Arbitrary politics*-*-*The Washington Times, America's Newspaper

Check out this article. Do you think we've been unfair in demanding that the Iraqis "hurry up" and get to politicking?

I know the words 'quagmire', 'mistake', and 'impeach Bush' always seem to be in the limelight, but let's actually discuss reality instead of outlandish and fantastic words and rhetoric.

Forget the would-have, should-have, and could-have. And forget the 'pull-out now' and 'impeach Bush'. Let us have a real discussion on the situation if we can. Let's leave the name-calling and rhetoric out, and discuss the situation.

Focus on the solution, not on the problem.

**I guess the language filter doesn't like the representative's name who I quoted at the top. You can see from the article who it is though.

The language filter thing is pretty funny. Let's see if I can get around it...

For the first time in a long time, I will have to agree with a democrat (other than Lieberman). Rep. D icks is right. It took us a long time to figure this thing out ourselves. We can't expect them to do it overnight. We can't even pass a budget in this country in time, how is Iraq expected to build a country.

On the other hand, the US public is going to get impatient with them and it won't matter how well the surge is going. We need to see some signs of progress so we can keep this thing going over there. and finish the job.

I know the American public (and elected officials) are getting impatient regardless of progress. So I think we need to take advantage of the success of the surge and really lay down some solid plans for the future with at least a modest troop draw-down in that plan. Not a 'withdrawal timeline' but an actual plan for a phased draw-down.

We can remove a brigade at a time (with their support elements) and if things flair out of control we can freeze the withdrawal until things are brought back into order again.

This conflict isn't only 2-sided (pull out or stay forever) there is a way to do this smartly so that 150,000 troops don't have to come back to Iraq in 10 years because we pulled out too soon now, or did something half-way instead of resolving an issue. We can get down to about 100,000 or a little less by the end of 2008 and still maintain our current ops and stability with reasonable surety. The rest is in the hands of the Iraqi govt. to take advantage of the comparable peace the citizens (CLC) have given all of us along with the surge. Everyone is onboard, and the GoI is looking like they are finally starting to 'get it' and are moving forward/making progress.

Don't expect to see any of that (at least not portrayed in a positive light) on CNN or ABC...and don't expect to see anything about how Iraqis now enjoy more power, income, and food than at any time under Saddam....or how the GoI is actually making an income from oil exports in the tens of billions of dollars, and using it to build more and more infrastructure in the country.