Katrina is Bush's ticket OUT OF IRAQ! I hope he takes it.

[bribri16]

If the neocons were looking for a way out the fucked up situation in Iraq, the catastrophe of Katrina is way out. Because it is obvious that we need our military home to guard our nation and to help take care of the huge aftermath of Katrina and the storms yet to come he could announce beginning today an orderly draw down and be out there by Christmas. Otherwise our nation can not handle physically and can not handle economically two long disasters at one time. We need to get our own house in order, take care of the oil situation and forget waging wars to increase the largess of the corporacons and the military industrial complex. We see how vulnerable we are here at home and so do our enemies.

[DS1]

1. If they did that, Iraq would likely have a civil war

get taken over by Iran, and then oil prices would go up even HIGHER.

And the only person left standing with cheap oil would be Chavez. No wonder they're after him.

[benburch]

2. That will happen even if we stay...

The only difference is WHEN.

[Spurt]

3. $

You rightly state the soldiers are needed at home.

I believe there is already a measure of civil war going on, and that it is like 2 fighting dogs, you can pull them apart but they'll finish the scrap next chance they get. ie it is probably inevitable.

In parallel, it is wise to keep an eye on the costs. The American people have just taken a huge $ hit from that dirty slut Katrina. It is far too early to quantify so "huge" will do for now.

And the bill for repairing Iraq grows every day. Stuff is still getting destroyed over there much faster than it can be repaired.
And don't forget the Afghans. Their country got bombed to crap and it hasn't been fixed yet. Add that to the bill.

Every day the damage goes on, the bill charged to future generations of Americans grows. They will pay via taxes, gas prices, med costs, general insurances, interest et al. One way or another the people will pay all these bills.
The costs of just the things I mention are a dangerous imposition to be placing on citizens for decades to come.

Bring the troops home now.
Because the invasion is all lies,
because too many have died,
because they're needed at home,
because the nations overdraft and credit cards are max'ed out.

How many more reasons are needed?