Source: http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brmiddleeastnafricara/250.php?nid=&id=&pnt=250&lb=brme

“And that is the rub that I have pointed out over and over. If the left forces a withdrawal, there will be a bloodbath in Iraq. And the blood will be on the people who push that withdrawal agenda.”

Among the reasons the Left opposed this war in the first place was that wars like this (what our military euphemistically terms “assymetrical warfare”) inevitably lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths, most of these of innocent and helpless civilians. Further, success, as defined by the invader, is almost never achieved. There is ample historical data to back this up, of course. One need only go back to the Vietnam war for the canonical example, though others exist (Algeria, the Phillipines, etc.). To now blame the deaths wrought by the Iraq War on the Left, who opposed it in the first place, and to absolve the Right of any responsibility in this crime against humanity, is a perversion of logic, and all notions of accountability, that is breathtaking in its scope.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19720

Is a good place to start, if you have anything meaningful to contribute. “W for win” doesn’t even start. “W” stands for witless, and all the War-mongers who will go down with him in his little bunker when he finally chews the pill or ingests the bullet.

We can win? What a joke. The military conflict was over in August 2003 when brainless bremmer, probably at the behest of dumbsfeld, created, virtually over-night, 400,000+ well-armed, well-connected enemies of the US occupation. Since then the concept of “victory” with the mere presence of 100K US troops is a really sick delusion. “Iraq-nam” only scratches the surface.

Perhaps, at that point, there were some other options, like 400,000+ US troops for 2 or 3 decades, similar to what we did in Germany or Korea, but that reality was not dealt with.

The blood is already on our collective hands. Of course it will be messy–probably close to 100,000 will die the day after we pull-out. If it makes you feel better to blame us “liberals” or whatever, well, have at it. And it won’t make a bit of difference if we pull out tomorrow or in June of 2009.

My questions then: 1) So, why not leave tomorrow? 2) When do the trials of Bush/Cheney/et. al. begin?

Yes, because God forbid you have some people reading this with views that differ from yours.

In it, he discusses his experience in Iraq as bureau chief, the Iraqi journalists who became an important part of the Post’s coverage and pinpoints key moments where the Bush administration and its war planners erred in their post-war strategy.

It’s an interesting and related listen to what’s being discussed here.

http://www.scribemedia.org/2006/12/20/imperial-life/

Have you acknowledged that the Iraq invasion was a huge mistake?

Bush is falling into the Einstein definition of insanity, doing the same thing day after day and expecting a different result.

I also find it amusing that you claim ‘Nam was lost because we didn’t let the military fight the war, yet now when the joint chiefs say “no troop surge in Iraq” we have to ignore them and remind them they were for us civilians. Which is it?

This is a mushroom cloud catastrophe that extends beyond party lines, Republicans vs. Democrats, conservatives vs. liberals. This is a disaster of hubris, greed, and ignorance among the few and privileged. We have all been let down, but most especially the Iraqi people and the US troops who are dying for leadership that doesn’t deserve the courage, intelligence, and honor that our men and women show every day.

On the subject of “Are they going to leave us again?”: we had our reasons then, and we have our reasons now. In 1991, we withdrew our support from the Shi’a and Kurds in their nearly-successful overthrow of Saddam. One official explained our decision not to topple Hussein:

If you’re going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein, you have to go to Baghdad. Once you’ve got Baghdad, it’s not clear what you do with it. It’s not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that’s currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it’s set up by the United States military when it’s there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?

All excellent questions that nobody seemed to care about in 2003. Where was this guy when Bush Jr. was planning his invasion? Oh yeah, he was Vice President. Go figure.

* denotes new or updated item.

*BAGHDAD – Iraqi police found 76 bodies around Baghdad, all with gunshot wounds and most with signs of torture, the Interior Ministry said.

*BAGHDAD – Two U.S. soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.

*MOSUL – Police said they found 11 bodies, all with gunshot wounds, in the northern city of Mosul.

BAGHDAD – Gunmen killed university professor Muntathar Mohammed Mehdi in his car, along with his brother and cousin, relatives and hospital sources said. Relatives said Mehdi was a member of Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr’s political movement.

BAGHDAD – A car bomb in the parking lot of an Interior Ministry office charged with issuing identity cards killed four people and wounded eight in Adhamiya district in northern Baghdad, police said.

BAIJI – A roadside bomb killed two motorists and wounded three north of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – A suicide car bomber rammed his vehicle into a police checkpoint near Baghdad University in the southwestern Jadriya district, killing 11 people and wounding 31, including some students, an Interior Ministry source said.

MOSUL – U.S. forces said they captured a senior al Qaeda leader and five insurgents in a raid in the northern city of Mosul. It said the main suspect, whom it did not name, was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians.

MAHMUDIYA – Two bodies with gunshot wounds and signs of torture were found in the town of Mahmudiya, about 30 km (20 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

BAGHDAD – A car bomb wounded two people in Bayaa district in southern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

BAGHDAD – A car bomb wounded two people in Camp Sara district in eastern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry source said.

What part of that is NOT a bloodbath? We lose 3000 people on 9/11 and we go insane. Imaging how it would be if we lost 36,000 people month after month after month. With no hospitals to speak of. Where no neighborhood is safe if you went to the wrong church, or even had the wrong parents.

Bush was criminally ignorant to start Iraq and he’s criminally insane to keep sending more of our military to add to the bloodbath. The blood is on the hands of Bush and Cheney and Rummy and YOU! Not on the hands of those who tried to warn you that this would happen.