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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 The Times points out that it is not clear how many U.S. troops would come home; some brigades might be withdrawn to Iraqi bases out of the line of fire from which they could provide protection for remaining U.S. operations.
Didn't most of the U.S. (government aside) reach this consensus in like 2003?
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
Iran wanted Saddam removed because they want a Shia superstate. This little gem of an idea was on the news for about 10 minutes a couple of years ago, when the Pentagon opined that Chalabi was an Iranian double-agent who duped the US with bad intel so Iran could foment a regime change to destabilize the region so the Shia majority could take control. But when the news agencies realized that they were saying that the entire Executive Branch of the US Government had been suckered by selective intelligence into doing the bidding of a known sponsor of terrorism, the story sort of dried up and went away. We're still working for Iran and Israel. Two masters, though with incompatible ends, but both being served by our own Wilsonian idealistic crusade mentality. It's an interesting, if depressing, situation.
I live in that tiny little place caleed "the rest of the World", and I can guarantee you this war was considered a disgrace ever since your president started talking about it. Face it, nobody bought Bush's crap outside of the US, in spite of the great effort from our media corporate machine to convince us otherwise.
Only some right-wing politicians (and Blair, the poodle) gave their approval, but they would suck the American President's dick any time, no matter who he is or what party he belongs to.
I'd say it was true. heck, Bush snr even said it - it's in his Biography that he counciled his son against it.
Some nations need strong, nay extreme leadership to keep them together because they're so volatile. Saddam was a nasty piece of work but he was at least reasonably predictable. As one Iraqi noted in an interview, at least under Saddam he knew if he did x, y or z he'd get tortured and maybe killed. Now he fears that just for going down the shops.
It's a huge mistake to assume everyone in the world feels and thinks like we do. They do not and htings that might seem trivial to us are big deals for them and vice versa. Sometimes these people need someone who is a bit of a psycho to keep a lid on things and we are now seeing in Iraq what happens when rule with a rod of iron is taken away. Something similar happened in Yugoslavia, strong domineering leader dies, everything goes to crap and people who apparantly got on with each were suddenly at each others throats.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
What the grandparent post was saying, but I guess a typo got in the way of the message coming across, is that at least in America it's *really* difficult to get objective information about how the war in Iraq is going. Each news source might have a different idea about it, might be talking to different officials that, yes, are ordered to stay on message, or might have ulteriour motives that prevent it from delivering unbiased information. In addition, yes, soldiers and media are extremely limited in what photographs they're permitted to send back home.
Why do you think it is that all the *retired* generals in the US army seem critical of the war in Iraq? Once they're retired they're no longer under orders to stay on message, and the message that the administration has chosen is that everything's under control. It isn't, and I think most people accept that there's little possibility of it getting under control the way things are going now. I've talked to soldiers, I've read blogs, I've done enough research to satisfy myself that the "quagmire" of Iraq has turned into a "shitstorm" and it's time to get out.