tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post5818002158834115213..comments2024-03-28T09:13:04.373-04:00Comments on KIKO'S HOUSE: Coming: The Helicopter Moment in IraqShaun Mullenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14964214385216513188noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-76959471019179732952007-07-12T06:31:00.000-04:002007-07-12T06:31:00.000-04:00Yes, I fear that we are indeed approaching that He...Yes, I fear that we are indeed approaching that Helicopter Moment. The Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld gang spectacularly mismanaged the post-Saddam occupation & reconstruction of Iraq, the Sunni Arab "insurgents" succeeded in detonating a full-scale sectarian civil war in Arab Iraq ... and sometime between the summer and fall of 2006, the patience of the US public for maintaining a US presence in Iraq just snapped. Everything else is probably just details.<BR/><BR/>This is a tragic denouement, and contemplating the results is a bit terrifying. In this respect, I really do have to add one comment about a point you raise in your post. You say:<BR/><BR/>"Van der Leun accuses people like myself who advocate an immediate commencement of a U.S. troop drawdown as opening the door to genocide (natch), but this is disingenuous because what might happen will be different from what has been happening in what way?"<BR/><BR/>The answer is that it's likely to get much, much worse. That outcome may be inevitable (though I hope not), but at least we should face up to the prospect realistically.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-2847370100038219912007-07-12T06:19:00.000-04:002007-07-12T06:19:00.000-04:00While a tad late coming to the table, the NYT did ...While a tad late coming to the table, the NYT did weigh in with a fairly telling editorial to which your "thoughtful" (don't you mean "shitful"?) right-wing blatherer reacted. AP ran a piece yesterday on how many MSM editorial pages are ever-so-belatedly coming around to a withdrawal stance, but questioning whether anybody listens to the MSM anymore.<BR/><BR/>Dan Schorr on NPR today read a letter from an unidentified first lt. in Kirkuk to his family in Va., asserting that the 3-mos. extension was the dealbreaker for many of his comrades ("Is there something about 365 days past which stress reaches the breaking point?") and detailing morale plummeting, GIs walking around with heads down, divorces and drug use skyrocketing, troops getting reassigned for everything from uniform infractions to executions of militants, a base mate blowing his head off with a shotgun. Can fragging be far behind? 'Copter moments indeed.<BR/><BR/>But McCain (and Lieberman) says it's all just getting peachier over there, so what does the lieutenant know? The churning effect on the GOP Congress right now grows more intriguing by the day. At what point do we have a team of the top echelon going to the White House to tell him the center won't hold anymore? And then, what follows? Cheney declaring, like Alexander Haig after Reagan took a bullet, "I'm in control here" ?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19217611.post-733182703221594772007-07-11T11:11:00.000-04:002007-07-11T11:11:00.000-04:00"a free agent who looks at the world as a magical,..."a free agent who looks at the world as a magical, ever-changing buffet and sorts issues on a practical rather than an ideological basis." <BR/><BR/>I'd say your more intelligent friend needs to look up the meaning of ideological. So do you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com