As a practical assessment, I suspect that there's a lot of unpalatable truth to be had in the substantial overlap found between the most recent comments by Che Pasa and Electro James T. Kirk.

I suspect that the American people are in for Fait Accomplit time. I don't think that President Obama has any intent of giving up that multi-billion dollar real estate development known as the Green Zone.

I think that panicked oil-centric politics are running the game. And America's latest experiment in imperialism is going to run its course- a disastrous one, I think.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if Jimmy Carter has been successful in convincing Americans of the imperative to move away from dependence on foreign petroleum in the late 1970s...

we should withdraw immediately. And pay reparations, and beg for forgiveness

Withdraw immediately, yes. The risk of worse repercussions than staying is actually quite low- and limited, even if it does happen. What- does anyone think that we'll have a new Communist China on our hands as a result, much less the equivalent of the Soviet Union?

"Who lost China"- what an unimportant question that always was, in terms of the danger posed to the USA. Beyond the fact that it wasn't the USA's to lose.

"Who lost Iraq?"- mutatis mutandis, the same question, and the same insights apply.

"Who lost..." is one of those "manhood" questions. The actual relevance of the consequences is unimportant. And we talk about the Arab world having masculinity hang-ups, as if it were something peculiar to them.

Reparations? Only if the country gets it's act together. We've dropped enough money over there- literally, in some cases, throwing billions out the window, a bundle of cash of cash so huge that it amounted to the largest one-time payout ever from the US Federal Reserve:

"...A separate congressional inquiry has uncovered the sums of cash airlifted into Iraq after the invasion. Desperate for money, and with no banking system to receive wire transfers, the CPA, led by Paul Bremer, received UN approval to fund reconstruction with $37 billion of seized Iraqi oil proceeds, most of it held in the US Federal Reserve in New York.

Soon, large quantities of cash began arriving in Baghdad, shipped in on C17 cargo planes. The cash arrived on pallets loaded with shrink-wrapped bundles of crisp $100 bills. The parcels, which soon became known as “bricks”, were handed out “like candy”, one Democrat congressman said.

In all, $12 billion in cash, weighing 363 tonnes, was flown into Iraq. On December 12, 2003, one single flight to Iraq contained $1.5 billion in cash, the largest single Federal Reserve payout in US history, according to Henry Waxman, the Democrat congressman who is investigated the funding.

The US has so far spent $226 billion on the Iraq war. The CPA was allocated $38 billion in US and Iraqi funds, and spent $19.7 billion of UN-administered Iraqi oil money."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article720217.ece

Enough of that.

And no "begging for an apology", either. Sounds virtuous, but it's Western liberal unrealism. That's what philandering husbands are supposed to do with their wives, but it's no behavior for a nation-state in the Arab Middle East. Culturally speaking, you might as well send them a note saying "You've conquered us." In fact, that's probably how Americans would take a gesture like that, if it were the other way around.

We don't beg; we simply pack up our soldiers and military equipment, and as much else as we can carry, and leave.

here you are defending someone that feels free to declare people criminals just because he feels like it

People offer their personal opinions on such matters all the time. It only comes into play when the person in question holds a position of public trust- and even back when President Nixon stated his opinion that Charles Manson was "guilty as hell", no mistrial was declared.

By contrast, I know of a case where someone holding a position of public trust has not only been seeking public approval for an ongoing policy to "declare people criminals just because he feels like it"- he has continually demanded the power to disappear them and imprison them, on nothing more than his personal signature or that of his "deputized agents."

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0331,hentoff,45847,6.html

[click my highlighted screen name for link]

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0236,hentoff,38006,6.html

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0JZS/is_16_21/ai_n25113616

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0110-33.htm

Go on, shooter, tell me how much you deplore that. Leaving aside of the fact that any President claiming such un-Constitutional powers by fiat is arguably guilty of treason.

The number one whitest thing ever: old, and stolen, jokes.

Nah- it's old, and stolen, black slang talk.

To recover my much-cherished gravitas for a second or two: I think ELYDOG's recent comment was squarely on target regarding one quite unfunny subtext running through the SWPL pages.

No matter how many you climb out of, it seems there's always somebody waiting for you with another one.

The trick is to make it their problem.