THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, ELEVENTH THREAD

iraq body count as of 05/31/2007

MONTHLY UPDATE OF IRAQ'S VIOLENT NON-COMBATANT DEATHS

............................... Monthly ........... Accumulated Total since
............................... Totals .............. January 1st 2003 ...........
December 2005 ............ ------ ..................... 36,859
January 2006 ............... 1,267 .................... 38,126
February 2006 .............. 1,287 .................... 39,413
March 2006 ................. 1,538 .................... 40,951
April 2006 .................... 1,287.................... 42,238
May 2006 ..................... 1,417 .................... 43,655
June 2006 .................... 2,089 .................... 45,744
July 2006 ..................... 2,336 .................... 48,080
August 2006 ................ 1,195 .................... 49,275
September 2006 .......... 1,407..................... 50,682
October 2006 ............. 2,546 ..................... 53,228
November 2006 .......... 3,894 ..................... 57,122
December 2006 .......... 3,219 ..................... 60,341
January 2007 .............. 2,557 ..................... 62,898
February 2007 ............. 2,514 ..................... 65,412
March 2007 .................. 2,720 .................... 68,132
April 2007 .................... 2,359.................... 70,491
May 2007 ..................... 3.755 ................... 74,246

Dick Dastardly (love your moniker), Welcome to a2k. As you can see, the biggest problem we have with conservatives is their very short memory spans. Bushco did call the UN "irrelevant," and most of our allies "old Europe."

From that time forward to now, the so-called "coalition of the willing" have all but disappeared, and Bushco not only extended the US soldiers tour of duty in a war zone for longer periods, but reneged on the contracts to discharge soldiers when their term was up. Added to that insult, Bush cut veteran's benefit (yes, he increased the dollar amount, but not enough to meet the increasing demand) and added co-pays for soldiers, while some are discharged without having recovered from their war injuries.

That some members of congress and the American Public would still support this president and administration is mind-boggling.

And don't forget Bush vowed he would not leave office with Iran unresolved.

Nuke Iran; bet conservatives are creaming in their pants thinking about that.

Busy. Busy. Busy. Congress was busy for a few days, but will soon go on vacation. The Iraqi legislature will soon go on vacation. Mr Bush says we should wait for the report in September or maybe it will come in November.
So here we are, two countries in an all out war, with everyone involved going on vacation.

The sh*t is going to hit the fan, I read and hear, about April, 2008. We will run out of combat troops needed to sustain the "surge." We can opt to extend tours beyond the current 15 months. Or we can decrease the downtime between deployments away from the current 24 months. Or we can send in under-trained soldiers from the National Guard.

The notion that we will stay until we win may sound good but it is simply not doable under our current military force structure.

If Bush does start a war with Iran, it'll be 100 percent air war. We don't have any more ground troops. Conscription anyone?

cicerone imposter wrote:

If Bush does start a war with Iran, it'll be 100 percent air war. We don't have any more ground troops. Conscription anyone?

Bush wont start a war with Iran.
The next dem president will.

mysteryman wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

If Bush does start a war with Iran, it'll be 100 percent air war. We don't have any more ground troops. Conscription anyone?

Bush wont start a war with Iran.
The next dem president will.

What makes you think such a thing?

sheesh

Cycloptichorn

Cycloptichorn wrote:

mysteryman wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

If Bush does start a war with Iran, it'll be 100 percent air war. We don't have any more ground troops. Conscription anyone?

Bush wont start a war with Iran.
The next dem president will.

What makes you think such a thing?

sheesh

Cycloptichorn

Because it makes just as much sense as you saying that Bush will.

Brinkley: Condi Rice Couldn't Get Op-Ed Published

By E&P Staff

Published: July 22, 2007 8:30 PM ET

NEW YORK If you've ever had trouble getting an Op-Ed submission published -- and who among print journalists has not? -- this might make you feel a little better: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has had the same problem.

Writing a -- what else? an Op-Ed -- in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, former New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley (who now teaches journalism at Stanford) reveals Rice's problem in discussing her wider loss of influence.

Here is an excerpt.
*

A few months ago, she decided to write an opinion piece about Lebanon. She enlisted John Chambers, chief executive officer of Cisco Systems as a co-author, and they wrote about public/private partnerships and how they might be of use in rebuilding Lebanon after last summer's war. No one would publish it.

Think about that. Every one of the major newspapers approached refused to publish an essay by the secretary of state. Price Floyd, who was the State Department's director of media affairs until recently, recalls that it was sent to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and perhaps other papers before the department finally tried a foreign publication, the Financial Times of London, which also turned it down.

As a last-ditch strategy, the State Department briefly considered translating the article into Arabic and trying a Lebanese paper. But finally they just gave up. "I kept hearing the same thing: 'There's no news in this.' " Floyd said. The piece, he said, was littered with glowing references to President Bush's wise leadership. "It read like a campaign document."

Floyd left the State Department on April 1, after 17 years. He said he was fed up with the relentless partisanship and the unwillingness to consider other points of view. His supervisor, a political appointee, kept "telling me to shut up," he said. Nothing like that had occurred under Presidents Bill Clinton or George H.W. Bush. "They just wanted us to be Bush automatons."

It is now possible to discern bin Laden's message to the American left which I express in my own words: "Your group and my group have very different ultimate goals. You want a permissive society, and I want a sharia. Even so, the remarkable thing is that our strategy objectives at the cirrent time are very similar. You want to destroy President Bush, and to do this you have to discredit Bush's war on terror. I too need to defeat Bush's war on terror. Neither one of us can succeed on our own. We in al Qaeda are too weak to defeat the U.S. military. You are not strong enough politically to defeat Bush in your country. We need each other. So let us coordinate our efforts. I want you, the sensible people, to accept a silent truce between al Qaeda and the American left. You may be reluctant to do this because of fear of terrorism. But if you work with me I will make sure that I do not target your states in any future attacks. Here is how our collaboration can be most effective. I will intensify jihad against Bush abroad, and you fight against him in your political battle at home. My insurgents and martyrs will continue to increase the body count of American casualties in Iraq and elsewhere, and you can use my efforts to undermine the will of the American people to continue Bush's war on terror. This way, the patience and steadfastness of the Muslim fighters can outlast America's enormous military might. I win and you win also. It will be the greatest victory, fought by the two most improbable allies, in history."