I should stop reading the newspaper
The Washington Post runs a story today about a recovered UK government memo suggesting that the US and Britain plan to significantly reduce the number of troops in Iraq by the middle of 2006.
First of all, it seems like the British government is going to have to stop writing their grocery lists on the backs of their top secret memos and leaving them around the kitchen, because there's not an English person who hasn't discovered their very own wayward memo by now.
Second of all, this is bad news for the commanders currently in Iraq. In the Fort Bragg speech, Bush said that he wouldn't set up a time table for withdrawal because that might encourage the insurgents; and however well-meaning or bull-headed you think that elusive statement was, it's accurate nonetheless. If this memo is also accurate, I wouldn't be surprised if there's never any formal confirmation by the Pentagon. The Post story, which first appeared in the Daily Mail, is bound to affect the way both sides (or all the sides) fight in Iraq.
Third of all, my opinion is that withdrawing the troops so early would be another misstep in this war. It would be wrong to say that it "doesn't matter now" how the White House finagled the facts, knowing or unknowing, to make the war a reality. Since the "end" of the initial fighting, I've read incriminating stuff about Bush as well as new evidence that, yeah, Saddam Hussein's regime was pretty awful and, while they didn't make any arms deal with Niger, they did probably have some relations (perhaps not yet fully realized) with al-Qaeda (see Weekly Standard article). But I think re-justifying either position isn't exactly relevant to any of the important choices that need to be made in Iraq right now. More evidence that Saddam was bad isn't going give us anything to illuminate the present situation any better, and it sure isn't going to sway public opinion.
I do think that, if we we're fighting terrorists directly at the beginning of the war, we are now. Critics who remind us weekly that we should have been going elsewhere were right, but now thanks to poor planning those terrorists have unfortunately finally made it to Iraq and we have a fight on our hands that is far more relevant and worthy than what it was two years ago.
Aaaand that's my Foreign Policy Variety Hour. Tomorrow: a monkey who wears a bowtie... made of rubber bands!
So I finally finished The Odyssey (ed. Pretentious Fucker). I think the most troubling part of the poem is the ass-kicking of the suitors trying to bag Penelope. Is it really OK to slaughter the best young men in the city for the redemption of one man? Is it better if a Greek goddess gives it the OK? The posing of question is as far as I seem to get when I'm reading stuff on my own. I'll have to wait until I study it in class in two years, because now I'm just moving on to funny funny and David Sedaris.
The Washington Post runs a story today about a recovered UK government memo suggesting that the US and Britain plan to significantly reduce the number of troops in Iraq by the middle of 2006.
First of all, it seems like the British government is going to have to stop writing their grocery lists on the backs of their top secret memos and leaving them around the kitchen, because there's not an English person who hasn't discovered their very own wayward memo by now.
Second of all, this is bad news for the commanders currently in Iraq. In the Fort Bragg speech, Bush said that he wouldn't set up a time table for withdrawal because that might encourage the insurgents; and however well-meaning or bull-headed you think that elusive statement was, it's accurate nonetheless. If this memo is also accurate, I wouldn't be surprised if there's never any formal confirmation by the Pentagon. The Post story, which first appeared in the Daily Mail, is bound to affect the way both sides (or all the sides) fight in Iraq.
Third of all, my opinion is that withdrawing the troops so early would be another misstep in this war. It would be wrong to say that it "doesn't matter now" how the White House finagled the facts, knowing or unknowing, to make the war a reality. Since the "end" of the initial fighting, I've read incriminating stuff about Bush as well as new evidence that, yeah, Saddam Hussein's regime was pretty awful and, while they didn't make any arms deal with Niger, they did probably have some relations (perhaps not yet fully realized) with al-Qaeda (see Weekly Standard article). But I think re-justifying either position isn't exactly relevant to any of the important choices that need to be made in Iraq right now. More evidence that Saddam was bad isn't going give us anything to illuminate the present situation any better, and it sure isn't going to sway public opinion.
I do think that, if we we're fighting terrorists directly at the beginning of the war, we are now. Critics who remind us weekly that we should have been going elsewhere were right, but now thanks to poor planning those terrorists have unfortunately finally made it to Iraq and we have a fight on our hands that is far more relevant and worthy than what it was two years ago.
Aaaand that's my Foreign Policy Variety Hour. Tomorrow: a monkey who wears a bowtie... made of rubber bands!
So I finally finished The Odyssey (ed. Pretentious Fucker). I think the most troubling part of the poem is the ass-kicking of the suitors trying to bag Penelope. Is it really OK to slaughter the best young men in the city for the redemption of one man? Is it better if a Greek goddess gives it the OK? The posing of question is as far as I seem to get when I'm reading stuff on my own. I'll have to wait until I study it in class in two years, because now I'm just moving on to funny funny and David Sedaris.
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