Chris Floyd: Obama's Iraq War Continuation Plan

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From: Counter Punch

Orwell in Babylon
Obama's Non-Withdrawal Withdrawal Plan

By CHRIS FLOYD

It would be superfluous in us to point out that a plan to "end" a war which includes the continued garrisoning of up to 50,000 troops in a hostile land is, in reality, a continuation of that war, not its cessation. To produce such a plan and claim that it "ends" a war is the precise equivalent of, say, relieving one's bladder on the back of one's neighbor and telling him that the liquid is actually life-giving rain.

But this is exactly what we are going to get from the Obama Administration in Iraq. Word has now come from on high – that is, from "senior administration officials" using "respectable newspapers" as a wholly uncritical conduit for government spin – that President Obama has reached a grand compromise with his generals (or rather, the generals and Pentagon poobahs he has inherited -- and eagerly retained -- from George W. Bush) on a plan to withdraw some American troops from the country that the United States destroyed in an unprovoked war of aggression. Obama had wanted a 16-month timetable for the partial withdrawal; his potential campaign rival in 2012, General David Petraeus, wanted 23 months; so, with Solomonic wisdom, they have now split the difference, and will withdraw a portion of the American troops in 19 months instead.

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But the hypocrisy – the literally murderous hypocrisy – of claiming that this plan "leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war," as Obama asserted in his State of the Union speech, is sickening. It does no such thing, and he knows it.

Instead, it entrenches the United States more and more deeply in a "counter-insurgency" war on behalf of whichever clique or faction of sectarian parties in Iraq is most effective in adhering to America's dominationist agenda in the region. It sends an apparently endless stream of American troops to die -- and, in even greater numbers, to kill -- in a criminal action that has helped bankrupt our own country while sending waves of violent instability and extremism around the world. It will further enfilth a cesspool of corruption and war profiteering that has already reached staggering, world-historical proportions.

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02252009.html">Entire thing here...

There is no question that 50,000 troops (Still more than in Afghanistan) equals a substantial and likely permanent presence. It means dominating the politics and governance of Iraq, and it means continued conflict with Iraqi insurgent forces. No getting around it.

Biggest Embassy in the World, still kickin'.

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1. ...

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

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2. kick nt

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3. one last kick nt