Iraq Study Group Reaches Concensus 621
reporter writes to point us to a story in the Washington Post reporting that the Iraq Study Group has reached consensus and will issue its 100-page report on December 6: 'The Iraq Study Group, which wrapped up eight months of deliberations yesterday, has reached a consensus and will call for a major withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, shifting the U.S. role from combat to support and advising, according to a source familiar with the deliberations.' The Post mentions that first word of the panel's conclusions came from the New York Times yesterday. The Times points out that it is not clear how many U.S. troops would come home; some brigades might be withdrawn to Iraqi bases out of the line of fire from which they could provide protection for remaining U.S. operations.
In other words (Score:5, Informative)
Not that it really matters since Bush is already planning to ignore what the study group says [washingtonpost.com]. He'll just continue to "Stay the course".
Advice on reading The Washington Post (Score:3, Informative)
Consider http://newsbusters.org/node/6863 [newsbusters.org]
a documentary about the Iraqi civil war.. (Score:2, Informative)
http://fineartfilm.com/index.php?main_page=produc
(or watch it on google video)
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=war+of+leba
There are 15 episodes, about 12 hours long with english subtitles.. so sit back and enjoy how history repeats itself.. the stage moved to the left, a bit, but it's the same story happening all over again. Iraqi society descending into chaos, neighbourhoods dividing along sectarian lines, intervening regional powers, oh and lots of blood.
Arrr matey (Score:3, Informative)
Aye cap'n, keep a weather-eye out. "The source", the Washington Post, is not near as bad as some claim. Their bullpen of commentators includes strong conservatives as Krauthammer and ol' George Will, and even examples of the rare species known as the moderate (David Broder). The Post also produced a landmark excellent article on the details [washingtonpost.com] of Chavez' fascist dictatorship in Venezuela (something a hard-left paper would not do, since the hard-left loves this dictator).
Hopefully, you aren't one of those who holds up the Washington Times as an example of a better paper.
The supreme international crime (Score:3, Informative)
Well, maybe they should.
According to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg [wikipedia.org], "to initiate a war of aggression...is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." [wikipedia.org]
Re:Shhhhhhh (Score:3, Informative)
Because you'd have to be off your meds to REALLY believe something THAT silly...
No, actually he is quite correct. A lot of people believed before the war even started that the war was a bad idea, based on dubious "facts" and had the potential to produce more chaos then it would solve problems - just like it turned out to be the case. Sorry for you if you still can't see that.
Re:In other words (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, we're almost certainly at that point already.
3,030 people were killed [vikingphoenix.com] in the 9/11 attacks, including WTC, Pentagon, and Shanksville. Wikipedia says 2,973. In the ballpark anyway.
icasualties.org [icasualties.org] says 2,885 US military personnel have been lost in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
What people forget is that those who died at the World Trade Center were not all Americans. Conservatively, 10% of those on the scene must have been foreign business people, consultants, workers on H-class visas, foreign student interns, and international visitors. Wikipedia says about 316 were non-Americans.
So if you're comparing Americans to Americans...
Re:Thanks, Slashdot (Score:2, Informative)
No we didn't. At least not in the UK. In fact, 2 million people amrched through central london 9the largest demonstration in the UK in living memory) to say exactly that. If Saddam had WMD we wouldnt have invaded him (see N korea for details). The best evidence to support the WMD theory was some student dissertation lifted off the web (see 'the dodgy dossier').
Don't pretend there was consensus about WMD before the war. There was not. Call Hans Blix and ask him if your still unsure.
Re:Shhhhhhh (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/
The neo-cons - the architects of the ideology if not the actual war - are cutting loose like no one's business. They seem to think the war is going badly, and they're blaming the chimp.
And even if you don't believe the figure of 100,000 people fleeing Iraq every month, that it mught be 50,000, or even less, it's still people going gone get. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6158847.st
Dead bodies found:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6160117.st
more killed. every day, yet more.
If this is victory
military (Score:1, Informative)
Being in the thick of things at a few wars here and there he has noticed they are fought for the blood profits of a handful of multinationals and decided being a pawn mercenary for those folks was pretty stupid. The US multinationals stick in dictators until they are no longer needed, then they decide they are the bad guys now and go in and regime change, then they repeat the process. Endless war for endless profits, works quite well for them.
There are any number of retired military, thousands of them, from generals and admirals on down, who think the current (and past clinton era) US foreign policy is lame and not even all that legal or ethical. There are any nmber now sick or wounded who are getting pitiful care from the VA as well, same as the nam generation faked out fighters got.
Oh, Iraq? A proxy war for Israel, beyond obvious. They (and the afore-mentioned multinationals) are the only ones to profit from the 9-11 attacks and the decision to invade Iraq.
If anyone wants to know the true traitors to the US, look no further than the membership of PNAC and AIPAC, and their public supporters. If you look at the membership there, the ties and agendas, then all the foreign policy makes sense. Fail to look there, it looks like a lot of "mistakes" and "intelligence failures" occurred. They didn't. It was an intelligence and propoganda success. 9-11 was an inside job, to create a "new pearl harbor" and the war in Iraq was planned well before 9-11 occurred. Even the breakup of Iraq into factions was planned on, to keep the islamics fighting with each other.
Personally, I seriously question the perpetrators of a lot of the 'terrorist" attacks going down in Iraq, I think quite a few of them are false flag attacks being done by...guess who.
Re:Why we are really there. (Score:1, Informative)
read this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India [wikipedia.org]. Brits f@#$@#$ers left India in a really miserable state. They didnt leave India coz they were generous but they were running out of the resources needed to keep control after WWWII.
They left on CONDITION that there would be 2 different states - India and Pakistan - that would be seperated based on RELIGON !
Pakistan - a small teeny-weeny country (masterminded by Britan to play the divide-and-conquer game) but see how things are coming back in circle
- Most of the recent bombers in the UK plot have been identified having links to Pakistan (whether through training or nationality)
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2006/08/the
- The sucker Pak nuke scientist who gave away the nuclear technology to Iran and N. Korea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_and_weapons
- ISI (the CIA equivalent of Pakistan) responsible for bombing subway trains in Mumbai
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5394686.stm [bbc.co.uk]
- Pakistan hiding Laden
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3532841.stm [bbc.co.uk]
All I m trying to say is that you cannot just bash into a country - and fix everything and hope things would return to normal... remember the BUTTERFLY EFFECT.. there are always CONSEQUENCES. I just hope US leaves sooner than later still when things are intact..