How big is our permanent military presence in our Iraqi colony going to be?

[mmonk]

I was busy last night working on paperwork but thought I heard it was going to be 50K troops. Did I hear wrong?

[Subdivisions]

1. We pirated their oil. There will be enough military presence left behind

to protect that booty.

[mmonk]

11. Aye mate.

[MadHound]

2. Obama is looking at leaving 30,000-50,000 troops in Iraq

These will be to advise and train Iraqi troops, as well as go on special counter terrorism missions.

So much for bringing all the troops home. We're just turning down the volume in Iraq and turning it up in Afghanistan.

Oh, and instead of 16 month time table it's now a nineteen month timetable.
<http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090224/ap_on_go_pr_wh/iraq_withdrawal_15>

So much for change, Obama is just rearranging priorities. Under Bush Iraq was the front burner war, with Afghanistan going on in the background. Under Obama, that's going to be reversed.

Yeah, that's real change there:eyes:

[mmonk]

3. I was hoping that before I die, I would get to see a peace dividend

from the fall of the Berlin wall. Looks like defense contractors will be the only ones getting a dividend.

[MadHound]

4. What, you didn't get yours?

:rofl:

C'mon, Clinton cut the military back by a whole two percent back in '93, and you didn't get your peace dividend?

Too late now, what with the War on Drugs, War on Terror and other Wars on Nouns. Can't find real enemies now, so we're declaring war on various nouns. Sad, really sad.

[mmonk]

5. Maybe if I labeled myself a defense contractor and lobbied

Congress, I could get one.

[MadHound]

8. If it can be found anymore, dig up the story of Hadley Tanks

Essentially a journalist labeled himself as president of this fictitious tank company just so he could go to this big contractor show and write a story on it. The thing is he started getting offers to bid on contracts and various other interesting things. Really quite hilarious, though I don't know if you could do this today, what with the age of computers and massive security and such. But it was a funny, funny side show to the Vietnam War.

[mmonk]

9. Thanks. Sounds hilarious. It would make a great movie theme.

[tekisui]

6. 50,000-60,000 will be left after August '10. With another big draw down

by Dec. '11. I haven't heard what that number is, but I would imagine under 25,000. The contractors are leaving, too.

[mmonk]

7. Thanks for your answer.

[The Bakery Wagon]

10. too big to fail...

whatever the number

And for how long will these 50K be there?

At least as long as Camp Bondsteel has been around.
And Bondsteel isn't going anywhere anytime soon.



How many bin ladens did Abu Garib create?

[Odin2005]

12. So Germany and South Korea are American colonies?

:shrug:

[mmonk]

13. Do we control their economy and assets and ignore their laws

or desires?

[Odin2005]

14. We pretty much controlled them and Japan for several years after WW2.

We rooted out the crap and turned West Germany and Japan into model liberal democracies.

[mmonk]

15. Was that our original intent? To invade a country that posed no threat

in order to do so? Iraq was more in line with old imperialist models. Maybe this helps in knowing the difference: http://journals.democraticunderground.com/mmonk/39

[Odin2005]

16. Bush fucked up the place so we have a responsibillity to fix the place up.

What's that saying again? "You break it, you own it?"

[mmonk]

17. I guess the remaining debate is in the interpretation of fixing.

Does it remain the same goal of the original action and how does the world and the occupied country view it?

[Odin2005]

18. The country needs to be stable.