that.

Seems that 'capiche' is in dictionary.com, 'capisce' is not!

We don't have to spend another nickel there, if we don't want to.

Well, most citizens don't want to, but they aren't seeing the actual costs to them every week, so they are not motivated enough to get it stopped. That's why I think they should fund the Iraq occupation with a separate Federal sales tax and call it the "Iraq Operations Tax" or whatever. Make it mandatory that it is printed as a separate broken out tax item on every receipt you get for everything you buy. I bet people would tire enough of it and make enough noise to get us out then.

When the US oil companies start selling Iraq's oil to us, will we get a break because we have spent $600 billion to secure the oil for them?

Are we still in Iraq? You see and hear so little about it in the news lately.

It seems to me that the rest of the world has found our achilles heel.I hope we can afford to ship our troops home.

A perspective that I think has been somewhat forgotten ovet recent months, from someone who admittedly doesn't even *live* in the US.

The only thing (and I mean the only thing) that ever made sense to me from the Republican side of the table was the moment Colin Powell reminded his administration that "If you broke it, you bought it". I'm not indifferent to US casualties in Iraq (I'm from the UK, so our body count is linked to yours, albeit in smaller numbers, and with an imperfect correlation), but it seems to me that anyone in favour of pulling out of Iraq needs to demonstrate that a) the country bollixed by our intervention *cannot possibly* recover whilst US/Coalition troops are there, and b) when we do finally leave Iraq, we don't allow terrorism (of a more general stripe than Mr Bush allows for) to simply replace us.

Otherwise, whilst I agree 100% that every American (and British) soldier killed is a tragedy, I don't see *a priori* how a withdrawl will help overall. And by overall, I mean that casualties might well increase once we've gone, and I can't see why an Iraqi civilian's life is worth less than one of our soldiers, or one of yours. We (where we=current government) made this choice, and perhaps we might be stuck with it. I would *love* to believe that if we all go home, everything will be tickety-boo (look it up) but that seems a fairly simplistic view of events, and I thought (or at least hoped) that what separated us from our opponents is that we're not too lazy to consider more complex formulations.

If we stay in Iraq, X people will die. If we leave, Y people will die. To be liberal (Hell, to be worthy of drawing breath on this Earth), are we not beholden to demonstrate X is greater than Y before we plan withdrawl? Otherwise, what exactly are we?

It sounds nice, but the fact is that there is no mechanism by which we can predict the future. How many people will die if we stay? No one knows. How many people will die if we leave? No one knows.

What do we know? We know that we are an occupying nation. We know that our troops don't speak the language. We know that the troops don't know the culture. We know that the troops have never won the "hearts and minds" of the people of Iraq.

We also know that things in Iraq are far worse under the malign influence of George W. Bush than they were under their previous tyrant. As a measure of that look to the surveys that show a majority of Iraqis approving of attacks on occupation forces. Look at those longing for the good old days of a violent strongman.

Yes, the US owes the Iraqis more than a swift departure and a wave goodbye. But what is owed cannot be paid by continuing their oppression.

A demand that those asking to leave accurately predict the future is not liberal, it is just stupid - oddly, I don't see anyone demanding the same of those who insist that we continue the war in Vietnam. Sorry, Iraq.

Necons have been callously indifferent to the one million prematurely dead, four million displaced from home, mini-holocaust visited on a nation of innocents.

But talk of leaving, and suddenly they evince great humanitarian concern for Iraqis and warn of chaos!

SpaceSquid wrote: "If we stay in Iraq, X people will die. If we leave, Y people will die ... are we not beholden to demonstrate X is greater than Y before we plan withdrawl?"

No. On the contrary. Those who advocate continuing the occupation of Iraq are beholden to demonstrate that the occupation is doing any good at all for the Iraqi people. There is no evidence whatsoever that it is.

Iraq is a nation of Tony Rezkos, so it'll be awhile before it is a functioning democracy.

You and yours have created a nightmare. Too bad there is nothing that will ever make you understand that.

Posted by: the

heavy, why did you change your name? Are you embarassed but what you have written? You should be.

Your "bad guy" who is a "petty dictator" for only killing 300,000...does he send you thank you notes from the grave?