micadelic said:

There is progress in Iraq. Most of the country is pacified. The people are now working with our troops more than ever providing intelligence on weapons caches, insurgent locations and movements, etc. There is no denying this. To say no progress is evident is not accurate and I’m confused as to why the left wants to not admit it when we do make progress.

If we are making progress it means we are in a better position to leave now than ever.

That’s the thing with this, you can’t have it both ways. Progress means that our withdrawal date should be approaching. The Democrats are trying to nail down how much progress we’ve made, have benchmarks, if you will, as that progress progresses and then leave when it is logical to do so.

I am one of those who thinks leaving now is better for the Iraqi people and better for the American people. We solved the Saddam problem easily but we can’t solve the “civil war” problem. For that to happen it cannot be seen as an American effort. (You see, that is the key problem here: we’ve undermined our ourselves in the region such that too many interests are working against us no matter what we do.)

C’mon, this is a really weak argument Michael. The enemy is those that oppose our goals in Iraq. The vast MAJORITY of the Iraqi people actually are with us, they want peace and stability. Sectarian violence has been steadily decreasing actually, it’s the Al Q’aeda type violence that’s been on the rise and so horrendous. The car and truck bombings specifically. These are designed to cause chaos and kill as many people as possible, regardless of their flavor of Islam. And it doesn’t make sense to tell them when we’re pulling out, they mark that date on their calendar and they just wait to hang on until that day comes. And it’s Pelosio and Reid and company that give them hope.

I don’t buy it. We don’t know what is cause and what is effect. Using your logic, a surge may make things worse. The more we fight them the more they use our occupation and bloodshed against us and the more it is in their interest to cause violence. Where is their “mandate” if we are not there? They justify their existence by fighting the Americans. Take that excuse away.

What we need is a primarily Iraqi force backed up by the UN and if necessary NATO or something. We need to take the imperialist Christian thing out of it, make it an international effort and give the Muslim world no reason to believe this is about America, oil or Judeo/Christianity. Then we need this international effort to provide security and get the power and water turned on and the markets open and keep it on and keep ’em open. We need to make it obvious to the Iraqis that Al Queda is the enemy, not America.

To me a strategy of transition is obvious. A reduction of the American occupation in concert with increased international involvement and a greater direct share of responsibility on the Iraqis themselves. It’s gotta be done. We should start thinking about it, and acting on it, now. The President is stalling until he gets out of office for political reasons. You should be outraged.