They want their power back and do not care if they take our country down to get it.

but there are really no other acceptable solutions at this point, its either us or no one.

If you’re trying to glaze windows and the only tool you have is a ten pound sledge hammer, after you’ve broken the first twenty or so panes you’ve tried to install, you really should have reached a point where you start asking yourself if it’s just time to stop. Under the circumstances, you may not ever be able to get the job done. Consider the possibility that the U.S. is the sledge hammer and cannot help install a pane of glass without shattering it. Someone else might be able to provide the right toolset.

Comment by Theo

That’s funny! :D

It’s not wrong to think that Joe Klein is an idiot who, if he was a monkey, couldn’t be counted on to successfully fling feces at a wall – but it’s wrong to say it.

“E-way eed-nay a-way ime-tay able-tay.”

Perhaps we can try doing it charades-style, or go pictionary. Or maybe we can come up with some universal symbol for necessary timetables, the way we have universal stop and yield signs?

Maybe we really can talk about timetables, but we just can’t do it around Joe Klein’s sensitive ears.

Obviously, people ARE talking about timetables. But Joe can continue to pretend that it’s not, for now, because the people talking about timetables aren’t “serious” foreign policy wonks like him and the nitwits that got us into this quagmire.

but there are really no other acceptable solutions at this point, its either us or no one.

As iraqis seeing us as enemies, i think for us to leave would only make the situation worse in that regard. They would see the US coming over, destroying everything they had , and leaving. As it is now, i think its better to stay “till the job is done” or at least untill we have helped them get back on their feet after all we’ve done. Other counties have no motive to help these people.

its certainly a tricky situation, no one wants to be in it, but we are all tangled in it, so we may as well do as much as we can not to let it happen again (or at least soon).

the secular violence is something that i think will always be there, look at ireland, but like ireland, you can still have a “peaceful” country with a government that is at least somewhat in control and able to maintain order.

I honestly don’t know whether there will ever be an end to the sectarian violence. I don’t know if it will ever be possible for Iraq to govern itself and be able to control the violence. I doubt it will be possible without some long-term intervention by other countries, but the U.S. shouldn’t be one of them. Our presence is not a calming influence. Thanks to Bush, it can’t be. We’re responsible for so much death, destruction, pain and impoverishment, that most of the country will see us as an enemy for a long time to come. It’s past the point where we can do any good for them by physically being there. We need to leave as soon as we can.

The Boy-Emperor is totally insane and Mr. Klein doesn’t want to disturb the poor dear lying treasonous SOB…

Time, the weekly fascist lies review magazine and its senior writer Joe Klein, another neoconical bush-butt kissing moron, what a parley of stupidity greed and evil…

Training Iraqis to oppress Iraqis, so Bush can steal the oil: ’tain’t going to work, buster bush boy.

Cheers.

We’ve been over that again and again, and I’ve never seen anything but the most pie-in-the-sky description of what a ‘done job’ would be. The people who are insisting on staying until the job is done never want to get into details. They want everyone to shut up and let them just keep doing what they’re doing regardless that there’s no plan and no attempt to measure success. How about some metrics? Business people understand that term. It’s how you determine whether or not you’re effective or even moving in the direction of a goal. This administration, and Rumsfeld in particular, have refused to let anyone establish a set of metrics. They don’t want anyone to measure progress for fear that it would expose that there’s been no progress.

youre absolutely right that there is a point where its too long, but the thing is, we’ve been there so long and have so much invested, it seems like a waste to just pull out and let things go back to the way they were.

i think there needs to be less of a “time table” and more of an “accomplishments table”, like you said in your “metrics” point. we need to see proof that progress is being made, but just based on the fact that things arent going the way they should be, we cant just abandon it like a bad stock because of its implications on the people of that nation, and possibly for our country down the road. the last thing anyone wants is some lunatic taking power.

i think taht we need to have the iraqi military/government able to protect its self and maintain some semblance of order in the streets before we leave.

the secular violence is something that i think will always be there, look at ireland, but like ireland, you can still have a “peaceful” country with a government that is at least somewhat in control and able to maintain order.