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Obama Sets End of Iraq Combat For August 31st
eldavojohn writes "President Barack Obama has announced that on August 31st the United States will cease all combat operations in Iraq, although 50,000 troops will remain until the end of 2011. It's been a long seven-and-a-half years, with no guarantee of this announcement actually signifying the end of violence. Pundits are already speculating on whether or not this withdrawal speech is 'Mission Accomplished 2.' It's possibly the most significant confirmation of and commitment to a withdrawal the world will hear from the United States in Iraq."
You missed the "Stuff that matters" part of Slashdot's motto up there.
The US will be there for decades.
Germany surrendered in May 1945, the US is still there.
Japan surrendered in August 1945, the US is still there.
Korean cease fire started in July 1953, the US is still there.
Heck, we still have significant numbers of troops in West Germany who do an excellent job of preventing Nazi insurgencies and invasions by the USSR.
I am officially gone from
Funny you should post that, in NYC it would actually be police work, using the NYPD's Hercules Teams
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
http://www.2010congressionalelection.com/
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More like almost exactly the timeline Obama campaigned on.
In Britain, "anti-terrorism" was indeed regular police work for over 20 years. The police handling of the Arndale Manchester bombing (3000 lbs truck bomb in a crowded city center) was one of the most spectacular evacuations in living history and although I tend to be rather critical of the way the police generally handle things, this was damn-near superhuman effort on their part and they deserve to be proud for saving the lives of every single person there. (There were a few minor injuries to those who stood right up against the barrier to watch the bomb go off, which surely would have deserved a Good Try from the Darwin Awards at the time, but that's it.)
In other situations, an Armed Response Unit might be called in, but that's still police. The SAS were called in once, to storm the Iranian Embassy, but even then the SAS report to the Home Office directly and are not strictly part of the regular army. Even if you did consider them, though, that's one operation out of how many hundreds?
I'm not sure who is in charge of the bomb disposal units, but that's such a tiny part of the whole operation that it really doesn't matter.
(I won't get into the source of funding for the terrorists, as many Slashdotters live in that country and might object.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
How long have we maintained 40,000 troops in Korea?
if bush i in iraq i had decided to push on to baghdad and topple saddam in the early 1990s after racing across the desert unimpeded, then the world would have seen that as justified
Bush 41 had build a true multinational coalition including many Muslim middle eastern nations, and in negotiating the coalition, had agreed not to change the regime in Iraq, only to liberate Kuwait. Pushing to Baghdad would have been a stab in the back to our allies at the time. And it was believed that after the war, Saddam might fall from power on his own, or at least would have been far less powerful / more cooperative than he ended up being.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Yea, because the Cato institute is a bastion of independent and non-partisan fact analysis. Next you'll tell me Gartner provides reports that are impartial and unbiased.
http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/cii/...g27_to_200.pdf Here is the Illinois State Police report for 2007. They haven't released the 2008 report as of yet. Crime was up in 2008, but has dropped back down for 2009 so far..... Cook County: 80 murders for 2,455,801 people - 3.25/100,000 Chicago City: 443 murders for 2,832,854 people - 15.64/100,000 Total: 554 murders for 5,288,655 people
Source: http://www.city-data.com/forum/chicago/667826-where-can-you-find-cook-county.html
The SAS were called in once, to storm the Iranian Embassy, but even then the SAS report to the Home Office directly and are not strictly part of the regular army.
The Iranian embassy is not technically on British soil, just as every embassy in every country is considered to stand on their own soil and not the soil of the hosting country. That being the case, the use of police would not have been justified (police not having international jurisdiction). A military force to rescue hostages would be entirely in keeping with the separation of police and military duties.
Socialism by dictionary definition involves state ownership of the means of production so there is no real socialism in the world today except in a handful of weirdo countries like North Korea, Cuba and Belarus. When the right in the US accuse someone of being socialist they mean that they sort of lean towards the bigger government involvement in x as opposed to leaving x to the free market. So if you take it literally, it doesn't make sense. I personally would prefer if people used the word statist instead of socialist to describe people like Obama.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.