So any honest government of theirs, any voting they hold, going by majority wins, won't it all probably result in laws and policies that we won't agree with? Doesn't that make sense? How much good can we really say our "democratic views" will do?

The ideal solution at this point, of course, will never happen under Bush, that would be the swopping of US forces for UN blue helmets, and a serious reconstruction effort, underwritten but not administered by US funds. we DO owe Iraq, and the rest of the region, not to mention the rest of the community of nations, for this, big time.

I repeat what I said yesterday: we need to get to the bottom of the 2000 & 2004 election messes and get reform that guarantees everyone has a right to vote (Jackson's constitutional amendment) and also guarantees that every vote is accurately counted.

We also need to wake up the electorate!  I cannot believe that this administration has gotten away with, so far, literally dozens of impeachable offenses, including, prosecuting a war on false pretenses and the outing of a CIA operative.  This administration makes the Nixon administration look saintly, in comparison. Air America is a start, but we need to get the mainstream media in a position where they can no longer ignore these stories.  What does it take, 20 million people?

Will Pitt for President!!!

While Bush Administration apologists are quick to try to distinguish Iraq from Viet Nam, the similarities persist that should not be overlooked if we are to learn anything from history. While the US did not "invade" Viet Nam, the US did sign on to take over the role of the French who had done so. The ensuing protracted war involved, in effect, a civil war between factions who believed that Viet Nam should be unified and controlled by Vietnamese and a US backed and controlled regime. The situation plays out a bit differently in tactics, but the "insurgents" in Iraq devoutly believe [and are willing to die for] the principle that Iraq should be freed of interference by the US backed and controlled regime now being formed. In Iraq, many Kurds and many Shiites also hold the same belief, but see complicity with the US backed government as the quickest way to rid the country of US occupation. They hope, probably in vain, that the establishment of the new government will allow Iraq to expel the US tentacles.

The notion that Iraq would suffer a civil war following our departure is certainly accurate but certainly moot.  It doesn't matter when we depart.  Iraq is in a civil war RIGHT NOW, a war that will continue as long as we remain there as an occupying force and a war that will certainly intensify whenever we choose to leave, whether now or at some later date.

The difference is that now there is a chance that any civil war will be over quickly because of Iraq's lack of any capacity to produce weapons of war for either side.  The longer we wait, however, the longer the differing factions will be able to prepare for the aftermath of our occupation.

The only difference for the United States is that, if we leave now, we will no longer be a part of Iraq's internal strife, and we will no longer continue to squander the lives of our country's brave soldiers and the wealth of our treasury in what ultimately must prove to be an exercise in tragic futility.

Iraq has known only three states since the dim dawn of civilization -- despotism, subjugation to a foreign power, and civil or defensive war.  In a nation where the internal political divisions are based on differences of inflexible religious dogma, these are the only states that CAN exist.

The only two possible outcomes after we leave are either a state of civil war where one faction will triumph and exercise tyrannical power over the country, or the country will split up into three nations, one of which is ultimately likely to merge with Iran.

There are some good haters with long memories among Shiites. Sunnis beware!

The Kurds are the key. If Shiite and Kurd can strike a deal, Iraq might stabilise. Otherwise, civil war seems almost inevitable. Some say that there is already civil war.

The US is said to be building up to 14 military bases in Iraq. What if the 'noo, democratically elected government' were to tell the US of A to get the hell outta there? Those bases could be very handy to a new Iraqi military.

Iraq is irony upon irony, each one pretty much foreseen. The British ambassador to Rome said a few weeks ago that Bush has proved al-Qaeda's best 'recruiting sergeant'. Amen to that, comrades. Osama bin Laden must be well down his wish list and certainly to the point where he inflicts severe economic damage to America, the twin deficits being the main case in point. Billions each week in Iraq yet homeland security, in relative terms, languishes.

I am an 'outside' observer in Sydney, Australia (though my elder son is married and lives in Boston). I shake my head in disbelief at the policies of GWB. This man's world view is decidedly limited. He is said not to have owned a passport until becoming President. He 'travels' now though it is not so much 'travel' as transferring his hermetically sealed environment to this point and that. He doesn't read, he has no sense of history other than that conditioned into him by Karl Rove, he trumpets anti-intellectualism ('a C-grader can become President'). He is a marionette.

Condi in State, Bolton to the UN, maybe Wolfowitz to the World Bank... Who said the neocons are declining in influence?

Texas cowboy bluster and bombast will get Bush so far. His management of the economy will be his undoing, aided or unaided by the Bank of China. The tectonic plates of international diplomacy are moving. Europe is aligning more closely to China. China is seeking energy, from anyone who has it (including Iran). China is extending its influence throughout SE Asia, Latin America and Africa. India is emerging as a potential economic giant. Increasingly, America runs the risk of being ignored rather than respected.

Afghanistan is a failed narco-state. Next door, in Pakistan, militant Islam might be poised to form a government (armed with nuclear technology). If that happens things could get really interesting.

On it goes.

From my perspective Bush could do two things that would demonstrate US leadership:

1   Pull Sharon into line. There has to be an independent Palestine. 'Shape up or lose US aid' should be the message.

2   Tell the duplicitous Musharraf to allow AQ Khan to be interrogated. Khan actually did the things that Saddam Hussein was alleged to be contemplating. His 'invoices' would be very interesting indeed.

There are near zero cost alternatives to oil.  If we use carpools and double oil efficiency then the USA would save as much oil as Saudi Arabia exports to the entire world.  And the USA would import no oil.  

If using oil was the route to war then not using oil is the route to peace.

No more fear.  No more fantasy.  Get real and be free.  The world will follow American ingenuity.

A charismatic leader can make peace in Iraq.  

Either the neocons really don't believe their own propaganda about how Reagan ended the Cold War, or they don't care about the long term well-being of the US.

That question is:  We know that through all the chaos in Iraq, Bush has managed to keep a single document in the Iraq oil ministry from being ruffled; does anyone know what is happening to Iraq's oil revenue?  Maybe Dick Cheney knows.  

As to what to do in Iraq, I agree with everything that has been said.  I also agree with Mr. Pitt that we must discuss Iraq in the context of the powers that be....i.e. the Bush administration.  

The real question about Iraq is what is going to happen to the non-Shiite areas after the U.S. leaves.  The Shiite areas, where most of the oil resides, will likely form an alliance with Iran making Iran the dominant power in the region.  But the non Shiite areas will almost certainly not willing join the Shiite areas.  This leaves two possibilities.  The first is that the Shiites will subjugate the non Shiite areas.  I think that unlikely.

The non Shiites have nothing the Shiites want.  There is very little reason for the newly freed Shiites to risk everything on subjugating the rest of Iraq.  Rather, the Shiites would better be served by allowing the non Shiites to go their own way.  If the non Shiites agreed to respect agreed to boundaries of a newly formed Shiistan, the Shiites with aid from Iran would find themselves very secure and on top of one of the biggest oil reserves in the world.  

So while it is unlikely the Iraq Shiites will join with Iran then if for no other reason then the language difference between Farsi, and Indo-European language and Arabic a Semitic language, or nationality of Persian and Arab, the Iraq Shiites will join a close alliance with Iran leaving the Iraq Shiites secure and Iran as the dominant power in the Middle East.  

But what will this do to the non Shiite areas without especially without American "guidance"?  The break up of Iraq once American troops leave will destabilize the rest of the region weakening and in some cases eliminating more moderate and pro American governments like Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt.  

That is the breakup of Iraq is a bigger problem for America and its allies then it is for Iran and its allies including the Iraq Shiites.  

And how to manage the non Shiite areas of Iraq upon the break-up of Iraq is what we really need to be discussing.  And this discussion must be very limited because we must discuss this in the context of the Bush administration.

One aspect of the situation, part of the reason Iraq was broken by an invasion, is Kurd separatism.  Actually, this is the most-optimistic aspect.  Before the invasion, the no-fly zone was sufficient to allow considerable Kurdish autonomy.  Now, a no-go/no-fly policy regarding Kurdistan, applied principally against Turkey and Iran, could allow Kurdish independence in Iraq.  The evidence is that a Kurdish state would not be a failed state, and the oil in the north would make it an economically-viable state.  True, this would exacerbate the Kurdish unrest in Turkey and Iran, but perhaps that is unrest that needs exacerbating.  

As for the south, there seems to be an emerging Shia political force that will impose some sort of religious state on the south, one perhaps less-virulent than that in Iran.  In any case, it would be a state with likely ties to Iran, some possibility of stability, and fairly-good economic prospects.  That it would be some form of theocracy is distasteful, but it appears inevitable in any case.

For those that have not read it here is some info.
both and others on these topics can be found at
http://www.realityzone.com/ I have no affiliation with this site.

Tragedy and Hope the History in our time
By Professor Carroll Quigley.

This is the book that blows the lid off the secret organization created by Cecil Rhodes to quietly gain control over the nations of the world and establish a global government based on the model of collectivism. Professor Quigley (President Clinton's history professor at Georgetown University) was a trusted supporter of this organization and was given access to its private papers. When his book was released by a major New York publishing house, it was expected that it would be read only by academics who are interested in the organization's history and sympathetic to its goals. However, when it began to be quoted by critics, the publisher withdrew the book from print. This led to the appearance of an underground version that circulated throughout the 1970s and 80s. Eventually, the publisher was pressured into authorizing this official reprint edition, which is an exact replica of the original. It is a mammoth history interspersed with startling information about the secret organization's impact on almost every major event of modern history. 1348 pages, hardbound.

It is recommended that you also read The Anglo-American Establishment, a later book by Quigley on the same topic containing important additional information.

The second book worth reading on this.

Creature from Jekyll Island

Where does money come from? Where does it go? Who makes it? The money magicians' secrets are unveiled. We get a close look at their mirrors and smoke machines, their pulleys, cogs, and wheels that create the grand illusion called money. A dry and boring subject? Just wait! You'll be hooked in five minutes. Reads like a detective story -- which it really is. But it's all true. This book is about the most blatant scam of all history. It's all here: the cause of wars, boom-bust cycles, inflation, depression, prosperity. Creature from Jekyll Island is a "must read." Your world view will definitely change. You'll never trust a politician again -- or a banker.

The title Tragedy and Hope tells it all. The tragedy is that there is nothing we can do about it, the hope is the the international backers have the well being of society and the planet in mind. We are yet to see any evidence of the latter.

Bankers make the most money when the world in in conflict. they lend to both sides and make money lots of it no matter who wins. Most of mankind 99% are the pawns of war. It is our use and acceptance of currency that feeds this. In a sense the Current Money System needs competition. Or a way to take the profits out of war. Not an easy task hence the tragedy.

Buckminster Fuller says it best "You never change things by fighting the existing reality... To change something... Build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." THIS NEW MODEL IS WHAT IS NEEDED.

We will leave Iraq.  Either before or after my teenage nieces are drafted to go there.  Either before or after our own economy is ruined.  Either before or after we, even acting with the best of intentions and using the smartest of bombs, inflict so many civilian casualties that no one will shed a tear the next time the U. S. is struck by terrorists.  

(+) We Balkanize Iraq, setting up three separate states, Shiite, Kurd, and Sunni.

Instead, we should ask ourselves, what are our overall, long-term goals?  Further, are these compatible, and compatible with Iraq's own goals?  Further still, what if they are not?  Pretending for a moment that the US is not fiercely divided on this issue, America and the Bush administration have an explicit goal, and an implicit goal:

       1. Explicitly, US wants Democracy.    
       2. Implicitly, US wants a capitalistic free-market, with protection for American brands.  

The explicit goal was among our (shifting) reasons for invading.  Problematic, though, because Iraq was ostensibly democratic when we invaded, even if they hadn't had a real Presidential contest in some years (have we?), though no one was really complaining about it (like so many did in Tiananmen Square, once upon a time) unless you count the CIA-created INC.  Social order existed in Iraq, along with an indigenous power structure, but we ended all that by killing most of the adult male population.  This of course created the anticipated power vaccuum, which we stood ready to fill.  Now we've orchestrated a constitution and an election, but whether or not that will serve to fill the power vaccuum we are now attempting to create remains to be seen.  That seems to have been the plan, though Iraqis didn't seem interested in our puppets.

The implicit goal -which has been the unstated goal of all American capitalists, period- might be the fundamental reason for anti-Americanism world-wide.  Because we are so aggressively greedy and selfish, it's as if we knocked on someone's door, offered them something nice when they opened it, and then proceeded to take their "thank you," as a "make yourself at home."  When other cultures said "sure, we'll trade with you," we introduced industrialism and multinational corporate economics, steamrolling over the locals and their home-grown interests and industry.  This is not only undemocratic, it's imperialistic, in the grand old tradition of the American slave trade.  The Iraq war may have seemed like Progress from here, but slavery seemed like Progress to Confederate plantation-owners, too.

So to avoid this admission which will effectively end the Bush presidency and Republican power, Bush will delay the pull-out from Iraq until America is its weakest and least able to deal with the fall-out of Bush's lost war.  

The problem the Bush administration has is that anyway to get us out of Iraq  requires an admission that we would have been better off having never invaded.  

To continue with the charade that the Iraq invasion will do anything other then leave America worse off requires Bush to continue to keep in place all effort in delaying the inevitable until after he leaves office.  Bush's obvious hope is that the situation he caused will blow up on someone else's watch and that someone else will get blamed and not Bush.  

Bush is hoping to delay the exit from Iraq until after he is no longer president and the responsibility and likely the blame falls on someone else or at least until after the November 2006 elections when his power will be secured for the rest of his term.  

So Bush's whole strategy is to hang on until events overtake him or he is no longer president.  The problem with the Bush strategy is that the longer we delay, the worse it will be when the situation does blow.  

Right now, while the war is lost, there is still a chance to manage the defeat. But Bush is more concerned about passing his domestic agenda which will come to a halt once he admits to the Iraq error by leaving Iraq under circumstances that now and will exist for as long as U.S. troops are in Iraq.  So Bush will hang on in Iraq until the end of his presidency if possible.
Like it or not, if Bush is able to hold on in Iraq until the end of his presidency, Bush's invasion will be deemed a success by the media and any political fallout will be on the head of the next president.  

There are two key lines when the Bush strategy of delay will come to an end.  
The first line is when a DRAFT is needed.  No honest person can say we ever had enough troops to win this war.  In order to win this war Bush needed at least 350,000 troops for the occupation phase in order to secure Iraq's borders to keep out undesirables and provide everyday security to Iraq's people to allow them to build the institutions of democracy necessary for a unified nation with a diverse population to have a western style government.  

And troops were only the beginning.  But as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated to such a point, one million troops could not restore it to where victory is possible.  The only relevance of the number of troops needed for victory shows Bush's weakness.  

Bush cannot call for a DRAFT under any circumstances.  Having started an unnecessary war, any call for a draft will finish not only Bush but the Republican Party for a long time.  So the draft question, that is when will Bush need to resort to conscription in order to continue the occupation of Iraq, Bush will cut and run.

The DRAFT issue is also important for another reason.  It means Bush cannot start any more wars and everyone from North Korea to Iran to Syria knows Bush cannot start any other wars.  So everyone knows that Bush's invasion of Iraq has left Bush impotent to effect world affairs in any other way.  

The second line is when the Shiites tell us to leave.  Right now we are faced with a resistance mostly from the non Kurdish Sunnis.  But the bigger danger then the secular Sunnis is the sectarian Shiites.  The Shiites, particularly those who are gaining power, have strong links to Iran.  While it is doubtful they will become one nation with Iraq if for no other difference then the language barrier, (Iranians speak Farsi and Indo-European language and the Iraqis speak Arabic a Semitic language), it is very likely the Shiites of Iraq will become, or already are, closely allied with Iran.  

An alliance with Iran will in a very short improve the security situation for the Iraq Shiites time allow the Iraq Shiites to demand an end to the U.S. occupation and the withdrawal of U.S. troops and an end to the Bush's cronies looting the revenue from the oil reserves.  

You apparantly feel the need to balance the values of outcomes rather than the merits of actions. A typical utility theory approach. No philosophy is more brutal or fundamentaly corrupt.

Further, you take the US as the authority which needs to handle these types of things. A view with which Bush and the Neocons would wholeheartedly agree. A view which you may remember was at the heart of the logic of the invasion.

Reasonable people would argue, however, that if anyone has that authority, it is the UN alone.

If the balance of power were different, the UN might well declare the US to be an illegal invader and plunderer, and place the US under economic sanctions until we withdrew.

The UN would then have the responsibility to help these people - which I expect they would do.

The actual balance of power is such that the US can do as it wills and bully others into tolerance and even approval.

Consequently the only way to set things right is for the US to be saved, as it were, and on its own withdraw immediately and ask the UN to lead the police and assistance efforts which will likely be needed.

1. The creation of OPEC and the dramatic jump in oil prices in the mid-70s created massive wealth problems for a number of Arab nations, particularly Saudi Arabia. The Saudis did two things with their money; they invested huge sums in western banking systems, thus creating a mutually dependent relationship reaching beyond even the oil connection; the second thing they did was to set up madrassas throughout the Muslim world that spread the violent, radical, Islamist-jihad philosophy into virtually every Muslim community worldwide.
   
2. The Iranian revolution in 1979 resulted in the first Islamic theocracy in over 800 years and served to inspire and energize all of those youngsters who had been going to those madrassas. The Mullas running those Islamic schools saw Iran as the leading edge for the revival of a new Islamic Caliphate that would redeem the Arab world's shame leftover from the days of direct colonialism, and finally give them the power to face the west on an equal footing.
   
3. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan not only excited the American, anti-communist, right-wing, it also outraged Muslims around the world. The sight of a godless, western invasion (and make no mistake about it, the Muslims correctly saw the communist giant as largely a creation of western influences) of sacred Muslim land was enough to generate a global call to arms. The addition of Saudi money, American training and materiel, and the active assistance of the Pakistan Inter Service Intelligence directorate, helped to create the first truly global jihadist organization. This group became known in the region as the "Afghan Bureau," and it proceeded to recruit radical Muslims from all over the world (a significant number came from Middle East prisons, as many of those who would be known as the Mujahedin had already been engaged in jihadist work before the Soviet invasion). The Mujahedin were successful in driving the Soviets out of Afghanistan and they eventually morphed into the Taliban and everybody's favorite, al Qaeda.
   

Salient points of similarity between Iraq and Vietnam: the U.S. is in a protracted military stalement, is losing the political struggle (an unavoidable and ironic blowback), and has lost moral authority among the Iraqi people and sentient people around the world.

  a)  We can't leave Iraq until it is stable.
  b)  Our prescence in Iraq is a main cause of the instability.

However, withdrawl need not be done all at once, and in fact could not be.  Moving over 100,000 troops would take months.  And, I believe, merely announcing a withdrawl could have a beneficial effect.  All of Iraq's neighbors (and many other countries) would be concerned about the possibility of chaos.  At present they know we are holding the bag and are perfectly content to let us stew in the morass over there as a way of punishing the arrogant empire.  If we begin to leave though, that would change.

We could declare victory as follows:

"We have removed the brutal Saddam and liberated Iraq!  The threat of WMDs has been taken care of!  Iraq has had a successful election, and now Iraqis are in charge.  From now on it is up to Iraqis to decide their fate.  We will leave behind a small military presence, enough to insure the territorial integrity of the country, but that is it.  No more patroling, no more attempting to keep order, no more fighting with insurgents.  Our forces will remain confined to their bases for the most part.  And if that means Iraqis go around killing each other, then so be it.  We aren't going to try and stand between them any more.  At least this way it won't be our fault."

I understand that there are a lot of problems with this.  There could be a civil war, even a regional conflagration.  The country may go the way of Yugoslavia.  But there is already a low-scale civil war going on there, and the country may go the way of Yugoslavia no matter what we do.  There is absolutely no reason to believe that keeping our troops around longer will prevent any of this.  There aren't enough of them to control the situation.

Under this scenario we would keep enough troops (and a robust airpower capability) around to prevent a real catastrophe to our interests, and just wait and see what shakes out.

If you know for sure that you are headed in the wrong direction, then any other direction is an improvement.

Staying in Iraq becomes the concrete exemplar of the old adage about "throwing good money after bad." We stay, we sink more money in it, kill more Iraqi civilians and American kids, and in 10 years, where will we be? In Iraq, sinking more money, killing more Iraqis and young soldiers . . . repeat ad infinitum.

Withdrawal will be a disaster, whatever the outcome. Staying will be an even bigger disaster, which will go on for longer, and in the end THE RESULT WILL BE THE SAME as if we got out now. Except, of course, for all those lives wasted in the interim.

The "we have to stay because" arguments have all begun to sound like the rationalisations that an abused (wo)man makes for staying with the abuser. There is only one successful way out of that kind of a dynamic, and that is out.

The US should get the hell out of Iraq and pay massive reparations to the Iraqi people, against whom they have committed innumerable atrocities.

That's what should happen. Should. But is that going to happen? No way. There are unfortunately too many people in positions of power with too much financial interest in Iraq for the US to leave; too many people whose kids died or are dying or were maimed in Iraq, who have to cling to their belief that the US presence is justified or else go crazy with grief; too many people who will follow blindly as long as authority tells them to. And even among the so-called "progressive" movement, too many people who will say we have to stay because, well, we're there now and we have to stay because, well, we have to stay.

Don't get me wrong; I adore WRP, I would read anything he wrote, even a grocery list, and be awed and humbled by his insight and the sheer poetry of his writing. But in this I find the arguments seriously unconvincing. He and the other voices saying that we can't leave Iraq seem to be operating on the notion that we went bumbling in, so we must stay bumbling on, until - what? Enough Americans have died that that we feel we have some way expiated our sin, paid enough, finally can bumble out with a slightly cleaner conscience?

it is great study of this penultimate gasp of french imperialism. fills out fall's HELL IN A VERY SMALL PLACE and simpson's DIEN BIEN PHU.

it seems clear to me that the usa, having been deceived by the bushits to engage in a crusade[and believe me, this is a christian versus islam endeavor - in the 'nam they were gooks, slopes, dinks/in iraq, they are ragheads, towelheads, et alia - all characterized as untermenschen], that the usa has only two choices....

1. total war footing. immediate draft. then to invade all muslim countries: kuwait, syria, egypt, saudi, iran, indonesia, libya, algeria, morocco, nigeria[islam is running this country, today]. and not only invade, but kill every last one of them.

2. since choice #1 is virtually unsustainable - the usa cannot conduct a multi-front war against islam[nor should it] - the only other course of action is to evacuate iraq. as long as we stay there, we shall hemorrhage lives, ours and theirs, and resources, also ours and theirs.

quite candidly, we have now put the entirety of iraq into the same category as ben tre[i.e., we must destroy the country totally so as to save it].

i don't know about you, but i consider that prospect tantamount to genocide.

the scariest aspect of all of this is that the jcs has decided that their oaths of allegiance to the constitution was irrelevant. as occurred in germany after the night of the long knives, it appears as if the jcs have invested their fealty not to the constitution but to the erstwhile leigelord.

you may have missed it, but this country ceased being a constitutional republic some years ago. the congress has decided to become a castrated parliament and has adopted the concept of the president as monarc