A sound plan to exit Iraq.

[Bleacher Creature]

The Democrats and Republicans are too busy playing goofy games to come up with a viable plan, so the Libertarians have stepped up to the plate.

http://www.lp.org/cgi-bin/plan/plan.cgi?action=add_form

[tallahassee blues fan]

I posted that in an earlier thread where people were bemoaning the absence of any specific alternative to what we were doing in Iraq, but Jaws was the only person who made any comment about it. (I believe he felt the scheduled withdrawal was not good) I agree with you that it is one of the few specific plans that anyone has put out there. If nothing else, it should serve as a beginning point for discussions about what is viable and what isn't.

[Bleacher Creature]

Originally posted by tallahassee blues fan@Aug 15 2005, 06:15 AM
I posted that in an earlier thread where people were bemoaning the absence of any specific alternative to what we were doing in Iraq, but Jaws was the only person who made any comment about it. (I believe he felt the scheduled withdrawal was not good) I agree with you that it is one of the few specific plans that anyone has put out there. If nothing else, it should serve as a beginning point for discussions about what is viable and what isn't.

Quoted post

TBF,

I see no more purpose of staying on the current path. We've got to turn Iraq over to their citizens. It's up to them, and only them, if it'll sink or swim.

[kah]

Originally posted by tallahassee blues fan@Aug 15 2005, 04:15 AM
(I believe he felt the scheduled withdrawal was not good)

Quoted post

Well, since Jaws wants to conquer and occupy most of the Middle East, that's not too surprising.

There's only one party that could make any plan that matters, and it's the one that has dominion over the government right now. The party that's going around saying this:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1300853_pf.html

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

And since the fucknuts running things right now can't even agree on what to call this conflict, there's no reason to expect them to figure out what to do about it.

[Jaws]

Originally posted by tallahassee blues fan@Aug 15 2005, 05:15 AM
I posted that in an earlier thread where people were bemoaning the absence of any specific alternative to what we were doing in Iraq, but Jaws was the only person who made any comment about it. (I believe he felt the scheduled withdrawal was not good) I agree with you that it is one of the few specific plans that anyone has put out there. If nothing else, it should serve as a beginning point for discussions about what is viable and what isn't.

Quoted post

The first step, tbf, is to find out the situation on the ground in Iraq. Are things getting better or worse? What are the views of the Iraqis? The answers would go a long way towards determining the prospects for the current strategy (train Iraqi troops to hand off security and push the political process). If that approach is viable what is the timeframe and what are the benchmarks to determine success? On the other hand, if the situation on the ground has not improved and shows no prospects for improvement in the foreseeable future then alternative plans have to be considered. The Brookings Institute has a web page of indicators on the progress in Iraq compiled from a variety of sources. There are some interesting trends there that are worth discussing.

http://www.brookings.edu/fp/saban/iraq/index.pdf

[jack jones]

If you're going to marry an ugly girl, make sure she can cook. Likewise, if you're going to defy international consensus and invade a sovereign country without justification, make sure it has lots of oil reserves. So here's the plan: leave Iraq and invade Saudi Arabia. It will probably take a couple of years for us to up the Saudi capacity but once we do all oil problems are over. For a while at least--long enough to develop "alternative sources".

And it's not as though we can't justify capturing the world's largest oil reserves. I'm sure someone could link the Saudi's with 9/11 or some other terrorist activity. The standard on that sort of thing does seem pretty flexible. Who knows, they may have some pretty nasty weapons too. Of course we probably sold them some, but that's beside the point. Security first. Plus, their women don't have many rights and there are all sorts of poor people even though Saudi oil sheiks are among the wealthiest in the world. That's not fair and we can fix it. "Operation Saudi ERA". I like it. JJ.