The White House has repeatedly pledged that all US combat forces will be out of Iraq’s cities by the end of June, six weeks from now. What’s happening as the deadline approaches?
Well, what’s really happening is that the US military is drawing new maps. Take Forward Operating Base Falcon. 3000 US troops are based at this large facility built inside the city limits of Baghdad in 2003. And they will continue to be.
How can this be? A US military official told a reporter: “We and the Iraqis decided it wasn’t in the city.” (Note who comes first in that sentence.)
Oh, and Falcon will be rebranded from an FOB to a “contingency operating site.”
Reports also indicate that US troops will remain past June 30 elsewhere in Baghdad, in Mosul and in other urban areas, especially in Diyala Province. It is not yet clear whether maps will be redrawn in every case, or other flimsy excuses offered.
Public opinion in Iraq is overwhelmingly in favor of total US withdrawal as soon as possible.
Public opinion in the US is, too.
But politicians and military men, there and here, are not.
Their Parliament responded to public anger by passing a law mandating a national referendum this summer on whether US troops should be withdrawn early. There are no plans to make it happen. Our House of Representatives just voted another $96 billion to keep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan going–by a 368 to 60 margin.
The Iraq Moratorium has had a slogan from the start that cautions about waiting for those in power to do the right thing:
It’s got to stop…We’ve got to stop it.
Crossposted from the Iraq Moratorium website
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Why, indeed?
They aren’t staying to guard day care centers while Iraqi troops leave their children behind to fight to preserve US dominance over Iraqi oil reserves, I’m fairly sure.
great work there!
thanks, dennis. the tips are all for you.
as reported in this March 6, 1968 edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
Sadly, as we all now know, the people did elect Nixon in 1968, and even more sadly, US involvement in the Vietnam war didn’t end until April of 1975.
That is, if a movie starts out slow it will NOT pick up. It will stay slow and two hours later you’ll have to pry yourself out of your seat because it’s made you so lethargic.
If a movie starts out with an explosion it might not continue at that pace but it’s not going to suddenly become an intellectual think piece.
I’m afraid we’ve already seen enough of the Obama Administration to tell us that this is what it is. He will not carry through on his promises because he doesn’t want the fight. He doesn’t feel it’s worth it, or feels that he won’t succeed that way and we know he can’t succeed any other way.
So we’re in for 4 years of Obama looking very smart, of him saying some wonderful stuff, of all the wonderful changes being postponed.
Don’t even get me started on Congress, Reid and the 60 Senators myth.
out do his dad…maybe Barack wants to show what a “kinder and gentler” commander-in chief can do? What’s next Barack? A thousand points of light?
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If we just rename the country, then all troops will be out of Iraq by 2012. Easy peasy.