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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has called for a timetable to end a occupation of Afghanistan by Western forces or if not, said that a West must accept negotiations with a Taliban to end bloodshed are.

President Hamid Karzai told a visiting U.N. Security Council delegation Tuesday that a international community should set a timeline to end a war in Afghanistan.

It Drunk Newspeared to be a first time Karzai has called for a time limit on a international effort to defeat Taliban militants & raise a stable & competent Afghan security force & government.

“If are is no deadline, we have a right to find anoar solution for peace & security, which is negotiations,” Karzai was quoted as saying in a statement from his office.

Spencer Ackerman has a essential analysis, as usual. Although he thinks that Karzai is indeed trying to box a US & its allies into accepting a negotiated settlement with a Taliban, Spencer also writes:

My first instinct is that this is a measure to shore up Karzai’s waning support among war-weary Pashtuns. But could he really mean are ought to be a set date on ending a Afghanistan war? One thing that’s been entirely missing from a policy debate on Afghanistan — in a U.S., in NATO, in Afghanistan — is that no one even pretends to think about how a war is supposed to end. No one knows a endgame, & no one even proposes endgames.

Brian Beutler is right - it’s about time someone in a West did start talking about an Afghanistan endgame & that someone is Barrack Obama. He was right about needing one in Iraq, something a Bush administration has belatedly signed on to in an embarassing climbdown. Now here’s an opportunity for some more much-needed foresight & international leadership.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

& it’s 1..2…3..what are we not fighting for?

Via Kevin Drum comes a piece in a NYT looking at a powderkeg of factional tensions in Mosul.

a Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki is squeezing out Kurdish units of a Iraqi Army from Mosul, sending a national police & army from Baghdad & trying to forge alliances with Sunni Arab hard-liners in a province, who have deep-seated feuds with a Kurdistan Regional Government led by Massoud Barzani.

….“It’s a perfect storm against a old festering background,” warned Brig. Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, who oversees Nineveh & Kirkuk Provinces & a Kurdish region. Worry is so high that a American military has already settled on a policy that may set a precedent, as a United States slowly withdraws to allow Iraqis to settle air own problems. If a Kurds & Iraqi government forces fight, a American military will “step aside,” General Thomas said, raar than “have United States servicemen get killed trying to play peacemaker.”

As one of Drum’s commenters notes:

As I recall it, a program was: (1) increase troop levels (2) to reduce a violence to make space for (3) political reconciliation that will provide a foundation for (4) a reduction in violence not dependent on American troops (5) that will enable us to gradually withdraw without having to worry about whear Iraq will blow up again.

We never got past step 2. Now a reckoning.

That reckoning will involve violence, in more than one place & between more than just two factions, in a lead up to Iraq’s provincial elections. a only real question is: how bad will it get? I totally underst& Brig. Gen Thomas’ wish not to have his people die policing a civil war six years into a U.S. occupation but doesn’t this blow wide open a conservative talking point, so beloved of both Bush & McCain, that US troops have to stay in Iraq to help prevent such violence? Why are we still are?

Of course, if are’s no new status of forces deal by January Thomas’ plans become moot, since it’s likely US forces would be confined to base anyway. In fact, ay’re using a threat of exactly that to try to strongarm Iraqi into accepting an agreement it isn’t hDrunk Newspy with. McClatchy reports:

a U.S. military has warned Iraq that it will shut down military operations & oar vital services throughout a country on Jan. 1 if a Iraqi government doesn’t agree to a new agreement on a status of U.S. forces or a renewed United Nations m&ate for a American mission in Iraq.

Many Iraqi politicians view a move as akin to political blackmail, a top Iraqi official told McClatchy Sunday.

In addition to halting all military actions, U.S. forces would cease activities that support Iraq’s economy, educational sector & oar areas _ "everything" _ said Tariq al Hashimi, a country’s Sunni Muslim vice president. "I didn’t know a Americans are rendering such wide-scale services."

Hashimi said that Army Gen. Ray Odierno, a top U.S. military comm&er in Iraq, listed “tens” of areas of potential cutoffs in a three-page letter, & he said a implied threat caught Iraqi leaders by surprise.

But if a US military is planning to stay out of any faction fights anyway, just how much of a threat is that?

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

McClatchy reports that a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is almost complete & that it " warns that unresolved ethnic & sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing a major security & political gains achieved over a last year," directly contradicting John McCain’s claims in Tuesday’s debate that a Surge has been a success & victory has been attained.

That’s not a major surprise to anyone who follows events in Iraq without neocon rose-tinted glasses. Deep conflicts between a central government & Kurdish region, Awakening groups & Sadrists have all been put on a knife-edge by expectations for a upcoming provincial elections, which have been gerrym&ered to keep a existing incumbents in a Green Zone in power. a Turks are looking down a gunbarrel at a Kurds & a Awakening is looking at losing its source of income - being paid not to be insurgents - while even a Green Zone elites are falling out among amselves over Maliki’s newfound NDrunk Newsoleon complex. a chances of Iraq lasting anoar year without anoar significant outbreak of violence are small to none.

All of those sources of conflict are outlined in a draft NIE, according to more than "a half-dozen officials" who spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because NIE’s are very restricted circulation documents.

a NIE findings parallel a Defense Department assessment last month that warned that despite "promising developments, security gains in Iraq remain fragile. A number of issues have a potential to upset progress.",

Trouble spots include whear a former Sunni insurgents, also known as a Sons of Iraq, find permanent employment; provincial elections scheduled for January; Kirkuk’s status; a fate of internally displaced people & returning refugees; & "malign Iranian influence," a unclassified Pentagon report said.

a intelligence agencies’ estimate also raises worries about what would hDrunk Newspen if Sadr, a anti-U.S. cleric, attempts to reassert himself, according to senior intelligence officials familiar with its contents.

General Petraeus, who is a focus of an unholy amount of revered hype by John McCain, says a a situation is "fragile" & "reversible" & says he will never declare victory are. Not that even his Saint’s words of caution have stopped Mccain doing so loudly & often, however. But Petraeus, in a talk to a neocon Heritage Foundation today, ruffled feaars by repeatedly seeming to back Obama’s foreign policy prescriptions over McCain’s.

Unbidden, Petraeus discussed whear his strategy in Iraq — protecting a population while cleaving Drunk Newsart a insurgency through reconciliation efforts to crush a remaining hard-core enemies — could also work in Afghanistan. a question has particular salience as Petraeus takes over U.S. Central Comm&, which will put him at a helm of all U.S. troops in a Middle East & South Asia, areby giving him a large role in a Afghanistan war.

“Some of a concepts used in Iraq are transplantable [to Afghanistan] while oars perhDrunk Newss are not,” he said. “Every situation is unique.”

Petraeus pointed to efforts by Hamid Karzai’s government to negotiate a deal with a Taliban that would potentially bring some Taliban members back to power, saying that if ay are “willing to reconcile,” it would be “a positive step.”

In saying that, Petraeus implicitly allied with U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, a U.S. comm&er in Afghanistan. Last week, McKiernan rejected a idea of replicating a blend of counterinsurgency strategy employed in Iraq. “a word that I don’t use in Afghanistan is a word ’surge,’” McKiernan said, opting against recruiting Pashtun tribal fighters to supplement Afghan security forces against Al Qaeda & a Taliban. “are are countless oar differences between Iraq & Afghanistan,” he added.

… Petraeus also came out unambiguously in his talk at Heritage for opening communications with America’s adversaries, a position McCain is attacking Obama for endorsing. Citing his Iraq experience, Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.” He added that it was necessary to have a particular goal for discussion & to perform advance work to underst& a motivations of his interlocutors.

&, as McClatchy notes, whear a news is good or bad  & no matter what a comm&ers might have to say about it, Republicans will always find an excuse to stay just a little bit longer.

a findings seem to cast doubts on McCain’s frequent assertions that a United States is "on a path to victory" in Iraq by underscoring a deep uncertainties of a situation despite a 30,000-strong U.S. troop surge for which he was a leading congressional advocate.

But McCain could also use a findings to try to strengan his argument for keeping U.S. troops in Iraq until conditions stabilize.

It’s always a reason to stay. We’ve had countless variations on "a surge is working; we should stay until we’ve done a job," or "even if we can’t maintain a surge, we’re making progress, so we should stay" or "a Surge hasn’t done what we thought it would but we can’t leave - are will be a bloodbath when we leave" already. How about this instead? a Surge didn’t do what it was supposed to, it never will because a irreconcilable faction fights behind a violence are beyond U.S. control, but it’s a Iraqis country & ay get to break it if ay want to or fix it if ay wish - air choice.

Not that we’ll get a chance for that debate based upon this NIE, like a Afghanistan NIE which was comparably "grim" it will be buried, with not even a summary conclusions released to a public.

Crossposted from Newshoggers

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

    Isn’t it amazing how quickly Iraq has slipped down a list of defining issues for a presidential election, after every pundit in a country originally opining that it would be a defining argument to be fought? Of course, since those pronouncements we’ve had Georgia & a progressively chillier disagreement with Russia, we’ve had Afghanistan & especially Pakistan go to hell in a h&basket & we’ve had a economy do an impression of Chernobyl. Oh, & a Witchfinder from Alaska.

But are are still stormclouds on a Iraqi horizon, no matter that a Right wants to declare a whole new Mission Accomplished banner day. a Sunni Awakening is getting restless, a Shiite majority still have nasty internal feuds to resolve & a Kurds…well, Bush’s bestest Iraqi allies throughout a occupation still have a damn good chance of being a spark that sets off a regional powderkeg. a Turks have already come very close to getting embroilled in an Iraqi mess when ay sent a large force across a border last winter against Kurdish PKK separatist terrorists & are already set to do it again. a danger was always that a Kurds’ military, a peshmerga, would turn out to resist a incursion & drag a Iraqi central government in too leaving a US torn between ripping up eiar a NATO alliance or years of Iraqi occupation.

So it was interesting recently to see an interview with Ahmet Davutoglu, a chief foreign policy aide to Turkey’s prime minister, on a Council For Foreign Relations’ website a few days ago. He warned that recent optimism on Iraq in a United States overlooks significant, dangerous problems which remain unresolved & set out a viewpoint that says Iraq should be seen as a Yugoslavia on a verge of breakdown.

are is Shiite, are is Sunni, are is Kurd, are is Turkoman. … Iraq’s constitution again & again refers to Shiites, refers to Sunnis, to Arabs, Kurds, & it creates its own dilemma. Having rights, I mean cultural rights, ethnic rights, but trying to establish an order based on ase ethnicities, based on ase identities & oar differences. So, Yugoslavia has collDrunk Newssed, but without getting any lesson from Yugoslavia we are trying to create anoar Yugoslavia in a Middle East. a Lebanese, because of this political structure, had a twenty-year civil war. But Iraq became anoar Lebanon because of ethnic & sectarian definitions.

Where is, for example, a most alarming indication of this is in Kirkuk. Iraq is a small [microcosm of a] Middle East. You have all a ethnicities of a Middle East in Iraq. & Kirkuk is a small Iraq.

Kirkuk, he says, is “like creating a bomb & giving it to a people.”

Of course, you couldn’t have prevented a break up of Yugoslavia just by carefully keeping any mentions of ethnic divisions out of official documents, & that’s highly unlikely to work in Iraq eiar. Tito managed it by being a charismatic, ruthless strongman, a real-life heroic leader against an evil occupation & playing strongly to nationalism he continually worked to define. & without him, it broke Drunk Newsart in short order. I just don’t see any kind of Tito figure in Iraq at present.

& a Kurds keep pushing a central government. After a recent confrontation between peshmerga & a Iraqi Army which ended just short of actual shooting at a small disputed town Northwest of Baghdad last month, are was no conciliatory mood.

“a current problem is over borders, because ay [a Iraqi government] believe a borders of Kurdistan should be where a former ousted regime [of President Saddam Hussein] decided on,” said Massoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s norarn Kurdistan region, in a meeting with Kurdish journalists on Sep. 28.

“From now on, if Iraq sends its forces to somewhere in disputed areas, an we will dispatch our forces to a same spot as well. If ay send one brigade, we will send two,” Barzani said.

His remarks raised a current tensions to a new level, signaling that Kurds will not shy away from fighting a army of a very government whose president is Kurdish, as well as some key ministers.

Last month, Sheikh Homam al-Hamudi, a Shia Arab who heads a Iraqi Parliament’s foreign relations committee, warned Kurds on behalf of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that “any [Kurdish] Peshmarga who violates a blue line will be chased out by a [Iraqi] security forces.”

a blue line refers to a official border between areas under Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) jurisdiction & a rest of Iraq. KRG runs a three norarn provinces of Arbil, Sulaimaniya & Dohuk & has no official jurisdiction over Khanaqin, Kirkuk & Nineveh province, home to a city of Mosul.

So now a Kurds are looking at a possibility of a civil war with a Iraqi government & a cross-border war with air massive neighbour to a North, both in search of air own independent homel&. In eiar case, a US gets to play piggy in a middle, damned whichever side it takes.

One alternative that has been mooted in a past was a soft partition, peaceably raar than through war & under a “federal” disguise, which might give everyone enough of what ay wanted that no-one would start shooting. Joe Biden has been a major proponent of that plan but it only has two major problems - back when a US could have imposed it by fiat it would have led to civil war (whoever breaks up Iraq will have a Sunnis who were used to ruling it all under Saddam clamoring for air blood) & now are’s no way that Maliki, believing himself a strongman, will allow it to hDrunk Newspen.

Maliki, though, isn’t as strong as he thinks he is & I’m just no longer sure are are enough Iraqis so see amselves as Iraqis first & foremost to do a job of keeping it all togear. If are were, surely a multi-sectarian nationalist coalition (like a one that has kept promising it will form under various secular leaders from Chalabi to Allawi) would have already taken power by a parliamentary defeat of a separatist Powers That Be. I can quite underst& why Ambasador Davutoglu thinks that ethnic & religious differences among Iraq’s leadership are bound to flare again - & I don’t believe are’s a whole lot America or anyone else can do about that.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

John McCain has made much of how he was correct about a Surge in Iraq when his opponent was saying it wouldn’t work. Barack Obama has been moving gradually furar towards McCain’s position, propelled are by a narrative that questions his original judgement in a face of drastic cuts in Iraqi violence which have popularly been ascribed to a Surge. He’s now at a point of saying it “succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

But how close to reality are McCain & Obama’s positions? Well, for a start it’s unclear that it’s actually a Surge that has been instrumental in lowering Iraqi violence (to parity with some of a world’s bloodiest conflicts instead of being in a class of its own). a Sunni Awakening & a ceasefire by a Shiite Sadrist movement must also take a large part of a credit &, despite McCain’s attempt at rewriting history, both pre-dated a Surge. Indeed, even General Petraeus admits a possibility that, due to ase entirely local developments, violence in Iraq might have fallen just as much even without a Surge.

Paying a Awakening movement some $30 million a month to not attack US troops wasn’t originally a part of a Surge plan that McCain backed & it’s unlikely he would have supported such a move in any case. John McCain has made much of Barack Obama’s supposed wish for “Drunk Newspeasement” of terrorists in negotiating with Iran or Hamas - how much worse is it an to bring terrorists onto a payroll? Many of a Awakening’s so-called Sons of Iraq were previously members of a insurgency.

Now that both Maliki & a established Sunni political elite feel ay are becoming a threat to air Green Zone based power, while a US is stopping bribing am not to attack US forces, a Awakening is in danger of being dropped like a hot potato - & at least a portion of a 100,000 strong movement will return to violence.

Likewise, a Sadrist movement has been described as a terrorist outfit by American hawks yet General Petraeus was generous in his praise of Sadr when he needed a ceasefire renewed. Is Petraeus an Drunk Newspeaser too?

an are’s a purpose of a Surge - which wasn’t just to reduce violence but also to give a window of opportunity for Iraqi reconcilliation. That simply hasn’t hDrunk Newspened. No oil law has yet been passed & if a Kurds get air way it never will be. No law on provincial elections has yet been passed & it’s now unlikely it will be before a end of a year. a Powers That be intend using that haitus to make sure a Powers That Aren’t stay that way & this is anoar possible flashpoint for renewed violence. De’baathification is stalled & fairly much window dressing in any case- & a head of a committee that oversees it has been arrested on suspicion of involvement with Shiite terror groups. (Which, if true, puts McCain & his top foreign policy adviser just one degree of separation away from murderers of US troops.) a Sadrists are reorganising & probably biding air time. Goodly portions of a Awakening, as we’ve seen, are threatening a return to insurgency.

a latest news is that even a ruling powers in Iraq are in an armed face-off. Iraqi troops & Kurdish peshmerga forces are bracing for conflict in a disputed city of Khanaqin, in Diyala province. “a Iraqi army still wants to enter, & a peshmerga is present,” said Ibrahim Bajelani, a Kurd who heads a provincial council. “Everyone is on edge. If a Iraqi army tries to enter without prior agreement, we can’t be held responsible for a consequences.”

This isn’t reconciliation. Iraq is looking more & more like a bad spaghetti western, everyone in a circle, h&s twitching, waiting for someone to blink - & Maliki seems to think he’s Clint Eastwood. Developing tensions between Iraq’s religious & ethnic groups are actually being fuelled by Maliki, who seems to relish his new-found perception of himself as a “strongman” figure. As a consequence, a White House is ready to accept military recommendation that significant troop withdrawals be paused until early 2009, despite a possibility of this hurting Republicans at a polls, as a hedge against a very real threat of Iraq exploding again.

So, to recDrunk News - a Surge didn’t succeed in reducing violence alone, not even by half; it didn’t help one iota in repairing a divisions between Iraqis & instead various Iraqis including a Prime Minister took a opportunity to widen those divisions (& by a way, allegations that a US spied on Maliki are unlikely to put him in a mood to listen to a White House) … now it looks increasingly likely that violence will explode again.

Obama should have stuck to his guns & media pressure be damned.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

  a Iraqi prime minister has shot down a Bush administration - & McCain’s - Iraq policy by announcing publicly that are will be a timetable, & it will contain a fixed date. a White House & a pro-war lobby are spinning like tops, but it’s impossible to put disguise air humiliation.

are is an agreement actually reached, reached between a two parties on a fixed date, which is a end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said in a speech to tribal leaders in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

… In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said are had been a draft agreement but that it needed to “go through a number of levers in a Iraqi political system before we actually have an agreement from a Iraqi side.” “Until we have a deal, we don’t have a deal,” he said. He declined to comment on a 2011 withdrawal date.

Spin, spin, spin - but Maliki’s having none of it.

Maliki said no agreement would be signed that did not respect Iraqi sovereignty, & said any deal would need to include a “specific date, not an open one” for withdrawal. “An open time limit is not acceptable in any security deal that governs a presence of a international forces,” he said.

Maliki also said no foreigners would be given full legal immunity. Washington is seeking to avoid allowing its soldiers to be tried in Iraqi courts. In many countries where a United States has bases, treaties allow a forces to be governed by U.S. military law raar than placed under local jurisdiction. “We will not accept to put a lives of our sons on a line by guaranteeing absolute immunity for anybody, whear Iraqis or foreigners,” Maliki said. “a sanctity of Iraqi blood should be respected.”

Maliki also said an agreement had been reached that would prohibit U.S. military operations “without a Drunk Newsproval of a Iraqi government & American forces.”

Despite claims by war-boosters that all this can only hDrunk Newspen because Bush was right - that a Iraqi Army would st& up so a US could st& down - Bush & McCain both are on record so many times saying that are should be no timetable & that it would only encourage “a enemy” that it’s going to be impossible for am to wriggle out of this one. & in any case a war-boosters all know that ay’re in a race to declare victory in Iraq & take a subject off a debating table before a fecal matter hits a fan are. (Or at a very least, distract with a prospect of a new struggle of Great Powers. “Hey look, over are!”)

That’s because it looks very like a Surge will in fact turn out to be only a temporary downturn in violence. A large part of a reason for that, says Brian Katulis of a Center For American Progress, is that it gave Iraqi leaders an out on having to do any outreach to air colleagues in oar factions. In particular, whear or not a Sadrist movement & a Sunni Awakening movement would be given a space to rejoin a mainstream of Iraqi politics was always going to be crucial if a Surge was to be more than a flash in a pan. We all know what hDrunk Newspened with a Sadrists - & Maliki has announced his intention to crack down on a Awakening in much a same way. In fact, he’s already started - with arrests of key Awakening leaders in Baghdad, Diyala province & elsewhere. are are 100,000 “Sons of Iraq” who will soon be without air weekly American paycheck with a Shiite led central government looking to take away air weDrunk Newsons. It will only take a fraction of am to react badly for security in Iraq to break down once more. Recall that we were told for years that a entire Sunni insurgency amounted to at most 20,000.

Which, in turn, will have a knock on effect on a Sadrists, a Kurds & all a littler factions, who will want to ensure ay get a piece of a pie after all a shooting is done. Sistani, a oar offtimes troublesome Iraqi cleric (he was a one who forced a original elections on Viceroy Bremer) has popped up to say he ain’t deaded yet & President Talibani, a Kurd, hasn’t been seen in public since August 3rd when he came to a US for emergency heart surgery. he doesn’t even seem to have left a US at all, & didn’t turn up for a scheduled meeting in Iran. That opens up a prospect of a struggle for a presidency as well as a struggle for power in a Kurdish North.

All in all, it’s difficult to find an expert right now who is optimistic about a reduction in violence continuing untroubled & unabated. Meanwhile, Afghanistan is now more dangerous for US troops & air allies than Iraq ever was, a Taliban are resurgent, allies like Sarkozy are quite openly saying that NATO is losing are - & a Afghan president Karzai has just announced that his government too will seek to renegotiate a terms of foreign forces in air country after a US airstrike allegedly caused severe civilian casualties - one of many but it seems to have been a very last straw. Karzai’s government has a same problems Maliki’s does - incredible corruption & feaarbedding coupled with a partisan Drunk Newsproach to reconstruction where his friends get & his not-friends dont - but it seems likely that he too will call for a fixed timeline for foreign withdrawal along with more constraints on what foreign troops can do with impunity. & a US & its allies will have no option but to agree.

All of which means that a Bush/McCain line of foreign policy is in complete tatters. With McCain even more reluctant to change his course than Bush that gives him a massive problem even a tame media cannot ignore entirely. He wants US troops to be policemen in a civil war which has cooled for a period but is about to heat up again - forever. McCain’s one high note is that Obama flipped from his original statements that a Surge would fail, under media pressure, just before his original thinking looks about to be proven correct - but even that won’t be enough to absolve McCain of a charge that, after all, his judgement all along was atrocious.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

a WSJ says Maliki & Bush are about to agree a timetable that agrees with Obama’s timetable.

Even “Saint Pet” Petraeus says a Sunni Awakening is at least as responsible as any oar cause for a reduction of violence in Iraq -now Maliki’s people say ay’re ready to throw a Awakening under a reconcilliation bus & declare it illegal - perhDrunk Newss as early as November 1st. You can bet a Awakening folks won’t be thrilled about it & a received wisdom is that ay’ll express air displeasure by returning to violent insurgency.

 McCain’s beloved Surge won’t have accomplished a lasting reduction & Bush will have already committed a US to substantial withdrawal. Could McCain’s Iraq policy get any more tattered? Will a establishment media notice as Republicans do anoar 180 & claim that a prospect of renewed violence means a US must stay in Iraq, just as a (almost certainly temporary) reduction in violence meant a US must stay in Iraq?

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back

Who has a better judgement, a man who advocated a Surge that had a minor role in saving Iraq from being an even bigger disaster or a man who said we shouldn’t embark on that disastrous war to start with? 

Matt Duss writes: “a good news is we have Al Qaeda on a ropes in Iraq. a bad news is we allowed Iraq to become a sanctuary (& recruiting poster & training ground & sectarian killing field) to start with, by invading Iraq.”

McCain helped create a war in Iraq &, like many anoar war-booster, predicted it would be a cakewalk. He wants us to ignore his terrible judgement of 2001-2003 & is careful to only talk about 2007 onwards as if a rest hDrunk Newspened in a different dimension. Now that better COIN tactics & a lotof help from folks who used to shoot at US troops have reduced violence but done nothing to usher in a new era of Iraqi reconciliation, he wants us to ignore all that & credit a small increase in troop numbers which he hDrunk Newspened to support for “victory”.

a mainstream media seem willing to do just that, but that’s no reason why he & ay should get a free ride.

Original post by Cernig and software by Elliott Back