The Right Time Frame for Withdrawal

The German Magazine Spiegel Online International reports today that:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki supports US presidential candidate Barack Obama's plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq within 16 months. When asked in and interview with SPIEGEL when he thinks US troops should leave Iraq, Maliki responded "as soon as possible, as far as we are concerned." He then continued: "US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

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"So far the Americans have had trouble agreeing to a concrete timetable for withdrawal, because they feel it would appear tantamount to an admission of defeat," Maliki told SPIEGEL. "But that isn't the case at all. If we come to an agreement, it is not evidence of a defeat, but of a victory, of a severe blow we have inflicted on al-Qaida and the militias."

He also bemoaned the fact that Baghdad has little control over the US troops in Iraq. "It is a fundamental problem for us that it should not be possible, in my country, to prosecute offences or crimes committed by US soldiers against our population," Maliki said.

Crosses - January 28, 2008

Click to enlarge

Cross posted at The Crosses of Lafayette.

Who Pays the Price?

clay Bennett

Crosses of Lafayette: Gold Star Moms and Vandalism

Photo by John Eaton

This photo is an event honoring Gold Star Mothers at the Crosses of Lafayette on Sunday, September 23, 2007.

Later that night vandals struck the memorial. This from Tuesday's Contra Costa Times:

Vandals attacked the memorial crosses in Lafayette on Sunday night or Monday morning, leaving pieces of broken, jagged wood lying haphazardly at the bases of those left standing.

Of the 3,623 crosses lining the hillside as a memorial for American troops killed in Iraq, between 150 and 300 of the crosses have been knocked down or destroyed, said Chris Donton, a site organizer.

Protesting the Occupation

Wathiq Khuzale/Getty

Today's New York Times reports:

BAGHDAD, April 9 — Tens of thousands of protesters loyal to Moktada al-Sadr, the Shiite cleric, took to the streets of the holy city of Najaf on Monday in an extraordinarily disciplined rally to demand an end to the American military presence in Iraq, burning American flags and chanting “Death to America!”

Residents said that the angry, boisterous demonstration was the largest in Najaf, the heart of Shiite religious power, since the American-led invasion in 2003. It took place on the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad, and it was an obvious effort by Mr. Sadr to show the extent of his influence here in Iraq, even though he did not appear at the rally.

Dougie Feith: What was he like as a kid?

Dougie Feith (left) and Gary Greenberg - 1966

Have you heard? Dougie Feith now has his own website for the purpose of clearing his good name and resurecting it back into the pantheon of heroes. This may be harder than he thinks. In the meantime, let's explore what he was like as a kid.

Fortunately, Gary Greenberg, a talented writer and very funny guy in Florida has already done the job. I went to college with Gary's brother - but that's another story.

And Dubya always does what Dubya’s told. In fact, that’s how my old pal Dougie Feith helped lead our country on a crusade to conquer the Middle East.

Dougie and I were best friends in the latter stages of elementary school and went to the same overnight camp for years. Even as a kid, Dougie was elitist and egotistical, one reason he fits in so well with the current administration. I recall him often saying, “It’s not bragging if you can back it up.”

And Dougie could back it up. He was brighter than most of our teachers and a champion tennis player who even intimidated adults with his precocious arrogance. Other kids thought he was a jerk for being so bossy, but as the youngest child of my family, I was used to being ordered around. And Dougie was cool. He was smart, rich and had a control over things that I lacked.

I also felt indebted to him because he got me out of class an hour every day for weeks to help him type up an abridged version of A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream for our sixth grade play. He was the only one in the class who could type, including the teacher, and needed someone to dictate the play to him because one of his few failings at that point in life was he couldn’t touch type. And that someone was lucky me, even though reading A Midsummer’s Dream aloud for an hour straight was a lot more work than sitting in class daydreaming about sports and/or Linda Goldfine.

Eventually, Dougie and I parted ways in junior high. He went to private school, presumably because he was too smart for public school, then Harvard and Georgetown Law, no doubt to prove it. Now Dougie has become the honorable Douglas J. Feith, the Defense Department’s undersecretary of policy and self-appointed protector of the state of Israel.

When it comes to Israel, Dougie is so far right he’s wrong. And he helped influence our very easily influenced president on our country’s current Middle Eastern crusade to democratize (read conquer) this oil rich region under the guise of...well, I’m not sure they even bother with a guise since the weapons of mass destruction didn’t pan out. Dougie, of course, would do anything to stabilize the Middle East for Israel’s security and must have figured a war with Iraq was a good start.

Surely there is something funny here. A rabid Jew telling a fanatical Christian how to deal with Muslim extremists? We’re talking sitcom material. Yet I still can’t find a punch line.

The rest, as they say, is history. And now there is a punchline. But it is tragic and not one bit funny.