Time to see if Bush hates our troopsFollow

You only have to starve them for about a week, then the weak ones will die and there'll be plenty of food for the survivors.

The military needs the funding but I'm not keen on the idea of withdrawing from Iraq just yet. Most of the mm's that I've spoken with that have been there think we need to stay. I don't know. I want our guys and gals out of harms way, I don't want MrKatie to have to go over there but I also think that even though this was a very poorly thought out war, we need to finish what we started. We need to help rebuild what we destroyed.

Setting a calendar date is too arbitrary and doesn't factor in the state of Iraq or the mindset of our (coalition) troops.

The only sensible way is to have auditions like in American Idol - and with the same panel.

The idea of Simon Cowell slagging off highly armed killers has a certain frisson about it, and it'd be a matter of minutes before Paula Abdul got gang-raped ("Whaddaya mean, she's one uf our'n? She has a towel-head name!")

nope.

all he has to do is veto the bill so no bill gets passed, then issue an emergancy resolution order funding necessary governmental functions untill a new bill does get passed.

has been done several times. Bush doesnt have to sign this bill, and he wont. the dems know what will happen, so this bill is more of a political statement than an actual spending bill.

he will get what he wants, bill or no bill. but doing so will further attach this war to the republican party, which is what the dems really want. when bush leaves, they will own this war. they want to do everything possible to ensure the public understands its not thiers.

a political statement. thats all it was intended to be.

I'm shocked, but I agree with Katie on this one. What we need is leadership that will actually define what our role is, and detirmine what constitutes completing that mission, not some random date to leave things a mess.
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the mission can not be completed. the dems know it. the repubs know it.

what it would take to win is atleast 500,000 american troops suplimented by another 500,000 from other countries as well. even then, all we would accomplish is stability untill we left. then what is happening now would happen then too.

no leader is going to give you what you want. they cant.

all either of the parties are concerned with is passing blame. the dems for not supporting and funding the war, the repubs for starting it in the first place.

what happened in afganistan with the russians is exactly what is and will happen to us, weather we pull out now, or stay another 50 years. in the end, the only thing that we have to determine is how many american lives we want to donate to satisfy our conscious that "we tried......real hard.....".

the end result will be the same. a visious powerstruggle follwed by an islamic ruled country that hates israle and us for the next several generations.

the ONLY thing left for us to decide is how many american troops we want to sacrifice for how many years before we accept reality.........just like vietnam. and that goes for both parties. it is the only decision open to any american.

but good luck with that. im sure the up and comming presidential candidates will try to sell you what you want to hear without really promissing you anything. thats what they do.

I'm shocked, but I agree with Katie on this one. What we need is leadership that will actually define what our role is, and determine what constitutes completing that mission, not some random date to leave things a mess.

There is no role for the US in Iraq at this point. The US presence is currently making things worse for Iraqis. It's not debatable. There's no tenable exit strategy. It's not a question of leadership, it's a simple question of tactics and political will.

For the US forces to be effective in Iraq the number of troops would have to *at least* triple. Period. Given current force strengths and mission profiles that's not going to happen using US troops and there is no political will from the rest of the world to provide support in those numbers.

Continuing to put US troops in harms way for literally no reason borders on treasonous.


By setting a date for withdrawl, morale will drop off, and become more of a "why are we here, we're just going to leave anyway" mentality.

Bullshit. Morale sucks now and most enlisted troops are just counting backwards until their tour is over. Setting a timetable for withdrawal would likely increase morale, because knowing you won't be sent back or your tour arbitrarily extended etc is a load off your mind when you're living paycheck to paycheck hoping your kid remembers who you are when you get home.


In addition to that, the opposition will see this as a victory, and they will be right.

They saw day 1 of the invasion as a victory and they were right. This would change nothing. If anything, it's a problem for them as they'd have less motivated fighters in country and a harder time recruiting. Removing easy American targets from the area just means they have to plan much more costly and difficult operations for less PR value.


We're damned if we do, damned if we don't, and I'm quite certain that's how the president feels...at least that's how he should feel.

No, we lost when this war was planned 6 years ago. I said it then, and it's still true now, civilians overrode established war planning doctrine and went into this in love with air power, special forces and technology with no realistic view of how difficult stabilizing the country would be. Powell knew better, nearly all of DoD knew better, the intel community knew better. The only people who didn't were right wing idealists. The Heritage Foundation got their little experiment and it was a dismal failure. There's no fixing it. It's time to cut our losses and focus our energies on using the strongest military force in the history of the world to do something that actually makes us safer.

Nothing to add to that.

It's funny, but the first person to suggest this was mocked endlessly for weeks. What's amazing is that he was right, that this was the best way to have approached rebuilding Iraq. That person was Pat Robertson (yes, yes, he's the "hurricane was sent to kill the homosexuals" guy, but I think he was right on this one).

What's amazing is that he was right, that this was the best way to have approached rebuilding Iraq.

No. What IS amazing is how much money he bilks from suckers. You have to admire the guy for that.

It's a living.

I'm not sure where they're from to be honest. I'll ask them next time I speak to them.

obama said that and was lambasted for it. why? guilt.

Wait. It wasn't because he was an uppity ******?

Not really, no. A few conservative outlets tried to run with it (and they'd "lambast" Obama for tying his shoes) but anyone who heard the actual quote from Obama shrugged and went on with their day.