It is all theatre for W to steal every last red state vote he can. All of W's bullying about fully-funding the war is a waste of time. General Petraeus anticipates that the US troops will be starting their phased withdrawal in 5 or 6 months anyway, which is essentially the same time frame that the Democrats want and W is whining about.
The article "US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2023866,00.html states According to the US military's revised counter-insurgency field manual, FM 3-24, written by Gen Petraeus, the optimum "troop-to-task" ratio for Baghdad requires 120,000 US and allied troops in the city alone. Current totals, even including often unreliable Iraqi units, fall short and the deficit is even greater in conflict areas outside Baghdad. "Additional troops are essential if we are to win," said Lt-Col John Nagel, co-author of the manual, in an address at the US Naval Institute in San Diego last month. One soldier for every 50 civilians in the most intense conflict areas was key to successful counter-insurgency work."
They don't have nearly enough troops to win, and since this is a pretty simple equation in which the duration of time needed to quell the violence raises exponentially if enough troops aren't in place, Petraeus expects to fail.
His group of advisors know this as "But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations. "They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day."
See, the enemy knows that the US can't stay in Iraq forever. We don't have enough troops or money to continue much longer. About the only people who don't realize this are the apathetic red staters.
The March 1, 2007 article "Surge - or huge muddle?" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2029612,00.html states that "Luckily, Petraeus, though he may not have his military act together just yet (he's been there less than month), has no intention of leading an ever-larger body of America's finest soldiers down a bloody blind alley. He said yesterday, as he has before, that only politics, not policemen and paratroopers, will finally settle Iraq. That is a message to Nouri al-Maliki, the leadership of Sciri, the Shia party, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sunni parties and elders, and to ordinary Iraqis to the extent that they have any control over events, that they had better get focused, and quick.... But this process, however successful (and it is still a long shot) cannot last indefinitely. If it bears fruit, Petraeus will gradually switch to the "go long" handover strategy, which prioritises reconciliation and reconstruction - jobs, schools, electricity, all the things the last four wasted years have failed to deliver. If the surge isn't working come Labor Day, Petraeus has already said he'll go to Congress and say so, loud and clear. He is not the guy to carry on a hopeless fight. Nor will he want to take the fall for Iraq."
Is al-Maliki making headway in meeting his political reforms that W demanded of him? Of course not! It is really quite simple. If you are asked to go to the store the list of what you are to get is written out. You know what time you eat dinner so you'd better get the groceries back in time for them to be cooked. You get everything on the list in a timely fashion and you succeed. Well al-Maliki is not only being asked to finish his list-which hasn't been formally spelled out, but also he doesn't want to appease the Sunnis, so he'll drag his feet. Since there are no deadlines he can always say that progress is slow, but he's making good speed at achieving his goals, and who can say otherwise? Actually since nothing is written out no one can say anything meaningful regarding whether al-Maliki is making political reforms or not.
The people who W has befriended are not working to further the interests of the US. Saudi Arabia labels W's "Mission Accomplished" as an illegal Iraq occupation. Pakistan is even worse! They are allowing al qaeda to form a base in their tribal areas from which bin laden can plan new 9/11 as the article "General: Pakistani border deal fails" at http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-02-craddock-pakistan_N.htm details. It states "The Bush administration has "strongly encouraged the Pakistanis to ensure the agreement supports the counterterrorism efforts of the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan and denies a safe haven to al-Qaeda and the Taliban," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Sunday. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the agreement "needs some work" but shouldn't be abandoned."
W could have caught bin laden in Tora Bora years and now he still can't get Pakistan to help contain al qaeda and the Taliban. Nothing is black and white and an even harder to comprehend is the Iraq theatre of GWOT.
It is reminiscent of "1984" with the enemy switching and then history being re-written. Who is the foe Saudi Arabia or Iran, or is it the Iraqi Shiites or Sunnis, or the nebulous "those who are against us" and is the summation "Saudi Arabia is Sunni and Iran is Shiite." So, who cares about al qaeda, let's go get those Iranians!" even accurate?
The 21 March 2003 article "Aftermath: SCIRI" at http://www.gwynnedyer.net/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Aftermath%20SCI RI.txt stated that "Wimps go to Baghdad," they say in neo-conservative circles in Washington. "Real men go to Tehran."
It noted that "SCIRI's leaders are moving back into Iraq right now. Two years from now, they will either be ruling Iraq or struggling to break away from it (and take most of the oil with them)."
That is roughly what is happening and W's boys probably realized that something similar to that was inevitable. Proving that W picked war with Iraq, while his PNAC "Oval Office Cabal" chums possessed the ulterior motive of going after Iran after the permanent bases were established in Iraq, requires only a brief summary of recent history.
Did they need to fight Iraq or Iran? Which had been a threat to the US? The "intellectually incurious" dolt is probably proud of himself for getting 3 out 4 letters right, and the Iraq war is in the correct region, but doesn't W know that his poppy helped Iraq defeat Iran because Iran was the bigger threat to the US?
The article "Questions and answers about war on Iraq" at http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/peace/q&a.htm asked the question if Iraq was an imminent threat to the US and answered "No.... First of all, none of Iraq's neighbors have expressed any fear of Iraqi aggression, and all of them oppose a US war - including Kuwait, the country Iraq invaded in 1991...
Iraq was clearly not a threat to the US back then, so it could hardly be one today, after more than ten years of bombing and sanctions have devastated the country's infrastructure."
Not even Kuwait feared Iraq. W went on a GWOT, including an Iraq theatre, when the US was attacked, and Kuwait, the injured country just a decade ago, doesn't fear its attacker, Iraq. How could W's impulsive, illegal, preemptive wars be his first instinct and how could he be so wrong about Iraq? Maybe he was only lying as links to al-Qaeda were also imaginary as was Hussein's possession of WMD as was the possibility of Iraq becoming a democracy.
The article "US commanders admit: we face a Vietnam-style collapse" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/frontpage/story/0,,2023866,00.html states According to the US military's revised counter-insurgency field manual, FM 3-24, written by Gen Petraeus, the optimum "troop-to-task" ratio for Baghdad requires 120,000 US and allied troops in the city alone. Current totals, even including often unreliable Iraqi units, fall short and the deficit is even greater in conflict areas outside Baghdad. "Additional troops are essential if we are to win," said Lt-Col John Nagel, co-author of the manual, in an address at the US Naval Institute in San Diego last month. One soldier for every 50 civilians in the most intense conflict areas was key to successful counter-insurgency work."
They don't have nearly enough troops to win, and since this is a pretty simple equation in which the duration of time needed to quell the violence raises exponentially if enough troops aren't in place, Petraeus expects to fail.
His group of advisors know this as "But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations. "They know they are operating under a clock. They know they are going to hear a lot more talk in Washington about 'Plan B' by the autumn - meaning withdrawal. They know the next six-month period is their opportunity. And they say it's getting harder every day."
The March 1, 2007 article "Surge - or huge muddle?" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2029612,00.html states that "Luckily, Petraeus, though he may not have his military act together just yet (he's been there less than month), has no intention of leading an ever-larger body of America's finest soldiers down a bloody blind alley. He said yesterday, as he has before, that only politics, not policemen and paratroopers, will finally settle Iraq. That is a message to Nouri al-Maliki, the leadership of Sciri, the Shia party, Moqtada al-Sadr and the Sunni parties and elders, and to ordinary Iraqis to the extent that they have any control over events, that they had better get focused, and quick.... But this process, however successful (and it is still a long shot) cannot last indefinitely. If it bears fruit, Petraeus will gradually switch to the "go long" handover strategy, which prioritises reconciliation and reconstruction - jobs, schools, electricity, all the things the last four wasted years have failed to deliver. If the surge isn't working come Labor Day, Petraeus has already said he'll go to Congress and say so, loud and clear. He is not the guy to carry on a hopeless fight. Nor will he want to take the fall for Iraq."
Is al-Maliki making headway in meeting his political reforms that W demanded of him? Of course not! It is really quite simple. If you are asked to go to the store the list of what you are to get is written out. You know what time you eat dinner so you'd better get the groceries back in time for them to be cooked. You get everything on the list in a timely fashion and you succeed. Well al-Maliki is not only being asked to finish his list-which hasn't been formally spelled out, but also he doesn't want to appease the Sunnis, so he'll drag his feet. Since there are no deadlines he can always say that progress is slow, but he's making good speed at achieving his goals, and who can say otherwise? Actually since nothing is written out no one can say anything meaningful regarding whether al-Maliki is making political reforms or not.
The people who W has befriended are not working to further the interests of the US. Saudi Arabia labels W's "Mission Accomplished" as an illegal Iraq occupation. Pakistan is even worse! They are allowing al qaeda to form a base in their tribal areas from which bin laden can plan new 9/11 as the article "General: Pakistani border deal fails" at http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-04-02-craddock-pakistan_N.htm details. It states "The Bush administration has "strongly encouraged the Pakistanis to ensure the agreement supports the counterterrorism efforts of the United States, Pakistan and Afghanistan and denies a safe haven to al-Qaeda and the Taliban," National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Sunday. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said the agreement "needs some work" but shouldn't be abandoned."
W could have caught bin laden in Tora Bora years and now he still can't get Pakistan to help contain al qaeda and the Taliban. Nothing is black and white and an even harder to comprehend is the Iraq theatre of GWOT.
It is reminiscent of "1984" with the enemy switching and then history being re-written. Who is the foe Saudi Arabia or Iran, or is it the Iraqi Shiites or Sunnis, or the nebulous "those who are against us" and is the summation "Saudi Arabia is Sunni and Iran is Shiite." So, who cares about al qaeda, let's go get those Iranians!" even accurate?
The 21 March 2003 article "Aftermath: SCIRI" at http://www.gwynnedyer.net/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Aftermath%20SCI RI.txt stated that "Wimps go to Baghdad," they say in neo-conservative circles in Washington. "Real men go to Tehran."
It noted that "SCIRI's leaders are moving back into Iraq right now. Two years from now, they will either be ruling Iraq or struggling to break away from it (and take most of the oil with them)."
That is roughly what is happening and W's boys probably realized that something similar to that was inevitable. Proving that W picked war with Iraq, while his PNAC "Oval Office Cabal" chums possessed the ulterior motive of going after Iran after the permanent bases were established in Iraq, requires only a brief summary of recent history.
Did they need to fight Iraq or Iran? Which had been a threat to the US? The "intellectually incurious" dolt is probably proud of himself for getting 3 out 4 letters right, and the Iraq war is in the correct region, but doesn't W know that his poppy helped Iraq defeat Iran because Iran was the bigger threat to the US?
The article "Questions and answers about war on Iraq" at http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/peace/q&a.htm asked the question if Iraq was an imminent threat to the US and answered "No.... First of all, none of Iraq's neighbors have expressed any fear of Iraqi aggression, and all of them oppose a US war - including Kuwait, the country Iraq invaded in 1991...
Iraq was clearly not a threat to the US back then, so it could hardly be one today, after more than ten years of bombing and sanctions have devastated the country's infrastructure."
Not even Kuwait feared Iraq. W went on a GWOT, including an Iraq theatre, when the US was attacked, and Kuwait, the injured country just a decade ago, doesn't fear its attacker, Iraq. How could W's impulsive, illegal, preemptive wars be his first instinct and how could he be so wrong about Iraq? Maybe he was only lying as links to al-Qaeda were also imaginary as was Hussein's possession of WMD as was the possibility of Iraq becoming a democracy.
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