Cut and Run

There is no clamor to “cut and run”. Even Murtha hasn’t called for cut and run.

Iraq is now a bitter pill that no one is ready to swallow. Bush can’t get out of it easily so he will continue his rhetoric. The dems are testing waters, sending out trial balloons to figure out which way the wind is blowing.

People that can take the heat in elections or have safe seats will continue to speak for withdrawal. But the other part of the dems would just continue to hold the line until they are sure which way the wind is blowing.
The US public is going against the war but the sentiment is still very soft. Any incident, minor or large, would send the war support skyrocketing again.

Dean is right when he says that US can’t win this war because there is nothing there to win in Iraq. The real issue is that this war is linked with the war on terrorism- would leaving Iraq means losing the war on terrorism? That is where the problem lies. The Bush admin or even establishment Dems are not ready to close this chapter.

Has anybody ever thought of who is the biggest beneficiary of the War on Terrorism?
Unbelievable; but it is Pakistan! Pakistan lost a big stake in Afghanistan in 2001 but GWOT turns out to be an even bigger winner for Pakistan.

With India hitting the skids in stupid political fights and its inability to convince the US of its role in the International and regional politics, Pakistan has certainly emerged as the force to reckon with in the area.

Two things that are working for Pakistan: 1) The US grip on Afghanistan and the Karzai govt in Afghanistan are now completely dependent on Pakistan. 2) Pakistan holds all the big guns of Alquaeda thus making it impossible to end the war on terrorism without its support and capture of the Alquaeda leadership.

For more on Joe Lieberman and Iraq click on the URL below:
http://www.alternet.org/story/29108/

Here are a few excerpts from the story...

Carrying the `White Man`s Burden` in Iraq
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on December 7, 2005, Printed on December 7, 2005
Last week, on the precious real estate of the right`s flagship, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, Iraq war-hawk Sen. Joe Lieberman (D?-CT) let slip another unspoken reason why we remain in Iraq more than two and a half years after achieving our stated goal of ``disarming`` Saddam Hussein.

Lieberman wrote that the Iraqis are on the brink of transitioning ``from the primitive, killing tyranny of Saddam to modern, self-governing, self-securing nationhood.`` That is, ``unless the great American military that has given them and us this unexpected opportunity is prematurely withdrawn.``

It`s noteworthy that Lieberman portrayed the old government as ``primitive,`` despite the fact that we were talked into attacking Iraq because it had what President Bush called the ``deadliest`` weapons ``known to mankind.`` They were, presumably, quite modern.

And that fits reality. Iraq under the Baathists was many things, but primitive wasn`t one of them. Before two decades of infrastructure-smashing war, Iraq was considered to be as advanced as many countries in Western Europe. Its universities were the envy of the Arabic world, as was its health care system, which featured the most modern hospitals in the region.

Lieberman contrasts this ``primitive`` Iraq with the ``modern`` self-governance that the ``great American military has given them.``

If this strikes a familiar note with students of history, it should. In earlier iterations, the notion that the West had an obligation to drag their primitive charges into the present was embedded in the ``civilizing missions`` undertaken by the French and British in India and Africa, it was in the White Man`s Burden invoked by Kipling and the ``Hamitic Myth`` favored by German intellectuals to justify its colonial possessions.

Getting rid of Saddam`s rule was the right thing to do. Pulling out of Iraq right now would be catastrophic. The Coalition Forces should first establish law and order and an Iraqi government before any pull out. As President Bush has correctly stated...``As the Iraqi forces stand up, the Coalition Forces will stand down.``

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/06/opinion/06clark.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Op-Ed Contributor

The Next Iraq Offensive

By WESLEY K. CLARK
Published: December 6, 2005
Doha, Qatar

WHILE the Bush administration and its critics escalated the debate last week over how long our troops should stay in Iraq, I was able to see the issue through the eyes of America`s friends in the Persian Gulf region. The Arab states agree on one thing: Iran is emerging as the big winner of the American invasion, and both President Bush`s new strategy and the Democratic responses to it dangerously miss the point. It`s a devastating critique. And, unfortunately, it is correct.

While American troops have been fighting, and dying, against the Sunni rebels and foreign jihadists, the Shiite clerics in Iraq have achieved fundamental political goals: capturing oil revenues, strengthening the role of Islam in the state, and building up formidable militias that will defend their gains and advance their causes as the Americans draw down and leave. Iraq`s neighbors, then, see it evolving into a Shiite-dominated, Iranian buffer state that will strengthen Tehran`s power in the Persian Gulf just as it is seeks nuclear weapons and intensifies its rhetoric against Israel.

The American approach shows little sense of Middle Eastern history and politics. As one prominent Kuwaiti academic explained to me, in the Muslim world the best way to deal with your enemies has always been to assimilate them - you never succeed in killing them all, and by trying to do so you just make more enemies. Instead, you must woo them to rejoin society and the government. Military pressure should be used in a calibrated way, to help in the wooing.

If this critique is correct - and it is difficult to argue against it - then we must face its implications. ``Staying the course`` risks a slow and costly departure of American forces with Iraq increasingly factionalized and aligned with Iran. Yet a more rapid departure of American troops along a timeline, as some Democrats are calling for, simply reduces our ability to affect the outcome and risks broader regional conflict.

We need to keep our troops in Iraq, but we need to modify the strategy far more drastically than anything President Bush called for last week.

On the military side, American and Iraqi forces must take greater control of the country`s borders, not only on the Syrian side but also in the east, on the Iranian side. The current strategy of clearing areas near Syria of insurgents and then posting Iraqi troops, backed up by mobile American units, has had success. But it needs to be expanded, especially in the heavily Shiite regions in the southeast, where there has been continuing cross-border traffic from Iran and where the loyalties of the Iraqi troops will be especially tested.

We need to deploy three or four American brigades, some 20,000 troops, with adequate aerial reconnaissance, to provide training, supervision and backup along Iraq`s several thousand miles of vulnerable border. And even then, the borders won`t be ``sealed``; they`ll just be more challenging to penetrate.

We must also continue military efforts against insurgent strongholds and bases in the Sunni areas, in conjunction with Iraqi forces. Over the next year or so, this will probably require four to six brigade combat teams, plus an operational reserve, maybe 30,000 troops.

But these efforts must go hand-in-glove with intensified outreach to Iraqi insurgents, to seek their reassimilation into society and their assistance in wiping out residual foreign jihadists. Iraqi and American officials have had sporadic communications with insurgent leaders, but these must lead to deeper discussions on issues like amnesty for insurgents who lay down their arms and opportunities for their further participation in public and private life.

Iraq, for its part, must begin to enforce the ban on armed militias that was enshrined in the new Constitution, especially in the south. Ideally, this should be achieved voluntarily, through political means. But American muscle will have to be made available as a last resort. The Iraqi government should request that for the next two years, six to eight American brigades serve as a backup, available as a last resort if there is trouble in cities with large militia factions like Baghdad, Basra and Najaf. And it is vital that the Pentagon provide our forces with better crowd-control training and many more translators than they have now.

As important as these military changes are, they won`t matter at all unless our political strategy is rethought. First, the Iraqis must change the Constitution as quickly as possible after next week`s parliamentary elections. Most important, oil revenues should be declared the property of the central government, not the provinces. And the federal concept must be modified to preclude the creation of a Shiite autonomous region in the south.

Also, a broad initiative to reduce sectarian influence within government institutions is long overdue. The elections, in which Sunnis will participate, will help; but the government must do more to ensure that all ethnic and religious groups are represented within ministries, police forces, the army, the judiciary and other overarching federal institutions.

And we must start using America`s diplomatic strength with Syria and Iran. The political weakness of Bashar al-Assad opens the door for significant Syrian concessions on controlling the border and cutting support for the jihadists. We also have to stop ignoring Tehran`s meddling and begin a public dialogue on respecting Iraqi independence, which will make it far easier to get international support against the Iranians if (and when) they break their word.

Yes, our military forces are dangerously overstretched. Recruiting and retention are suffering; among retired officers, there is deep concern that the Bush administration`s attitude on the treatment of detainees has jeopardized not only the safety of our troops but the moral purpose of our effort.

Still, none of this necessitates a pullout until the job is done. After the elections, we should be able to draw down by 30,000 troops from the 160,000 now there. Don`t bet against our troops.

What a disaster it would be if the real winner in Iraq turned out to be Iran, a country that supports terrorism and opposes most of what we stand for. Surely, we can summon the wisdom, resources and bipartisan leadership to change the American course before it is too late.

gutless fags show why it`s so easy to manipulate the aam junta into supporting a war...

Is it any surprise that the hildebeast, the dem hope for 2008, is a bigger supporter of the war than any of the neocon warmongers? Now we have the SOB Joe Lieberman getting in the Dick ``I`ll say anything Hannity wants to hear`` Morris bandwagon..

The gatekeepers of the status quo rule DC..The best hope if for the focus to shift away from Iraq giving Dubya the room to sneak US forces out by next year...

Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks

By Jim VandeHei and Shalaigh Murray
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, December 7, 2005; Page A01

Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders` rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress next year.

Several Democrats joined President Bush yesterday in rebuking Dean`s declaration to a San Antonio radio station Monday that ``the idea that we`re going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong.``

Hastily going to Iraq was a mistake.....hastily pull-out will be a bigger mistake.