Iraq Study Group Reaches Concensus

reporter writes to point us to a story in the Washington Post reporting that the Iraq Study Group has reached consensus and will issue its 100-page report on December 6: 'The Iraq Study Group, which wrapped up eight months of deliberations yesterday, has reached a consensus and will call for a major withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, shifting the U.S. role from combat to support and advising, according to a source familiar with the deliberations.' The Post mentions that first word of the panel's conclusions came from the New York Times yesterday. The Times points out that it is not clear how many U.S. troops would come home; some brigades might be withdrawn to Iraqi bases out of the line of fire from which they could provide protection for remaining U.S. operations.

Comments

In other words

[smooth wombat]

what the study group is recommending is "cut and run" or possibly, "cut and walk".

Not that it really matters since Bush is already planning to ignore what the study group says. He'll just continue to "Stay the course".

Re:In other words

[catfood]

By January or February of 2007, more american lives will have been lost in Iraq than were killed on September 11th.

Actually, we're almost certainly at that point already.

3,030 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, including WTC, Pentagon, and Shanksville. Wikipedia says 2,973. In the ballpark anyway.

icasualties.org says 2,885 US military personnel have been lost in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

What people forget is that those who died at the World Trade Center were not all Americans. Conservatively, 10% of those on the scene must have been foreign business people, consultants, workers on H-class visas, foreign student interns, and international visitors. Wikipedia says about 316 were non-Americans.

So if you're comparing Americans to Americans...

Advice on reading The Washington Post

[smittyoneeach]

When reading The Washington Post, always consider the diametric opposite position from whatever agenda the WaPo pushes.
Consider http://newsbusters.org/node/6863

a documentary about the Iraqi civil war..

[Adult film producer]

Was produced a few years ago by Al-Jazeera, well, technically it's not about Iraq but Lebanon.

http://fineartfilm.com/index.php?main_page=product _info&products_id=59

(or watch it on google video)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=war+of+leban on

There are 15 episodes, about 12 hours long with english subtitles.. so sit back and enjoy how history repeats itself.. the stage moved to the left, a bit, but it's the same story happening all over again. Iraqi society descending into chaos, neighbourhoods dividing along sectarian lines, intervening regional powers, oh and lots of blood.

Arrr matey

[krell]

"If Iraq has taught anything, the lesson is to keep a weather eye on the sources."

Aye cap'n, keep a weather-eye out. "The source", the Washington Post, is not near as bad as some claim. Their bullpen of commentators includes strong conservatives as Krauthammer and ol' George Will, and even examples of the rare species known as the moderate (David Broder). The Post also produced a landmark excellent article on the details of Chavez' fascist dictatorship in Venezuela (something a hard-left paper would not do, since the hard-left loves this dictator).

Hopefully, you aren't one of those who holds up the Washington Times as an example of a better paper.

The supreme international crime

[replicant108]

If there is ethnic cleansing and tens or hundreds of thousands killed in internecine war, it's not as if the US population is going to sit down and say, "well hell, our President is responsible for that."

Well, maybe they should.

According to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, "to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Re:Shhhhhhh

[ahillen]

That was a joke, right?

Because you'd have to be off your meds to REALLY believe something THAT silly...

No, actually he is quite correct. A lot of people believed before the war even started that the war was a bad idea, based on dubious "facts" and had the potential to produce more chaos then it would solve problems - just like it turned out to be the case. Sorry for you if you still can't see that.

Re:Thanks, Slashdot

[cliffski]

2) We all thought there were WMDs

No we didn't. At least not in the UK. In fact, 2 million people amrched through central london 9the largest demonstration in the UK in living memory) to say exactly that. If Saddam had WMD we wouldnt have invaded him (see N korea for details). The best evidence to support the WMD theory was some student dissertation lifted off the web (see 'the dodgy dossier').
Don't pretend there was consensus about WMD before the war. There was not. Call Hans Blix and ask him if your still unsure.

Re:Shhhhhhh

[hachete]

People like Richard Perle seem to think that Iraq is an unfolding disaster:

http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/1 2/neocons200612

The neo-cons - the architects of the ideology if not the actual war - are cutting loose like no one's business. They seem to think the war is going badly, and they're blaming the chimp.

And even if you don't believe the figure of 100,000 people fleeing Iraq every month, that it mught be 50,000, or even less, it's still people going gone get. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6158847.stm

Dead bodies found:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6160117.stm

more killed. every day, yet more.

If this is victory