Awesome. I wonder if Republicans will start buying French wine again.

Cool.

The US troops can leave now?

Get 'em while they last. Soon enough they'll be French Fries again and the markup will be 300%.

On false pretenses, we invaded a sovereign nation five years ago with no exit strategy. More than five thousand Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis are dead because Bush wanted to be a "war president."

Failure is inherent with this endeavor, Subby. Mission accomplished.

baorao: Get 'em while they last. Soon enough they'll be French Fries again and the markup will be 300%.

Jeebus H. Christ, I hate these farking "patriots" with their "freedom" fries. They can all eat a large bowls of dicks.

The Onanist: baorao: Get 'em while they last. Soon enough they'll be French Fries again and the markup will be 300%.

Jeebus H. Christ, I hate these farking "patriots" with their "freedom" fries. They can all eat a large bowls of dicks cheneys.

ftfy

The Onanist: baorao: Get 'em while they last. Soon enough they'll be French Fries again and the markup will be 300%.

Jeebus H. Christ, I hate these farking "patriots" with their "freedom" fries. They can all eat a large bowls of dicks.

Freedom dicks?

Cost minus benefit

Cool, so I guess subby will be taking his family to Baghdad for summer vacation then?

RagingLeonard Cool, so I guess subby will be taking his family to Baghdad for summer vacation then?

Also to most of the other comments thus far...while "better" doesn't mean "safe," the point of the article and subby's headline is that things are actually improving. The headline just points out that the doom-and-gloom outlook that the media and most politicians are taking is inaccurate and largely motivated by the desire to score a few political points. Leaving aside the question of whether the war should have been started in the first place (which is more or less irrelevant at this point anyway), it's valid to point out that things aren't nearly as bad as they're being made to seem, and it's something to be thankful for regardless of how you feel about the war itself.

so there was a 30 day lull in the number of soldiers killed? That doesn't necessarily mean anything is improving. The French may also have their own motivations for saying such things:

He also confirmed that France, which under former president Jacques Chirac strongly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq, was examining the cases of 500 Iraqis, including Christians, who wish to move to France.

Kyndig: Also to most of the other comments thus far...while "better" doesn't mean "safe," the point of the article and subby's headline is that things are actually improving. The headline just points out that the doom-and-gloom outlook that the media and most politicians are taking is inaccurate and largely motivated by the desire to score a few political points. Leaving aside the question of whether the war should have been started in the first place (which is more or less irrelevant at this point anyway), it's valid to point out that things aren't nearly as bad as they're being made to seem, and it's something to be thankful for regardless of how you feel about the war itself.

My problem is with people thinking that marginal improvements costing billions of dollars and untold human lives are a reason to stay indefinitely. If we continue making "progress" at this pace, we'll have electricity and water and sectarian violence at pre-invasion levels sometime next century. We broke it, we bought it, and now we're barely paying off the interest on the loan.

Funsucker: My problem is with people thinking that marginal improvements costing billions of dollars and untold human lives are a reason to stay indefinitely. If we continue making "progress" at this pace, we'll have electricity and water and sectarian violence at pre-invasion levels sometime next century. We broke it, we bought it, and now we're barely paying off the interest on the loan.

"Facts are stubborn things."

Well, I vote for Democrats and think that it is great that things are getting better in Iraq.

I think we can all agree we want stability in the Middle East, though we might disagree on the best way to get there.

I, for one, would prefer that we don't invade other countries without provocation in order to overthrow a government we don't like .

Car_Ramrod: And in today's Iraq, even moderate Shiite clergy view themselves as protectors of the nation's Islamic identity, ensuring that Basra might never fully regain its freewheeling, secular past."

Yes, those were in the article too. But let's be fair:

Today an Iraqi army battalion occupies the Sadrist headquarters at the Ministry of Youth and Sports, pocked with bullet holes like a giant slab of Swiss cheese. The office and mosque of the Iranian-backed Vengeance of God militia has been reduced to rubble.

Where Mahdi Army fighters once manned checkpoints across the city, Iraqi soldiers and policemen check vehicles behind blast walls on virtually every stretch of road. Iraqi army Humvees patrol militia strongholds.

In a traffic circle, Sadr's face has been scratched out on a billboard, the same treatment given to Hussein murals in the weeks after the invasion. Fresh graffiti in many neighborhoods praise Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq's Shiite prime minister who sent in the troops despite U.S. warnings that they were ill-prepared.

"It shows the government is tough," said Ayad al-Kanaan, 43, a tribal leader and local council member. "Now, there is more confidence in Maliki's government and in Iraq's army."

Awesome. I've really been looking forward to sipping some Bordeaux while watching the bodies drift by on the Euphrates. Looks like that dream vacation is on its way.

Gulper Eel: Fluff Girl: On false pretenses, we invaded a sovereign nation five years ago

Ah, sovereignty - the magic get-out-of-jail-free card for tyrants. They can merrily kill, rape and maim to their twisted little hearts' content, and long as they're not dumb enough to take too obvious a swing at any other country they're good to go.

Pretty much.

And don't even try to play that card as a justification for the invasion. Otherwise, there were other countries higher on the list for that sort of treatment.

So you're saying we are turning ze corner monsieur?

Nobody with half a brain really said the surge failed militarily. It failed to accomplish any of the non-violent benchmarks laid out by the Congress in early 2007. Funny how the Republicans seem to conveniently forget about them - Petraeus didn't even discuss them after the July meeting.

We've been "winning" the war for years now, with victory always right around the corner. Forgive me if I'm just a little skeptical of these latest claims.

/The Dawa party isn't that much better than the Sadrists
//Human rights are a joke compared to the Saddam era

Victory is just around the corner you guys!

Snarfangel: The Onanist: baorao: Get 'em while they last. Soon enough they'll be French Fries again and the markup will be 300%.

Jeebus H. Christ, I hate these farking "patriots" with their "freedom" fries. They can all eat a large bowls of dicks.

Freedom dicks?

WHERE IS YOUR FLAG PEENIS!?!?!?
/penis

Gulper Eel: Fluff Girl: On false pretenses, we invaded a sovereign nation five years ago

Ah, sovereignty - the magic get-out-of-jail-free card for tyrants. They can merrily kill, rape and maim to their twisted little hearts' content, and long as they're not dumb enough to take too obvious a swing at any other country they're good to go.

Someone forgot about Kuwait. Who was president when that happened? Why didn't he go in to Iraq?

Great.

Still doesn't mean I'm going to vote for someone (McCain and Sen. Clinton... looking at you both) who still thinks voting for it was not a colossal mistake.

If you're that pliable, that caught in the moment once, and don't see that there is a problem with that, I have no reason to believe you wouldn't do it again in a heartbeat.

This is understandable considering hwo the last French military occupation went. This one is roses.

Gulper Eel Ah, sovereignty - the magic get-out-of-jail-free card for tyrants. They can merrily kill, rape and maim to their twisted little hearts' content, and long as they're not dumb enough to take too obvious a swing at any other country they're good to go.

Stop it, stop it, STOP IT! Stop trying to retro-fit your retarded boy king with a white cowboy hat, as if he blundered into Iraq on some sort of human rights mission.

No one believes the "topple the oppressor" meme, and you idiots didn't even start spouting it until your OTHER bullshiat excuses (WMDs, spreading democracy, etc.) proved shamelessly, undeniably false. You're either functionally damaged or willfully obtuse, the end result is the same.

Well that's a relief. We should start demobilizing the troops now right?

"all-failure-all-the-time talking points?"

Seriously, subby, at least pretend that you're trying not to be a complete and utter moron.

Funsucker: Cost minus benefit

You know... one could say the same thing about Welfare.

RagingLeonard: Cool, so I guess subby will be taking his family to Baghdad for summer vacation then?

That's not nearly as ridiculous as you think it is.

Link (new window)

Link (new window)

Fluff Girl: Failure is inherent with this endeavor, Subby. Mission accomplished.

What kind of attitude is this?

Meh, this is a different administration than the one that opposed intervention in Iraq - so what's your point, subby?

a couple people have posted something to this extent but I just want to clarify for the subby: when a situation is farking awful, and it gets a little bit better, its still farking awful (just not quite as much as before). On top of this I would add the laundry list of reasons to leave that do not include it being a quagmire.

birdboy2000 "Human rights are a joke compared to the Saddam era"

tell that to the women raped and murdered by Saddam's kids.
And the olympic teams.


I was there for 18 months...human rights are better under the occupation forces than under Saddam..just ask the people...I have.

/just sayin'

FTFA "I have the feeling that things are better. Statistics show a drop in security incidents,"

Feelings and Statistics, the Iron duo of certainty.

Hey, this sounds familiar!

"Things are getting better. We're turning a corner."

How many times have we heard this in the past five years?

And since when were the French authorities on anything? We called them worthless when they didn't like our decision to invade, but now they're our buddies now that one guy in the French gov't says things are getting better? Not buying it.

Good news in Iraq?

No way this thread hits 100 posts.

and yet political reconciliation is no closer than it was. the peace is attributable to a cease fire by Al-Sadr. The Sunni bloc of the govt is not participating. Iran's ambassador is greeted with a red carpet by Malaki. Yeah it's all going according to plan. Any year now these people will get their shiat together.

Looks like McCain is losing the foreign policy debate.

it could be all rainbows and unicorns over there, still doesn't change the fact that we never should have been there in the first place.

4,000+ American lives later in a war that was unjustifiable in the first place.

The Republicans failed. Not by my measure, mind you, but by their own. Remember "I doubt six months?" Remember "the oil money will pay for the war?"

What they're trying to do now is deny it. Really, after only a trillion dollars, 4K dead servicemembers, 30K amputees, and untold dead civilians you guys finally managed to right the boat so that Iraq is only marginally more farked up than it was before we went in?

Wow, keep up the good work.

GoRedSoxGo: And since when were the French authorities on anything? We called them worthless when they didn't like our decision to invade, but now they're our buddies now that one guy in the French gov't says things are getting better? Not buying it.

Worthless? Pussies, maybe. Hardly worthless. Some of those French biatches are hot.

Hobodeluxe: and yet political reconciliation is no closer than it was.

I hate that this gets so easily glossed over.

The whole goddamn point of the "surge" was to buy time for the government to get their shiat together. With no progress on that front, we're just wasting time, money and blood there.

For as much as republicans cry about welfare, I can't understand why they thought it would be a good idea to put an entire nation on the dole.

The Onanist: Cool.

The US troops can leave now?

THIS!

Mission accomplished, right?

So this means your opinion of France is going to improve, right?

Riiiiight?

Hideously Gigantic Smurf: So this means your opinion of France is going to improve, right?

Riiiiight?

Are Freedom Fries still on the menu in the Congressional cafeteria?