Or worse… a Canadian! ;-)

Such people certainly exist, but they are not the ones advocating an american-led withdrawl, for internal america-oriented reasons.

soru

Like this?

To imagine that we’ll improve the situation by leaving before the Iraqi government is fully prepared to deal with these monsters is absurd.

To imagine you’ll improve the situation by continuing to fuel the insurgency indefinitely with your presence while claiming you’re helping them “prepare to deal with monsters” is absurd. But it WOULD spare Republicans some embarrassing admissions in the States for a little while longer.

Now, I’m not actually questioning your motives. For all I know, your confident chatter about what should be done in Iraq might actually be backed up by some compelling argument that you and others like you haven’t managed to articulate yet. I’m just pointing out to you that the questioning-motives is easy, and contempible, and childish; even assuming that what passed for your “insights” about your targets were true, it’s perfectly simple to use those methods in either direction. Basically, I’m hoping you’ll eventually have the smarts to realize this accomplishes nothing for you. Particularly in a setting where you have to actually persuade people instead of just browbeating them.

To imagine that we’ll improve the situation by leaving before the Iraqi government is fully prepared to deal with these monsters is absurd. But it WOULD improve the situation here, for Democrats, that much is obvious.

Again, man, you want to talk about “ugly,” take a look in the mirror. Warfloggers benefit from demanding a presence in Iraq for as long as it takes to make them (and in some cases, their chosen President) look better than they currently do, no matter how vain that hope may be or what this means to the situation on the ground and the actual lives of the people involved. Don’t waste anyone’s time with motive-guessing / name-calling; seeing as you’re in the mother of all glass houses and still haven’t figured out that you have a credibility problem, nobody has much cause to care what you think.

Soru: You mean like (from your link):

Yes, I even take into account surveys of thin slices of Iraq’s population. (In that one, for instance, I noticed considerable optimism in business owners since 1990, which indicates a state of affairs that preceded American presence and arguably doesn’t rely upon it.) Of course, the much broader surveys are a bigger help in evaluating the occupation as a whole.

The question is whether that withdrawl will come as part of the successful conclusion of the Iraqi political process, or through retreat leaving behind a civil war.

Or whether postpoining withdrawal will exacerbate the civil war outcome, or stands a reasonable chance of averting it. Is it so difficult to believe that others might have more credibility than you do when talking about the issues and probabilities here?

Yeah, maybe you think a bad end is inevitable, and just want to accelerate the timetable a bit so it happens before Bush leaves office. That’s the positive spin on things, and it’s still awfully ugly.

http://www.cipe.org/regional/mena/Zogbyreport05.pdf

which is both recent, quite frankly glowingly optimistic and actually publishes its questions and answers in detail, unlike trying to play the game of chinese whispers of working out what ‘up to’, ‘could be justified’, etc. actually mean.

The point is not whether withdrawl will happen – no known force on earth could prevent it, it is as inevitable as gravity. Campaigning for withdrawl is like holding up a sign at the Olympics saying ‘bring our jumpers down now’.

The question is whether that withdrawl will come as part of the successful conclusion of the Iraqi political process, or through retreat leaving behind a civil war.

soru

Purely by opinion poll, sure. If you didn’t have other sources of information to help lend veracity or at least plausibility to the reported MoD poll—say, reports from multiple sources about deteriorating living conditions and an insurgency able to operate almost entirely through roadside bombs (and the network of local support that strongly implies) and so on—a given poll would be of limited usefulness.

(I look forward to seeing the full text of the MoD poll as much as you do, but in the meantime I have no reason to distrust the Telegraph’s reportage of it, in part because it tracks well with other, more complete sources of information.)

I’m not trying to imply, incidentally, that I personally was recently converted to the case for withdrawal. (I was contingently in favour of a continued American presence on the “broke-it-bought-it” rationale until May.) But certainly I think that case has become more emphatic in the intervening months.

http://www.pollingreport.com/terror.htm

‘Do you think the use of torture against suspected terrorists in order to gain important information can often be justified, can sometimes be justified, can rarely be justified, or can never be justified’

never justified: 33%

I am unconvinced of the merits of government by opinion poll, let alone third party reports of opinion polls that do not show the questions asked, categories present, and raw numbers.

soru

There is of course a precedent for this particular fly-control strategy:

she swallowed the dog to catch the cat
she swallowed the cat to catch the bird
she swallowed the bird to catch the spider
that wriggled and jiggled and tickled inside her
she swallowed the spider to catch the fly
I don’t know why she swallowed the fly
perhaps she’ll die.

Well, frankly, when you have data that indicates the bulk of the population supposedly represented by the Green Zone government wants you gone and / or dead, one would have grounds to conclude that you’re not being “asked to” provide support by anyone who “defines the reality of the situation.” Even if the Green Zone politicians hadn’t chosen to side with anti-occupation sentiment, Murtha’s proposal would have seemed correct and reasonable in light of the reports we’re able to read on our continent. That they have chosen to do so lends it (and other proposals similar to it) some extra weight, obviously.

Incidentally, is the reference to “people on another continent” meant to be a jab at Murtha? You do realize he stated that he was moved to propose what he did in part by his experiences on a fact-finding mission to Iraq, right?