It reminds me of the time my two year old son climbed up a very tall 20 foot slide and then slipped through the bar at the top to fall to the ground. Once he fell, it was like slow motion moving through the air and knowing that the only thing we could do was watch him drop to the ground. He survived the fall, but watching him fall to the ground was one of the most horrible moments of my life.

It feels like this only maybe not quite as personal. More will die. That’s a fact. I mean, more will die. Why aren’t those words enough. What the hells is wrong with us that those words are not enough.

I just can’t believe that we can repeat those words over and over and it doesn’t matter to republicans. The pro life crowd, the crowd who stopped the world for a lone women who would never â€live†another day, the crowd that puts God on their arm bands…don’t care.

And we aren’t doing it to protect americans from â€immediate†danger. We are doing it to protect ourselves from â€potential†danger.

I just don’t think god would approve of â€shooting†the neighbor because you thought he â€might†be dangerous some time down the road. God, bless it why don’t people see the cognitive distortion????? This war, and vietnam were not based on actual threat, but â€percieved threatâ€.

Jesus H Christ (and I mean it lovingly) that means that the serial murder who thinks that he will die if he doens’t fulfill his obsession can use the same cognitive distorion. Do you get that republicans???That difference is the difference between premeditated murder and self defense. Between insane and sane. It’s the difference between reality and psychosis.

Well said by both EW and Katie. I just don’t get this, but my concern lies way back in the dark mist of all this. I guess I should be willing to accept that these A-holes don’t really have a plan, but some would argue that they have had a plan all along, and that actions have served the real undisclosed plan the whole way through. So anyway here’s my darkest fear — They do have a plan. That worries me. If things go very very badly and our troops get overrun, could that be part of a plan to get the public’s ire up, to get them the room to open the broader war they we all know they really want. Or slightly less scary, could the surge really be preparation for picking a fight with Iran and starting a new offensive. I don’t want to sound like a conspiracy nut, but these guys having a plan scares me far more than them not having a plan.

But there aren’t any more reinforcements.

That is the problem with all these war scenarios. It gives us ultimately the choice of nuking Iran or nothing, because they have broken the military and don’t have a plan to reconstitute it (except maybe by just adding water). And they don’t do diplomacy.

I wonder if the military’s plan to send 9.000 troops to Baghdad and 11,000 to Kuwait is (1) an effort to protect the 11,000 and (2) protect the 150,000 who are going to have to come out via Kuwait–unless Turkey lets us use them for an exit, seen as less unpalatable than letting us use them as an entrance (which they didn’t).

What a mess. How could people have let him have another 4 years of power? He really, really needs to be disarmed somehow.

No the only option left would be Hiroshima/Nagasaki redux. It scares me. But when I think that option through, I think a long drawn out occupation benfits the war profiteers and drug dealers much more effectively. I could be wrong here. What are the valid benefits of staging a nuclear strike in the Iraq region??

â€But there aren’t any more reinfrocementsâ€

Indeed there are not, thus a means is needed to justify a draft. And the public would need something to happen to really boil their blood to get that done.

However, I like your scenario also, perhaps they are looking to do a big push, and this is an unspoken preparation for a worse case failure scenario. Wow, actual intellegent planning. I don’t know Mimikatz, is president Dick capable of planning anything that doesn’t have a dark secret agenda? We can only hope that these guys eventually make even one good decision. Man, do I ever feel sorry for our poor troops. A mess, and no good options no matter how you look at it.

Dismay? Frustration? Total outrage? What is there left to say when the American people send our Pres. a completely clear and unobfuscated message that we want to change the course of the War in Iraq. History is a slight balm—we haven’t â€secretly†bombed Iran yet; we were unable to assassinate Chavez, destabilize Bolivia or force our will on the Mexican electorate. We’ve only managed to kill 400-650,000 innocent Iraqi’s rather than 2,000,000 S.E. Asians. And we have only 3,000 dead Americans plus 20,000 wounded who, thanks to modern science, can now walk around without their arms and legs for the rest of their lives. I mean that’s progress for you! Since we sent the message, I believe it’s up to our elected represenatives to deliver it and I plan to write them every day, if I have to, reminding them to do their job.

Johathan Schell discusses in â€The Unconquerable World†how the logic of war pushes toward total war, and in the nuclear age that means nuclear war. I believe they’d do that before a draft, because a draft takes at least a year (probably more) to result in combat-ready troops, and they won’t have the time. Plus, the GOPers up in 2008 aren’t going to go for it. And don’t underestimate the American people. They had a surge of patriotism after 9/11, but they see how Bush pissed on that. No majority is going to support a draft to punish the Iraqis for trying to get out of Iraq the troops Bush put in.

Some troops may be able to get out through the North, but most will need to use the road to Kuwait or the airport. If any of those fighting us get shoulder-fired missles like we gave to the Mujahedeen in Afghansitan, the exit will be particularly ugly.

And who are we gonna nuke, Iraqi’s and our own troops? If you mean nuking Iran or anywhere else in that region for that matter, that still doesn’t solve the problem of protecting our troops that are already there. Mimi, I’m afraid I just don’t get it.

1) Simple! Speed up the influx of troops to Iraq. Slow down the egress. Voila, more troops.

The problem there is the strain on the men and women having longer multiple tours rather than just multiple tours. That is starting to hur the Active Military Manpower situation. It is killing the Reserve/Guard program. People just didn’t plan on this disruption of theirs and their families lives in that capacity. They are getting out, and not going in in the first place.

2) Some plans had putting less emphasis on the outlying areas. (i.e. abandoning them) and moving those troops to the capital and close surrounding areas. This is not publicized much, but it will happen.

3) And yes we could move troops from overseas. Like Germany, where they used to hold back the Russian tide.

There you have the problem of international politics being involved and the State Department and in general a real morass.

Again Bush demonstrates that it doesn’t matter what anyone says, Just up on Raw Story is the continuing saga of Bush replacing any General who disagrees with the Cheney plan. Bush always says â€we listen to our generals.†What he never says is â€â€¦ after we fire the ones who don’t say what we want.†Over and over again, same shit. Bush and Cheney truly need to be removed from office ASAP. Is there any realistic mechanism for doing just that.

I did see that. Pure speculation, but I suspect this ’unusual’ appointment is the result of some screening process for a yes man. Don’t want to judge the poor guy in advance. By all means Admiral, prove me wrong. Anyone know anything about this guy?

â€How could people have let him have another 4 years of power?†If your find Mark Crispin Miller’s Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too believable, you’ll understand that the people didn’t LET him have another 4 years of power.
If they had a plan to create chaos in the Mideast, then their plan is succeeding beyond their wildest dreams, but I don’t think that was the plan. The map of Iraq’s oil fields that is the only part of Darth’s energy committee to come to light suggests that they expected to be sucking the oil out of Iraq quickly, perhaps as early as summer 2003 (will the democratic congress be able to open up that energy taskforce’s records?). Similarly, I don’t think they did nothing about Katrina for the better part of a week to ensure that a large portion of LA’s democratic voters would evacuate and never come back; that that was the result is pure lagniappe. F***ing up in the one case led to a good outcome for the f***upers; in the other case, not so much.
Marcy, I ordered your book; looking forward to reading it, and I promise not to mess with any Latin you may have included.