Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Daniel Graeber covers the debate about Iraq on university campuses and finds that attention has largely turned elsewhere.
And, indeed, even Gen. Ray Odierno, who had earlier opposed a quick drawdown in Iraq, is now suggesting that he may accelerate the US troop exodus.
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 9/30/2009 01:45:00 PM
|Tip Jar for IC
|Cole @ Macmillan Speakers|
|Global Affairs Blog|
 Facebook |
| |  |
|---|
| | |  |
|---|
Muslim Denunciations of al-Qaeda and Terrorism
Suggested Books about the Middle East
Michigan War Studies Review. Many excellent resources.
Individual items can be linked to through the permalink in the time of posting at the end.
Write your political representatives via Congress.org.
ARCHIVES
The feed address is http://www.juancole.com/ rss.xml
Awards
Winner, October 5, 2007, Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship (Awarded by the Graduate Students of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania).
Winner, 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Hunter College.
Winner, 2004 Koufax Award for Best Expert Blog
Winner, 2004 Koufax Award for Best
Posting
5 Comments:
Re: Odierno's flip-flop: You can't have more troops for AfPak unless you remove them from Iraq--the famous Redeployment that was all the rage during the US selections.
Dear Professor Cole
Does General Odierno tell us how many contractors are pulling out.
Do we know how many are staying to guard the prepositioned tanks and ammunition and deep frozen ice cream that will be required if they need to come back again.
Raed Jarrar will be unhappy if we don't ask where to send the bill for the damage and the rebuilding before the guests checkout.
So long?
It's a little premature don't you think?
There's still 120,000 US troops in the country.
I commented this morning on my site: "You'd figure they'd leave some extra troops in Iraq to do water works projects and help out with the drought decimating the country, but most likely they'll be R&R'd and returned to Afghanistan or the Pakistan border war. It IS approximately 10% the number of troops General McChrystal is calling for in Afghanistan or, as he puts it "face the possibility of military failure."
It's also notable that as of February or March next year, the total spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will exceed $1 trillion dollars.
I hopes you (the reader) didn't REALLY expect there was going to be anything resembling nationalized health insurance for ALL Americans coming out of congress or the Obama administration.
They're really really busy with their post-colonial (neo-colonial?) wars right now, and their budget priorities are the proof.
More here
Thank God General Odierno is being sensible. The sooner the troops are pulled out of Iraq, the sooner that country can go back to dealing with and resolving its own issues.
Saddam Hussein was a tyrant no doubt and good riddance too, but US invasion was totally uncalled for. By various estimates over 100,000 Iraqis have lost their lives since the invasion, not to mention the 4,000 US soldiers killed. Iraq has been devastated by the war, US bombing, suicide bombers and general chaos that has been inflicted on it. Before the war, Iraq had 24 hour power supply, an education system and an army. The army may now have been largely rebuilt, bur many schools and hospitals are still not functional and Baghdad still has only 12 hours of power supply a day.
What a legacy left behind by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice et al!
Perhaps you mean that the occupation of Iraq is in it's "death throes"...?
Post a Comment
<< Home