I really don't know where to begin with what so far appears to be an unmitigated abortion of galactic proportions. I'm in the middle of reading the document and have had to stop because its 0310 here, I'm knackered and I have just run out of antacids.

Hmmm.....bothersome analysis.....in the ever-needful interests of balance, this from the current Economist magazine:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/dis..._ID=E1_VNTQTTR

Why America must stay

Nov 24th 2005
From The Economist print edition

America should keep its troops in Iraq until Iraqis ask them to go
AFP


WARS waged abroad are often lost at home; and that may be starting to happen with Iraq. Calls for American troops to withdraw are familiar in the Arab world and Europe, but in the United States itself such talk has remained on the fringes of political debate. Now, with surprising suddenness, it has landed at the centre of American politics.

On November 17th John Murtha, a hawkish Democratic congressman, suggested pulling the troops out of Iraq in six months, prompting an unseemly spat between the former marine colonel and the White House. Moves to set a timetable have been voted down, but the Republican-controlled Senate has voted 79-19 for 2006 to be “a period of significant transition to full Iraq sovereignty” and the Pentagon is mumbling about troop reductions. Meanwhile, some hundred Iraqi leaders at a reconciliation conference in Cairo backed by the Arab League talked about setting a timetable for withdrawal.

There is some politicking in this. In Cairo, the Shias and Kurds, who dominate Iraq's new order, were offering an olive branch to the sullen Sunnis, who used to run the show under Saddam Hussein. In America, Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 elections. Democrats sense that George Bush is vulnerable—and that Iraq presents the best way to hurt him now that most Americans regret invading the country. Yet there is plainly principle too: Mr Murtha and millions of others maintain that America is doing more harm than good in Iraq, and that the troops should therefore come home.

This newspaper strongly disagrees. In our opinion it would be disastrous for America to retreat hastily from Iraq. Yet it is also well past time for George Bush to spell out to the American people much more clearly and honestly than he has hitherto done why their sons and daughters fighting in Iraq should remain in harm's way.

The cost of failure
Every reasonable person should be able to agree on two things about America's presence in Iraq. First, if the Iraqi government formally asks the troops to leave, they should do so. Second, the argument about whether America should quit Iraq is not the same as the one about whether it should have gone there in the first place. It must be about the future.

That said, the catalogue of failures thus far does raise serious questions about the administration's ability to make Iraq work—ever. Mr Bush's team mis-sold the war, neglected post-invasion planning, has never committed enough troops to the task and has taken a cavalier attitude to human rights. Abu Ghraib, a place of unspeakable suffering under Mr Hussein, will go into the history books as a symbol of American shame. The awful irony is that the specious link which the administration claimed existed between Iraq and al-Qaeda in order to justify going to war now exists.
Two-and-a-half years after Mr Bush stood beneath a banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished”, the insurgency is as strong as ever. More than 2,000 Americans, some 3,600 Iraqi troops, perhaps 30,000 Iraqi civilians and an unknown number of Iraqi insurgents have lost their lives, and conditions of life for the “liberated” remain woeful. All this makes Mr Bush's refusal to sack the people responsible for this mess, especially his defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, alarming.

But disappointment, even on this scale, does not justify a precipitate withdrawal. There are strong positive and negative reasons for America to see through what it started.

Flickers of hope
Iraq is not Vietnam. Most Iraqis share America's aims: the Shia Arabs and Kurds make up some 80% of the population, while the insurgents operate mainly in four of Iraq's 18 provinces. After boycotting the first general election in January, more Sunni Arabs are taking part in peaceful politics. Many voted in last month's referendum that endorsed a new constitution; more should be drawn into next month's election, enabling a more representative government to emerge. That will not stop the insurgency, but may lessen its intensity. It seems, too, that the Arab world may be turning against the more extreme part of the insurgency—the jihadists led by al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who blow up mosques around Baghdad and Palestinian wedding parties in Jordan (see article). Though few Arabs publicly admit it, Mr Bush's efforts to spread democracy in the region are starting to bear fruit.

So America does have something to defend in Iraq. Which, for Mr Bush's critics, leads into the most tempting part of Mr Murtha's argument: that American troops are now a barrier to further progress; that if they left, Mr Zarqawi would lose the one thing that unites the Sunnis and jihadists; and that, in consequence, Iraqis would have to look after their own security. This has a seductive logic, but flies in the face of the evidence. Most of the insurgents' victims are Iraqis, not American soldiers. There are still too few American troops, not too many. And the Iraqi forces that America is training are not yet ready to stand on their own feet. By all means, hand over more duties to them, letting American and other coalition troops withdraw from the cities where they are most conspicuous and offensive to patriotic Iraqis. Over time, American numbers should fall. But that should happen because the Iraqis are getting stronger, not because the Americans are feeling weaker. Nor should a fixed timetable be set, for that would embolden the insurgents.

The cost to America of staying in Iraq may be high, but the cost of retreat would be higher. By fleeing, America would not buy itself peace. Mr Zarqawi and his fellow fanatics have promised to hound America around the globe. Driving America out of Iraq would grant militant Islam a huge victory. Arabs who want to modernise their region would know that they could not count on America to stand by its friends.

If such reasoning sounds negative—America must stay because the consequences of leaving would be too awful—treat that as a sad reflection of how Mr Bush's vision for the Middle East has soured. The road ahead looks bloody and costly. But this is not the time to retreat.

All very well for the magisterial and dispassionate editorial teams in London and New York... - it ain't likely to be their sons and daughters inside those black bags....

Le Chevre

The Troops should be told how great is mr.Bush

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/...icle331611.ece

Bracing for war, yet praying for peace
Using his power so evil will cease
...
Going forward and knowing he's right
Even when doubted for why he would fight
...
Easy in manner, solid as steel
Strong in his faith, refreshingly real

Anyone else noticed that Bush and Cheney will now only speak to highly controlled audiences? Nearly all of Bush's speeches these days seem to be in front of troops who can act as props for the cameras and can't ask him hard questions.

when the shrub said 'Mission accomplished' he was talking about his re-election

Tom W noticed....

Anyone else noticed that Bush and Cheney will now only speak to highly controlled audiences?

PTP wondered

He didn't by chance deliver this in front of yet another 'safe' audience did he?

That is a sure sign of a man who knows his message isn't getting believed. What makes him think the US Navy's best and brightest believe him either. It's only the fear of pulling Dog Watch till retirement that keeps their gobs shut.

Unlike the individuals at Norfolk who heckled him big style. He's lost the plot, and 60% of the American people know it. Wonder how he'll do in the mid-terms?

Right people, aiming to place the order at cop today Friday

- anyone else want one ?


Le Chevre

The American people evidently believe as Bush's poll numbers are moving up.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher...812779&start=1

Until all this is picked over...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...918775,00.html

Article fails to mention the democrat lawmakers that also have legal problems. The Delay case is politically motivated - the judge already tossed out some of the charges and the prosecutor is now being investigated. Usually millionaires that go into government service put their stocks in a blind trust to avoid charges of impropriety. Cunningham is a legit case of corruption. Most everything else is political. You in the UK are lucky not to have such a nasty state of affairs between your political parties.