So, in this thread, let's discuss what "the course" is.

Basically, how the battle lines are drawn in this one, is that the Republicans are saying "no timetable", and "stay until the job is done".

The Democrats are all over the map, but basically they're talking about either "redeployment" or "drawing down", depending on who you listen to.

My question is: "what's the job". How will we know when "the job" is done?

The answer the Reps want us to believe, is that the job will be done when the Iraqi security forces can "fend for themselves". But let's think about that a little more deeply in this thread, and consider what that means in a political context.

Today, there are (in round numbers), a couple of car-bombs per day, one or two IED's per day, and maybe two or three dead (or kidnapped) coalition soldiers per day. Roughly speaking, that might correspond with the number of bank robberies and murders in a major city here in the United States.

My question becomes: What's the threshold? At what point to we all agree that the Iraqi security forces are in fact "fending for themselves"?

Or, is this a concept that's so open-ended that we can always play games with the threat level and the imagined risk of civil war and all that?

Republicans: if you believe we should "stay the course", then what's the exit strategy? Or are we really going to leave 50,000 troops in place for the foreseeable future?

What's disturbing about Iraq is that we are building its military as its police force, ala military dictatorship. I hope I'm getting that wrong and there are actually two separate forces. A military should never be focused on policing its own people and therefore we need a two-tier strategy:
1. A police force that can clamp down on homegrown insurgents and gangsters.
2. A military whose primary purpose is to defend from invaders but who can aid the police in fighting insurgents, especially foreign insurgents.

If that is what's going on... Good.

The problem is that this is not a division Saddam felt the need to create. Thus it's not something Iraq is used to. The idea of a police force that protects civilians and a military that predominantly ignores civilians to guard from foreign threat... weird.

The hardest part is going to be getting a police force that only focuses on crime and danger, rather than on keeping order amongst civilians. And then there's the Detroitish problem of aving a police force strong enough to handle areas that are anarchic and pretty much run by gangsters.
And we should probably nip in the bud the problems that will emerge when regions dominated by gangsters wind up with corrupt local governments.

All in all, I just hope we and the Iraqis are taking all this into account.

But basically I think our obligation is over when the sovereign government of Iraq tells us they can handle it or when we think they can handle it without collapsing and becoming an embarrassment to the country.
It's pretty tough to quantify.

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That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

I think in the long term you are right Java, but in the reality of Iraq today, the military should be involved in "policing" the state.

I think we can truly declare victory when a US citizen can drive from one end of the country to the oter without being in any more danger than they would in Egypt. This is a very long way off and, I realize, probably unrealistic. I think we have created a terrorist haven for generations to come. Maybe they will stop attacking their own countrymen and the infighting, but I see it as an ideal place to recruit member to Al'qaeda for many many many years to come.

Then we'll know where to find them, to kill them. Unless of course you are a Democrat, and then you''ll want to appease and surrender, letting al Qaeda come here.

That's why we fight our wars somewhere else --- particularly after 9/11.

Consider....

Achmed bin Goat-raper up in say Syria decides he wants his 72 virgin sheep and hikes down to Iraq to join the festivities. We blow him up, and say six of his animal pals. Gee. Guess who's not back in OTHER countries, fighting in THEIR behalf? (Guess who didn't get 72 virgins, but that's a different lie muslims tell these ignoramii.)

One-stop shopping, only in reverse. Sit in one place and let the animals flock to the veterimnarians, for that last sweet shot of release. Allahu akbar.

If you build it, they will come. And by the grace of good ordinance, they won't walk out again. Iraq is our Roach Hotel.

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Delivering tasty bite-sized Clues to liberals since 1965.

People get hung-up on what 'the course' is, and miss the key word in this phrase.

With 14 permanent US military bases the key-word is, obviously, 'stay'.

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"A man's work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those two or three great and simple images in whose presence his heart first opened."

Geez - I was just listening to that weasel Ken Mehlman.

He thinks he knows what the terrorists are thinking.

Really. No kidding.

And he's using it as an excuse for the "stay the course" thing.

"Well, if we leave now we're going to give the terrorists hope and inspiration".

What a moron. This man knows much less about Islam than I do, and I'm not exactly an expert.

And with this he wants to influence my vote?

I think not.

No more money for these Neo-Con-Artists.

I think it depends on which insurgents.
Al Queda would no doubt gain some morale and use our leave as propaganda.
The homegrown insurgents would continue business as usual, just aimed at one another instead of our troops.
Doesn't help that Al Queda is taking advantage of the ethnic squabbles to create more chaos in the country. Zarqawi was known to have helped ag on the growing civil war.

It's just too bad that this radio commentator you're talking about probably doesn't even understand that there is a difference between the majority of insurgents and the Al Queda-linked cells.

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That information is classified and to be given only on a need-to-know basis...

And I do not need to know.

It seems to me, that the validity of the arguments on both sides of this discussion, all boil down to one central question:

Are our objectives achievable?

Well, let's see - I have two questions in that regard:

First of all, what are the objectives? We've already seen the Neo-Con double-talk about WMD->"depose the evil dictator"->"Iraqi democracy" and all that, and it seems to me it's become self-evident that it's a moving target. So it leads me to wonder whether "none of the above" is the real objective, 'cause I'm thinking there must be something REAL involved here, otherwise we'd be gone by now.

And secondly, on the "achievable" part - we've spent literally billions of dollars on failed reconstruction efforts, 'cause the "insurgents" are riding our tails blowing up everything we try to "fix". Hmm..... shades of Vietnam? You'll recall, that Johnson's rhetoric about Vietnam was almost exactly identical to Bushie's rhetoric about Iraq - "we can win" - "stay the course" - and eventually Congress pulled the plug on the funding, 'cause it became painfully obvious the whole thing was just a big black hole.

There are certain realities here, it seems to me, that we need to face up to. One is, that the insurgency isn't going away anytime soon. Bushie himself said that some future President is going to have to decide on the exit strategy, which tells me very clearly that he doesn't expect anything to change during his tenure.

Second, the nature of politics in that part of the world is considerably different from the way we operate over here. Our kind of political infrastructure, took two hundred years to build up. We went through our version of Iraq too - the Indian wars, then the Wild Wild West, and etc etc - and the reality there is that we spend a substantial amount of our taxpayer money on law enforcement and so on - and that's only because our people are used to that kind of thing, and they'd rather spend time working to send their kids to college, instead of constantly keeping an eye out for the guys with the black hats.

And thirdly, it seems to me that it's a bad strategy to try to exterminate a swarm of gnats with a howitzer. If you've seen how our guys operate over in Iraq, you'll understand how tanks are very effective at blowing up houses, but they'd don't kill very many terrorists. The insurgents are making us fight a ground war, and if we're unwilling to do that then the consequences will be endless collateral damage. Well gee - remember that picture of the little naked Vietnamese girl running from the napalm? No wonder they're censoring the press over in Iraq.....

The real question, in terms of policy, is "are our goals achievable" - and it seems to me that the opinions are all over the map on this one - and the bottom line is that it's really a matter of conjecture. If you "believe" they're achievable, then you'll vote for the Neo-Weasels in '06, and take the consequences of their continuing boneheaded implementation snafus. On the other hand, if you're aware of the lessons of history, then it becomes very difficult to justify placing faith in a policy that's clearly failed many times before, even against enemies that were considerably more dedicated and powerful.

And it also seems to me, that we're already on fallback plan C or D in that regard. First we wanted a "secular democracy", then we were forced to compromise on the composition of the parliament and things like the utilization of the Sharia law and so on, and now we're at the point where we're having to "pacify Baghdad" because people still can't walk around over there. Seems to me, there aren't a whole lot of fallback positions left - other than protracted door-to-door fighting and a new Iraqi version of tunnel rats. And even then, our goals may not be achievable.

Hmm..... thoughts?

"Second, the nature of politics in that part of the world is considerably different from the way we operate over here."

They should have kept their politics in "their part of the world". Had they done so, I doubt if we would be over in "their part of the world" fighting back.