It will not go on for another five or ten years (0.00 / 0)

It will either wind down or it will escalate.

If we attack Iran, the entire region will go up in flames. Have no doubt of it.

As horrible as this war is, my greater fear is that, if we don't end the Iraq occupation, the international tensions and violence will increase. The violence could easily follow a path that would end with a nuclear conflagration in the Middle East.

It is already well on its way, thanks to US.

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by: Michael Harold @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 00:22:21 AM UTC

A better question... (0.00 / 0)

I have a better question:

Mr. Bush, General Petraeus, could you please define "win"?  Over the past five years I have heard so many different reasons and justifications that I have to admit I am confused. 

Are we fighting to overthrow an evil dictator?  If so, we're done!  Let's come home!

Are we fighting to establish a democratic government?  Again, we're done!  Let's come home!

Are we fighting to defeat Al Quaeda?  The we are in the wrong effing country!  Let's come home!  Or at least move to the Afghan/Pakistani border where Al Quaeda's leadership is located.

Or are we fighting for your Oedipus complex, Mr. Bush?  Is that what we are really there for?  You psychological problems?  In that case, we're going home...  YOU fight on if you have the guts!

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by: apikoros @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 00:37:34 AM UTC

Darcy on Friedman Units (0.00 / 0)

The real neo-con vision for this war all goes back to their "starve the beast" theory.  They intend to break the bank to end the capability to fund programs like Social Security, Medicare, etc.  The only way to end this war is to provide no further funding without taxes to pay as you go and ALSO amortize the already built up war debt.  The taxes, furthermore, must be targeted at the upper income levels.  Only then will the war come to a swift end!

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by: Doc Rock @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 01:25:40 AM UTC

It's All An Educational Exercise About Zeno's Paradox (0.00 / 0)

Bush & Cheney are actually highly educated, deeply introspective students of philosophy.  They hold dearly to the truthfulness of Zeno's paradoxes, and since most people are unaware that their common sense understanding of classical motion must be false (as the Bush-Cheney-Zenocons believe) Our Leaders have realized that Americans would never truly appreciate the brilliance of Zeno's paradoxes without a powerful example of one in the real world.

In the arrow paradox, Zeno asks us to imagine an arrow in flight. He then asks us to divide up time into a series of indivisible nows or moments. At any given moment if we look at the arrow it has an exact location so it is not moving. Yet movement has to happen in the present; it can't be that there's no movement in the present yet movement in the past or future. So throughout all time, the arrow is at rest. Thus motion cannot happen.

Thus, each time we believe that the Iraq occupation has moved further towards its completion, we find that it has yet another six months to travel, at which it can never arrive, because even after 1 month has passed, another 6 month period has just begun.

Someday, however, someone will teach Bush & Cheney about Leibnitz' and Newton's "calculus", and they will realize how to use it to close upon apparently infinitely unreachable goals.

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by: El Cid @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 02:28:35 AM UTC

6 more months, 6 more months (4.00 / 1)

Publicly, yet again, they are asking for six more months. Six months ago they asked for six more months. Six months before that they wanted six more months.

This is like the old Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon where Bugs Bunny says, "if you cross this line, you're in big trouble doc" and draws a line in the sand which Yosemite Sam proceeds to cross. The process continues on and on, with no consequences and just more lines in the sand.

Memo to Congress: Just drop the damn anvil on the President already.

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by: rainierguy @ Tue Sep 11, 2007 at 05:23:23 AM UTC