They have troops….but they suck wehhhh waaaaaaa

They produce oil….but not as much as they should
wehhhhh waaaaaaaa

There have been new businesses….but growth is slow wehhhhhh waaaaaaaa

Shit is not perfect, but it is better then it was before we were there, better then it was 1 year ago, and it will be better next year.

We all hope they have a plan or know what has to be done for us to leave. If for some reason we just have troops there and there is no progress then that is a problem, as long as it semms Iraq is moving towards something better, that is all I need.

I have been at work so I have been flipping back and forth, so if it seems some of my posts have been scatter brained thats why.

All I’m asking is for some sort of hard-data that tells me what it is going to take to achieve those goals. And what I’m hearing instead is, “Don’t worry about it. Just know that that’s what we’re going to do.”

And I’m afraid that the reason they haven’t given us any hard data is because they do not know. I’m afraid that they do not know how many or how long.

This is why this war is being compared to Vietnam. Because they didn’t know how many or how long it would take to defeat the Viet Cong. For a really good demonstration of this, see either The Fog of War or Path to War.

On a bit of a side not, we’re going into about hour five or six of this conversation tonight :-), and over that time, I’ve messed with the site’s code about 2 dozen times. If you’ve noticed any variations, were any of them more appealing than the current one?

If we leave and it turns into mayhem three things happen;

1 We, as americans, really look stupid. Europe laughs at us and we lose credibility (even though we were not the ones stealing money from Iraq) with the rest of the world

2 We would have to go back into Iraq, or at least help nato errr I mean us cause we are nato, which would tear this country apart.

3 terrorists and such would claim victory, syria and iran would try to take over iraq promting us to fight iran, who has a friend in china, and well lets not go down that road.

Did I say we would look stupid? We are already doing something the world thinks is wrong why not try to make sure that it is done right. Why set dates or examples of completion when if you do not make those goals you look stupid. I would rather keep the troops there 6 months too long then the other way around.

And you’re right about the 63%. Which is why I said just about the same thing: “not respect in the sense that he must do as they say…,but respect in the sense of understanding and answering their concerns.”

This document does not address the concerns that most people have, and it should have. At the end of the day, that’s about the only real point I want to make.

Regardless, just because 63% of the country wants the troops to come home does not mean they should. Of those 63% i bet less then half could not find Iraq on a map. My point is there are a room full of people who have all the information on what is going on In iraq. These are the people that should be making the call, not sally homemaker in kentucky whose son is in Iraq. As dumb as people think the president is, even though he went to yale(and did better then Kerry), he is probably smarter then most of those 63%. And I know he has more information then all of those 63%

63% of the people in this country want our troops to come home within the next twelve months, regardless of the situation on the ground in Iraq. I think it is a matter of respect that the President consider that overwhelming majority; not respect in the sense that he must do as they say (I also wrote in the letter that politicians should be statesman, not poll chasers), but respect in the sense of understanding and answering their concerns.

As one of those 63%, my concern was that I wanted to hear some terms of victory that I could grab onto, something like, “We believe we can achieve our major objectives by Dec. 31, 2006,” or, “We will withdraw the major force of our troops when 500,000 Iraqis join the security forces.” Or whatever. Just something I can grab on to. There’s nothing to grab onto in “We will win when Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.”

You asked, “Are we worried that they are going to keep the troops there when they do not need to be? Troops will be in that country for a long time…” I’m not worried that we’ll have troops there. I’m worried about the level of engagement those troops will have with the enemy and the types of troops they are. In other words, I want the National Guardsmen and women to come home (the Times in the UK reports that 75% of the Guard will be home within the next year; why didn’t the President tell us that? I would have loved to have heard that!); and I want our force in Iraq to be as engaged with the enemy as they are in Cuba - things can be tense, but not inherently deadly. I’m worried about the lives of the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters of the troops in Iraq. They go to sleep every night with a true and real concern that their loved one might be dead in the morning. That’s no way to live.

As I tried to make clear in my last comment, this is not a “Liberal Democrat” responding to the war. It’s an American.