You can expect more of the same or worse if we pull out of Iraq.

Thanks to Johnson & Nixon, 60,000 Americans died in Vietnam to stop the spread of Communism in that region of Asia. So we left and how many countries fell to the Communist scourge? And how is Democracy being accepted in countries with Theocratic populations with 160,000 troops fighting Arabs in Iraq at $12 billion a month and 3600 dead? Does the intelligence report stating that al-Qaida has retooled and restructured to 2001 levels bother any those thinking fighting in Iraq would diminish the terror threat?

well, SilverCat, check out the Brookings Institute’s Iraq Index and you will see that the non-Kool Aid drinking counters have tabulated the total cost of both Afghanistan and Iraq after 72 months is about 6 billion per month. (That is the only comment directed at SilverCat).

As for al-Qaida’s “re-tooled” status, my assessment is that the US Intelligence *has* to err on the side of overestimation right now because it has done such a piss poor job of recovering from Tennet’s reign of buffoonery that will take a long time to recover from.

We are GUESSING. But let me put it to the skeptics this way: the most numerous contingent of foreign AQ fighters has come from Darfur as suicide bombers. And these attacks and deaths are down remarkably. The non-murder body count in Iraq is around 50K plus per year now. Civilian deaths account for 20 per cent of those. AQ is losing at least 20 thousand people a month in Iraq.

Who can sustain those kinds of casualties with a squeak trickle of training resources in BumF*ck Pakistan to regroup?

This war is a mathematical equation: AQ cannot sustain its losses in urban warfare forever.

3600 US dead in 6 years compared to 58,000 killed at Gettysburg in 3 days and in Vietnam for the entire war. I’d say perspective is lacking in the arguments of those saying the price is too high and we have not been effective.

The only way for the cheese eating surrender monkies to be satisfied is for either a) the US surrenders, or; b) AQ surrenders.

Now that is some visionary leadership.

Bush’s press conference was excellent, a excellent excellent job.  Some snippets in this 5 minute video from Amy Proctor: Then the Q&A starting with old hack Helen Thomas: Of course the ken doll hack, David Gregory, had to get his……

Either way, as we explained yesterday, the Democratically controlled Congress and Senate will do exactly as they did with the emergency supplemental bill, and pass legislation with some sort of timelines, which the President will veto, again, and whi…..

On July 12th, 2007 at 11:19 am, Kimmer said:
The reporter who asked about gradual withdrawal from Iraq — anyone reminded of “Vietnamization of the war?”

That worked real well, didn’t it?

Actually, it was working well enough from 1969-1974, the period framed between the decision to begin withdrawing American troops and the point where a donkey-controlled Congress reneged on our pledge to support the South.

The best evidence that it was working came in 1972, when the South – assisted only by American air power – successfully defended itself against a major North Vietnamese offensive that included large numbers of Soviet and Chinese-supplied tanks.

A similar policy of “Iraqification” of the struggle in that country can have a positive outcome – as measured by a drawdown of American troops – if, if we don’t try to substitute “gradual transition” with “bug-out boogie” like the donks are calling for.

Iraq is a work in progress, and will remain so for some time. It’s difficult enough to rebuild an army and a police force, and to help a fledgling representative government to stand on its own, even when the neighbors aren’t acting as sources and conduits of training, money, supplies and advisors for both foreign and local insurgents.

That we and the Iraqis themselves have made as much progress as they have in the face of such blatant interference should be a source of encouragement instead of despair.

Unless, of course, one is a donk or a donk media mouthpiece, both of whom are intractably wedded to the prospect of an American defeat because not only do they think they’ll benefit from the same, but they’ve been forecasting it for so long now that if we actually prevail they’ll have a lot of uncomfortable explaining to do.

That, ultimately, if why so many advocates of retreat and defeat are pre-emptively declaring the present campaign a “failure” – they’re actually afraid that if it goes on much longer, we jut might win … and then where would they be?

Some things worth knowing about that I didn’t devote separate posts to: …

Hayden said “the inability of the government to govern seems irreversible,” adding that he could not “point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around,” according to written records of his briefing and the recollections of six participants.

“The government is unable to govern,” Hayden concluded. “We have spent a lot of energy and treasure creating a government that is balanced, and it cannot function.”

“The levers of power are not connected to anything,” he said, adding: “We have placed all of our energies in creating the center, and the center cannot accomplish anything.”

Yeah, nuanced.

GWB: Hayden told Bush his comments were more nuanced…

I think President Bush has been reading Allah’s work at Hot Air! “nuanced”?