Iraq military coalition withers

Iraq coalition withering as Britain pulls out

If plans stand, Americans will comprise 95 percent of alliance by mid-2008

Britain’s decision to bring half of its 5,000 soldiers home from Iraq by spring is the latest blow to the U.S.-led coalition. The alliance is crumbling, and fast: excluding Americans, the multinational force was once 50,000 strong — by mid-2008, it will be down to 7,000.

President Bush, facing opposition to the war from the Democrat-led Congress, also is paring back. He says he is committed to gradually reducing the American force from its current peak of 168,000 soldiers to just over 130,000 by next summer.

Let me get this out there, at the very top of the story, a pullback of U.S. forces to 130K by next summer sounds really good, if you’re 3 years old and you still fall for that ‘Daddy has something special for you’ routine, look, I’m glad that we’re going to drop back to 130K troops in Iraq, but don’t hold that out there like it’s a carrot or some such, 130K is about where we were before The Surge, it’s called numbers shuffling, the shell game in real life, I guess Bush and Company think the American people are as big a bunch of dumbasses as Bush himself…

I can see Bush, mental picture, sitting there talking to Laura and almost crying, “Gosh darn it Laura I just don’t know what else to do, I cut troop strength, I got all a them fellas out that I sent in extra to try and put this mess to rest, and it really is a troop cut, but the ‘merican people just don’t like me, no matter what I try, Laura honey, what am I gonna do?”

Laura, “Shut up George, you’re a stuttering moron that can’t put 3 coherent sentences together, and you’re babbling again…”

U.S. troops already are stretched thin trying to contain Sunni Arab and Shiite Muslim extremists. But defense experts say the shrunken coalition probably won’t make much of a difference because most of the non-U.S. forces have largely stuck to non-combat roles.

Funny how that works too, WE are doing most of the fighting to FREE a people that we already freed and we’re still the bad guys…

When are the Iraqis going to stand up an army and police force of their own?? One that can defend Iraq and protect the Iraqi people?? I think it will take place shortly after the corruption that is an inherent trait of Iraqi life if bred out of them, in say, oh, maybe 4 or 5 generations, if we’re lucky…

We provide them with arms and ammunition, and they LOSE it, we fight and die to secure areas of Iraq that the Iraqis can’t secure, then we turn it over to the Iraqis, and they promptly lose it, we support the al-Maliki government and what does HE do?? He turns and embraces Syria and Iran just like Bush embraced the Saudis a while back when they came to Crawford…

“This is a U.S. and Iraqi coalition — nothing more and nothing less,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, former director of intelligence assessment at the Pentagon and now an analyst with the private Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

“A British withdrawal and that of other countries really doesn’t matter very much. They’re playing a very limited role,” he said Tuesday.

And a limited role is what we need to be playing as well, very limited, like maybe training the Iraqis and selling them the rifles and munitions they will almost immediately lose, and if that happens one more time, we need to wash our hands of the whole thing, sink or swim for Iraq, we can’t, and shouldn’t keep bailing their boat for them, it’s their nation, by God let THEM take the brunt of the insurgency, let them remain free on their own or suffer the consequences of failure…

Personally, I don’t have a lot for the Brits, never was too fond of them, but in this case I think they are right on the money, if we start pulling back in large numbers and force the Iraqis to stand on their own, maybe Iraq will open it’s eyes and realize, this is NOT an open ended check, there has got to be a limit on our generosity, and we are getting nothing in return for our efforts, a FREE Iraq means nothing if they can’t, or won’t stand and keep it free…

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Iraq military coalition withers

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