Hubris, to some extent, bush, with a ton of help from the MSM, has succeeded in pimping the fiction that everyone in Iraq not willing to become a happy, consuming, member of our 51st state, belongs to Al Queada.
Of course, CentCom has fucked up several times in the past, and admitted that no more than 5%-10% of the people attacking our troops are Al Queada, but that was then, and the bushturds are nothing if not demanding, of our MSM:
"What bullshit have you run for us LATELY???"
Whatever modest reduction in casualties has resulted from the attempt to put Baghdad and environs into near-lockdown, the question, the ALWAYS UNASKED question remains:
"Yeah, you shitbirds MAY be able to impose some degree of stability-at-the-point-of-a-gun, long enough to let you hop the graydog and dump the shittaree into the democrats laps, but what happens when the next administration starts pulling the troops???"
BTW, I would DEARLY love to see one of the two leading democratic candidates start asking that.
(It won't be Hillary; she only speaks the "Iraq" word if someone is threatening her with a cattle prod.)
In other news, it looks like Condoleeza Rice is going to be spending some time under Recep Erdogan's desk. :o)
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/
tol...icle2710139.ece
They can't declare victory because then the American poeple would expect them to leave. The US gov't doesn't want to leave. And it's not just in Iraq.
Whenever the US military goes into a country, they are basically there to stay. They set up bases for one reason or another and then keep the bases there using ever shifting rationales to justify it.
Japan is a good example. Why are we still in Japan 60 years after WWII? I think we can all agree that Japan is no longer a military threat in East Asia. They have neighbors (S. Korea, China) who could act as a check on Japan. North Korea CANNOT invade Japan. (Does North Korea even have a navy that could cross the Sea of Japan?) And yet, we're still here. the reasons have varied over time: we need to prevent Japan from going militaristic again, we need to contain the USSR, we need to maintain regional stability, we need to deter N. Korea, etc. The goalposts are constantly shifting, always to the benefit of the empire. Sound familiar?
One of these days, wingnuts should get it into their heads that even the US military is like any other government bureaucracy - they want to maintain and expand their power. and our weak political leadership is scared to death of cutting defense programs lest they be accused of being 'soft on terror' or some other such nonsense when they're up for re-election.
And unfortunately for us, the military needs wars or the threat of wars to maintain & expand it's power.
fWIW, if I had a choice, I'd rather our untameable bureaucracy be a national health system. At least it wouldn't require unlawful invasions and occupations.
Commenting by HaloScan
