A Republican Exit

[Demosthenez]

It could have been a beautiful thing. The Iraq Study Group, however, seems to be shaping up to be a bipartisan strategy of communicating Americas leaderships attitude towards Iraq: fuck it.

It seems to be working its way down the vine that the Baker led group is advising a radical shift in Americas attitude towards Iraq. Among news reports concerning this include. . .

Baker and panel members have been exploring different ideas, such as a greater degree of regional autonomy for Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions.

His group will not advise partition, but is believed to favour a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue.

If indeed the ISG delivers the report that they seem to be alluding to, we may begin to see the beginning of the end of America in Iraq. Now that would all be nice except Iraq is a mess. And America created. Most hilariously, some are now even making demands of a government and country we helped demolish.

"The government of Iraq needs to show its own citizens soon and the citizens of the United States that it is deserving of continued support. There is no magical solution for the many problems in Iraq," Lee Hamilton, a leader in the ISG, commented.

Even senior members in both Bush and Blair's administrations have started to demand more and more of Iraq. It seems profoundly arrogant to invade a country then start demanding a timetable for the creation of their government. Not only is it unrealistic, it is ridiculous.

Someone, please, point out to me the difference between the equally ridiculous notion of setting a timetable for troop withdrawals and the idea of giving the Iraqi government a timetable for the creation of a government. Please, anyone.

[EnragedSephiroth]

Those better be some long ass painful-to=look-at timetables because you can't just invade a place and suddently decide to leave it in disarray... or they could just pull out and leave the place in disarray :o

I'm only joking but hey when you considered they didn't give a shit about what people said when they invaded, why would they give a shit about what people say when they pull out?

[Demosthenez]

I just realize I didnt set this up to well with much backstory but fuck that. Read the articles.

Most imporant part of what I left out is why its important. So I will say why its important.

The ISG is Bush backed and led by James Baker( former Secretary of State). Also it is chaired by former 9/11 comission report leader Lee Hamilton and staffed by high ranking members from both sides of the aisle. Whatever they say in their report will likely determine our course of action in Iraq and will be incredibly important when it is fnally released after the elections in November. Their clout will be impossible to ignore.

[EnragedSephiroth]

Ah well if Bush is involved things could be different. His whole legacy as a president relies on how well the situation in Iraq goes. If things turn sour and troops end up leaving the country in shambles, I could picture Bush in contention with Nixon as one of the worst. If he can at least clean up the mess he made he'll get a nice library dedicated in his name... which hopefully won't be vandalized by extremist liberals :P But on a serious note his memory hangs in the balance, which is all that will be left after he dies, so he might want to be extra careful with this one.

[Jesus-made-me-do-it]

Why is there only one bush topic? its rubbish

[EnragedSephiroth]

There's one Bush topic to simplify things. This topic is actually about the gradual and strategic pull-out of troops from Iraq once the mess is cleaned. Read the articles the thread-started gathered information from and comment on them.

[Demosthenez]

At 10/9/06 04:24 AM, EnragedSephiroth wrote: I'm only joking but hey when you considered they didn't give a shit about what people said when they invaded, why would they give a shit about what people say when they pull out?

This is all just a bunch of damage control. I think the neo cons have finally realized Iraq may is killing their election chances and the Republican party in general so they are gonna seperate the country (like we did with Korea and Vietnam and Germany and Bosnia before) and say the ball is in your court.

James Baker has already done this once in Florida for Bush in 2000 so thats the way it looks to me. My guess is this is some plan that the Republicans can place some of the blame on the Democrats. It will be like, "Hey, we were just doing the bipartisan thing. We tried to compromise with you since you wouldnt with us. You want to blame someone, blame Joe Biden."

[Begoner]

Why is the notion of setting up a timetable for withdrawal ridiculous? We're doing next to nothing there with our armed forces, and that's if we're actually doing something positive. We may actually be killing more innocent civilians than terrorists. What we need to do is keep a small contingent to train iraqi troops, and secure a few key locations, but ship everyone else out of there. Only Iraqis can solve the problems beplaguing their country -- we tried and failed.