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04/30/2004 Entry: "Is we or isn't we?"
Withdrawing from Falluja, I mean. I read this:
U.S. Marines handed control in Falluja to a former general in Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s Republican Guard on Friday but new violence showed that a month of fighting in the besieged Sunni Muslim city was not over.In a reversal of Washington's previous policy of excluding senior members of Saddam's Baathist regime from power, Jasim Mohamed Saleh said his new force would help police bring order and relieve a month-long siege that has cost hundreds of lives.
"We have now begun forming a new emergency military force," he told Reuters, saying people in Falluja "rejected" U.S. troops.
Then, I read this:
US troops in and around Fallujah will not withdraw from the city despite an agreement to hand over the security to a newly-formed Iraqi force led by an officer from the former Iraqi army, senior US military spokesman said Friday.Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told a news conference that the new Iraqi force will be "completely integrated" with Marines, who will maintain strong presence "in and around" the city.
The Marines were not "withdrawing", but were "repositioning" their forces, he told the reporters.
Kimmitt said he had no information on the background of the new Iraqi commander of the Fallujah force, former Maj. Gen. Jassim Mohammed Salih though the commander had been checked by the Marines who had full confidence in him.
Replies: 8 people speak up
Commence Operation SNAFU!
Putting ex-Saddamites in charge? Gee none of us ever could have seen THAT ONE coming.
Saddam - he's tanned, rested and ready. Why not give him a 2nd chance, George? Say what you want about him, he knew how to keep those Iraqis in line. Besides, why get your own hands bloody when you can have Saddam do your dirty work for you?
Posted by renato @ 04/30/2004 03:07 PM NY
Just wanted you to know that hte comments page works! This withdrawal is oly more proof that the administration has no clue what they're doing.
Posted by hholli1 @ 04/30/2004 03:13 PM NY
well, we already have the rape rooms up and running, why not put saddam back in charge. if anyone could bring iraq back in line he would... and i dont think he's very buisy at the moment either... they can call it community service as part of his sentencing.
Posted by justin @ 04/30/2004 05:09 PM NY
so, okay, smartypants! what's your plan for iraq?
so here's the answer: we put adults in charge. john kerry for president. that's it.
whatever faults of his the bush campaign and their media allies wish to push, it doesn't matter. repeat after me: john kerry, president. that's such a richter level 8 alteration of official honesty, responsibility, and credibility right there, no other plan beyond that necessary.
Posted by oldupperwestsideLIBERALjew @ 04/30/2004 05:11 PM NY
yeah, unfortunately kerry is our only hope at this point. i just hope that he doesnt betray us (the left, i mean). i just dont trust him. then again, i dont trust anyone, i dont think that there is a politician out there who has the balls to actually change anything (for good reason, the military industrail complex would kill them if they did, just like kennedy)
by the way, who are you calling smarty pants? hopefully not me, that post was intended to be sarcastic (not that i would put it out of the realm of possibility).
Bush makes Kerry look like FDR in comparison, but only in comparison. i just hope that kerry isnt more of an LBJ type...
Posted by justin @ 04/30/2004 05:38 PM NY
justin, no no! pace. wasn't calling you smartypants at all. oh, my goodness. in fact, your post went up while i was still composing mine. smartypants was just a generalization of how that war plan question keeps getting leveled at bush critics by his surrogates (media or otherwise).
but, in re your last thoughts, somehow i'm not that worried about kerry's imperfections. perfect he ain't. but first of all, i don't think we could get a thoroughly liberal candidate elected. say, a paul wellstone type. so we need to be practical about this. second, i don't think kerry's going to betray our liberal orientations, i think he has real electability, and not only would the improvement be comparative, but i see enough to tell me he'd be a good president on an absolute scale. the bushies are so thoroughly corrupt, whoever follows doesn't have to be fdr, himself, or even adlai stevenson to give us relief. as far as lbj goes, yes, viet nam was a catastrophe--and an inherited one; but lbj was also major, major with civil rights and medicaid/medicare (and i think also headstart). with kerry, just think about court appointments. that oughta be enough right there. (you also couldn't go far wrong thinking about the departments of labor or interior, or the epa.) we don't need liberal perfection. for now, we need to stop the hemhorraging. agreed?
Posted by oldupperwestsideLIBERALjew @ 04/30/2004 06:29 PM NY
Like I said, I agree, im voting for Kerry, im just still feeling let down by Clinton. I was so hopeful when he was elected, after 12 years of Reagan and Bush (and I was only 15 when Clinton was elected, so that’s most of my life, I was too young to remember carter) I remember rooting for Mondale, and Dukakis both, even at 7 I could tell that the republican party was going to kill us all. I remember during the 84 election, some reporter asked Bush 1 a question about nuclear disarmament, and bush responded "id rather talk about baseball". That is my earliest recognition that these people would be the death of all of us. Then Clinton came along, and no matter how much I like the guy, he was a centrist at best, and at times a moderate republican.
I just want to know what happened to all of the real liberals, not that there have been any in my lifetime, im only 26, and society has been on a downward spiral a lot longer than that.
Although I guess that decades of Mutually Assured Destruction will do that to a society.
Posted by justin @ 04/30/2004 07:41 PM NY
justin, you've probably moved on to blah3's more recent threads, and wouldn't be reading any further feedback from me, anyway. but, having logged back in very late in the game--your latest thoughts have spurred a lot of mine. (for one thing, i always saw clinton as a holding action. we're never gonna confront this rethuglican juggernaut without about two decades' worth of serious organization. so, we need to buy time here--not that we have all that much to play with. and we lucked out with two consecutive terms. if they'd just exercised the clinton chaperone system that was begging institution from the getgo, we might've moved beyond holding action with a gore follow-on presidency. again, just think about gore court appointments vs. bush's.) anyway, just don't have time right now to compose. will try to come back to this some other time and maybe work it into a more current blah3 thread. but, hang in there, kiddo. i smell a good american cooking there.
Posted by oldupperwestsideLIBERALjew @ 05/03/2004 10:50 AM NY
