The Beginning Of The End Has Begun.....

[Blackhatjack]

The beginning of the end has begun.

"The head of the Army is calling for British troops to withdraw from Iraq "soon" or risk catastophic consequences for both Iraq and British society. In a devastating broadside at Tony Blair's foreign policy, General Sir Richard Dannatt stated explicitly that the continuing presence of British troops "exacerbates the security problems" in Iraq."

When Britain withdraws, and Tony Blair is forced out of office, the US will have no allies left to share the burden, we will be fighting the Sunni and Shiites alone, and we will leave Iraq.

It is now a question of how many more will die before we withdraw?

It sure looks a lot like the end of the Vietnam War.

[Initech]

1. Wishful thinking: the president leaves the office in disgrace

If the similiarities between Vietnam and Iraq are true, hopefully it will end the same way!

[wtmusic]

3. Here's hoping it ends with war crimes charges

for those who so desperately, desperately deserve them.

[evlbstrd]

2. We'd better finish that embassy soon.

We'll need it for a helipad.

[Lexingtonian]

4. Same 'reasons', same mistakes, same results

Heckuva job, fellas.

Quite a few people actually predicted this outcome. They asked the Bushies what plans they had to reconcile the Sunnis and Shia, and never got any substantive response beyond the non-answer "we'll institute a democratic government".

With Britain out, the American cover at the UN fails and the Security Council won't renew the "mandate" i.e. permission for continuing the travesty.

[Peace Patriot]

5. Bush needs a couple more years to beat LBJ's and Nixon's combined

carnage: 2 million slaughtered in Southeast Asia by the end of the Vietnam War, including over 55,000 U.S. soldiers.

Bush is up to over half a million no-account deaths (Iraqis) and if you figure the U.S. deaths at about 10 times what the Pentagon admits to, we're up to about 30,000. (--wouldn't surprise me; in fact I think we can be fairly sure it's much higher than they have disclosed; U.S. reporters seldom go outside the "Green Zone," so how would they know?).

That's pretty piss poor in the genocide sweepstakes. He's had three years. Why is he falling behind?

Ah, maybe it will take a Democrat to pick up the pace. And if they can add in Iran, wow, they may break the record.

Sorry, friends. Couldn't help myself. I've seen it all before. I voted for the "peace" candidate, the Democrat, LBJ--truly, that's how they portrayed him--in my first vote for president, in 1964--and got 2 million deaths for my trouble. Call me cynical, if you want. But that's where I think this is going, if history is any guide. And they just switch back and forth between War Republicans and War Democrats. Eisenhower started the Vietnam War, by nixing the UN-sponsored elections in Vietnam in 1954 (Ho Chi Minh would have won--he was a great war hero) and sending the CIA into Vietnam to ally with extremely corrupt fascists, to set up an artificial "south" Vietnamese government that never had popular support. JFK tried to call it off, just before he was assassinated (--he signed executive orders withdrawing U.S. military "advisers" from Vietnam). LBJ rescinded those orders as soon as he became president, and killed the first million. Then Nixon killed a million more by expanding the war into Cambodia and Laos. Some of the Democrats learned a lesson, but many of the current crop of leaders seem to have forgotten it, including--incredibly, given his history--John Kerry, who voted to give away Congress' war powers to Bush. Hillary's gungho. She'd buy into a Gulf of Tonkin incident in a second--and we'd be into Iran. They talk about withdrawal. They don't mean it. We're stuck in the Middle East forever more, if we don't get rid of Bushite-controlled electronic voting machines. (I'm not sure about Gore, Clark and Feingold--they might get us out. But no one who would really get us out can be (s)elected.)

[tenshi816]

6. Thaisstory is all over the newspapers

and BBC news this morning. It's not going away in a hurry.

One of the reasons it's such a big story here in the UK is that while sentiments like this might be (and probably are being) expressed among the rank and file, it's exceedingly rare for a senior military officer to say such things publicly. Good for him.

[Hardrada]

7. Sir Richard belongs in Camelot for this bravery!

His strength was as the strength of ten....