Well now that he's had his lapdogs before congress repeating the party line, he can do his usual thing and say he's just following his generals advice.

Get ready! There's another corner coming up!!

Vietnam all over again.

Why are we in Iraq again? I think the reason most repeated over the past few years is that we can't leave. What a farking mess.

well, at least it's the afternoon and it's not getting in the way of the new episode of the Office tonight.


Bush = Michael Scott.

Three Crooked Squirrels: I think the reason most repeated over the past few years is that we can't leave.

Patreaus flat out said we can't leave because the situation while better is "fragile and reversible". Guess what General? Iraq has had sectarian strife for a thousand years. Whatever emerges there will be "fragile and reversible". If the benchmark to allow the US to leave is that the situation is no longer "fragile and reversible", you are telling us we will be there forever.

Hell I don't know

Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months. Give it 6 months.....

I don't get what kind of retareded plan Patreaus was proumulgating - go back to normal troop levels and then wait and see for 45 days? WAIT AND SEE FOR 45 DAYS?!?!?

Jesus christ.

Nestea Plunge: More dipshiat platitudes and bumper sticker slogans in a phony Texas accent.

Don't forget the smirk. He's always got that damn smirk that makes you want to punch the taste out of his mouth (more).

The good General already said there is no military solution, so political progress should be our only yardstick.

But there is no political progress, nor can there be, between tribes that have been feuding for centuries, and won't budge.

Fark 'em. I vote we get the hell out of there. Protect the oil, by all means. But fark 'em.

SchlingFo

I've been there in a game of Tron. It ends badly.

We're still not done liberating the ever-living shiat out of them.

But you people don't understand, Dubya is going to be remembered as a political genius who layed the foundation for the coming peace in the middle east. You've just got to take the long view.

/it won't matter in 2012 when the meteor strike vaporizes all life from the planet...

Somebody give this ass a big pint of STFU.

Bush has put our next president in an excellent position--he can always say it was on fire when he lay down on it

.

I wonder if he will say "Stay the course," or if they will scratch that out from one of his prior speechifications.

Guess what? We can't leave for at least another 15-20 years. Everyone with half a brain knew this 5 years ago. It's going to take at least one full generation to secure the democracy. It's going to take the majority of military-age males having never lived in anything but a democracy before we can be sure the country will not be likely to fall back into something resembling a dictatorship.

We are not leaving.

Look at Japan - it's been sixty years since we nuked their two biggest cities and we are still there. And we're not leaving anytime soon. How about Germany? Our base in Ramstein still there?

But we're soooo close!

you people are dumb

You mean the current democracy in Iran?

I keep having this recurring dream where it's January 20, 2009. President Bush and his cronies are in the box, looking smug with their freshly minted pardons. Then, up to the podium step Chief Justice John Roberts, and the president-elect. And then, in that horrible, shrill harpy voice, Hillary Clinton says, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." And she cracks up no less than twice.

I tend to wake up in a cold sweat.

[cue pursed lips, squinty eyes]

"Good evening, our trials in Iraq have been fierce, but the Iraqi people are freer and freedom is on the march around the world. That is why tonight, thru concerted action with our allies and in corporation with the Maliki government, we have begun to liberate Iran with targeted air strikes at al Queda bases that have been harboring terrorists that are killing Iraqi, and American solders. I know it is a difficult time, yadda yadda yadda yadda. . . ."

Krack: Everyone with half a brain knew this 5 years ago.

Exactly. We knew that, and even Papa Bush agreed with us in that it was a damn fine argument for not going into Iraq in the first place.

Mission sort of accomplished?

/got nuthin

Occam's Chainsaw: I keep having this recurring dream where it's January 20, 2009. President Bush and his cronies are in the box, looking smug with their freshly minted pardons. Then, up to the podium step Chief Justice John Roberts, and the president-elect. And then, in that horrible, shrill harpy voice, Hillary Clinton says, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." And she cracks up no less than twice.

I tend to wake up in a cold sweat.

Melatonin. Let me show it to you.

So close to January 2009 that Dub can taste it. Just give it another six months and at that point he can say "I don't want to change anything drastic as a new administration is coming to power. We will not change out strategy and instead we are preparing to hand the reigns over to the newly elected President. Isn't it great that in America we have such a great system that no one has to die for power to change hands? AMERICA! fark YEAH!"

Krack: Guess what? We can't leave for at least another 15-20 years. Everyone with half a brain knew this 5 years ago. It's going to take at least one full generation to secure the democracy. It's going to take the majority of military-age males having never lived in anything but a democracy before we can be sure the country will not be likely to fall back into something resembling a dictatorship.

We are not leaving.

Look at Japan - it's been sixty years since we nuked their two biggest cities and we are still there. And we're not leaving anytime soon. How about Germany? Our base in Ramstein still there?

See, this would be an interesting post if you said something.

You know something's farked up when Iran supports the Shiite majority and brokered the Basra truce, when Maliki is trying to stop the most popular figure Sadr from participating in the "free" elections, and Bush can't even get most Iraqis to back Maliki.

Listening to Petraeus and Crocker On C-Span the last two days, -I found it so very Con-veeen-ient that basically their asessment of the Iraq situation is that:

- we've made great progress, enough to justify all our "sunk costs" and keep spending money and lives on Iraq.

- On the other hand we have quite made enough progress to justify drawing down us forces and expecting the Iraqis to "stnad up" no, no; theygreat strides we've made are far too fragile for THAT.

So basically the only thing we Can do given all this marvelous but highly fragile progress, is to maintain the exact status quo we have now; ad infinitum, or at least until the next innaguration when a Dem president will have the lovely choice of pulling the troops out and taking the blame for all the inevitable chaos (and be accused of "losing" a war the repubicans weere "winning")

Or leaving the troops in and being called a liar and losing the support of their base.

It's a lovely trap the admin has laid; too bad they don't put half as much thought into acutal governance.

Deja vu.

the old crow: you people are dumb

*sticks tongue out*

Three Crooked Squirrels: Why are we in Iraq again? I think the reason most repeated over the past few years is that we can't leave. What a farking mess.

Get out a map and draw a circle with Baghdad at the center extending out for 1000 miles give or take. Now plot the world's major oil reserves including the Gulf States, the Caspian, and the Sudan.

Krack: Look at Japan - it's been sixty years since we nuked their two biggest cities and we are still there. And we're not leaving anytime soon. How about Germany? Our base in Ramstein still there?

We nuked Tokyo?

Krack: Guess what? We can't leave for at least another 15-20 years. Everyone with half a brain knew this 5 years ago.

Which of course, excludes Bush and all his advisers - except the ones he kicked out for having MORE than half a brain.

Not this shiat again.

GOP strategy for the next forever:

Drums to war, fear
Start war, fear
Rinse and repeat.

Scum. Nothing less. Scum. Murderous, Machiavellian, sociopaths.

Krack: Look at Japan - it's been sixty years since we nuked their two biggest cities and we are still there. And we're not leaving anytime soon. How about Germany? Our base in Ramstein still there?

Completely different situations. Japan and Germany have homogeneous societies and our very limited presence there is solely in response to geopolitical concerns vis-a-vis the Soviets/Russians.

Did you ever get the feeling that other countries point at us and laugh when we're not looking?

Der Vassermeister: Did you ever get the feeling that other countries point at us and laugh when we're not looking?

LOL you think they wait until we're not looking?

Nestea Plunge: Secure their democracy? Why should I give a fark about their democracy? Neo-con Neo-Liberal war whores started this, farking fix it.

It's a ____!

Magorn: So basically the only thing we Can do given all this marvelous but highly fragile progress, is to maintain the exact status quo we have now; ad infinitum, or at least until the next innaguration when a Dem president will have the lovely choice of pulling the troops out and taking the blame for all the inevitable chaos (and be accused of "losing" a war the repubicans weere "winning")

Or leaving the troops in and being called a liar and losing the support of their base.

It's a lovely trap the admin has laid; too bad they don't put half as much thought into acutal governance.

There's no way they planned this. They're too incompetent. Everything that has come about has been through sheer luck of the draw. They only prevailed in getting us there and creating a larger federal government here.

It can't beat the last one. 'The surge is working - I just met with a sheikh the other day. He was killed by a terrorist attack yesterday. This is why we need more surge.'

Ummm...if it's working so well, why did this guy get killed?

Krack: Guess what? We can't leave for at least another 15-20 years. Everyone with half a brain knew this 5 years ago. It's going to take at least one full generation to secure the democracy. It's going to take the majority of military-age males having never lived in anything but a democracy before we can be sure the country will not be likely to fall back into something resembling a dictatorship.

We are not leaving.

Look at Japan - it's been sixty years since we nuked their two biggest cities and we are still there. And we're not leaving anytime soon. How about Germany? Our base in Ramstein still there?


got bad news for you. the goal posts have moved again. Were not in Iraq to bring democracy anymore. From the mouth of Gen Petraeus himself yesterday:
"Ambassador Crocker and I, for what it's worth, have typically seen ourselves as minimalists. We're not after the Holy Grail in Iraq, we're not after Jeffersonian democracy," Petraeus responded. "We're after conditions that would allow our soldiers to disengage."

So apparently a deeply divided country held together by a strongman who held the country united through brutality and violence would be fine with them. Proabably be a bonus if he was a secular strongman who supressed religious extremists and was an enemey of Al-Qeada and Iran.

oh Wait. We had one of those before the invasion. Darn the luck, I think we recently strung him up.

cltbuilder: There's no way they planned this. They're too incompetent. Everything that has come about has been through sheer luck of the draw. They only prevailed in getting us there and creating a larger federal government here.

Someone planned this. I just don't think it was the administration. Someone said, "Bush wants to play tin soldiers, and we can get stupid farking rich if we can get him to outsource half the war to us. He's already got a hard-on for brown people, and Saddam Hussein is his daddy's black eye. Y'know what they say, 'You can't get stupendously rich without killing a few poor people,' or something like that."

Why that person isn't swinging from a rope is the real farking tragedy.

1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783

Thune: 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1782, 1783

Congratulations on naming 9 consecutive numbers. You can count!

Boy I sure hope he doesn't fall out of the presidential helicopter or anything. I hear sometimes they fly over the lion pit at the zoo…