Magnetic Poles said:
"A year ago, the president said we couldn't withdraw because there was too much violence," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). "Now he says we can't afford to withdraw because violence is down."
Yep. When things are going well we are told by the Bush administration and its supporters that we can't bring our troops home because things might get worse if we do so. When things are going badly we are told by the Bush administration and its supporters that we can't bring our troops home because things are worse. The bottom line is that the Bush administration and its supporters have no intentions of bring our troops home regardless of the conditions in Iraq as they really do want to keep troops stationed in Iraq for decades and decades as we have in Germany and Japan and South Korea.
Sure, Sunni vs. Shiite violence is down - the neighborhoods have been cleansed so that the two groups don't share neighborhoods now.
Sure, Sunnis are not fighting as much with our troops - we are paying them off not to do so.
I heard an analyst on C-SPAN yesterday say that it will be 2012 before the Iraqis will take over internal security and 2018 before the Iraqis will take over border security. If we keep losing on average 800 of America's finest each year that means we might see 8,000 more U.S. troops killed in Iraq over the next ten years, plus the tens of thousands more that will be wounded.
