The most important traits to have are being persistent and determine when wiping out prairie dogs. A fair person can tell by looking around wither you have control of the dog population or not. Can you be fair?

I went shooting prairie dogs when I went back home on the 4th July weekend. I had to go to a far neighbor’s field to do it. Their tolerance levels for dogs are much higher than my family’s, although it is nice to keep a small population around for target practice.

As for the prairie dogs I would pay a good deal to remove all noticeable populations.

Oh sure, you'd pay, but would you do the work if you only got paid after reaching an ambiguous goal, and your customer would have to make a judgment decision on whether you had accomplished it or not?

Could the poison we were using cause a prairie dog population boom? Yes but it didn’t. Did we have set backs at times? Yes but with determination we prevailed. Did Bush action cause a increase in Al Qaeda temporary? Yes, however now all indications are they are in deep trouble.

Michael
There were official surrenders but that is superficial either way.
There are no guarantees in life. The five to ten year would only greatly increase the chances. If I can greatly increase my odds, I’m all for it.

I already said when the situation on the ground is “right” is a judgment call. I prefer having someone who is more interested in making Iraq work make that call instead of someone whose primary goal is fulfilling a campaign promise.

As for the prairie dogs I would pay a good deal to remove all noticeable populations. They may come back and the job may have to be done once again, that is nature. Having your land clear for a period of time is much better than having it being overrun for that time.

Today the left and MSM went ballistic when Bush had a mission accomplish sign after overthrowing Iraq. Iraqi military and government surrender.

I don't believe that either the Iraqi military nor the Iraqi government officially surrendered, they merely disbanded.

The 5 to 10 base agreement needs to be done more for Iraqi security and to prevent the government from sliding back into a dictatorship.

So we are to ensure that a dictatorship does not arise in the future too? Is that one of your goals?

When the situation on the ground is right we can withdraw our troops. We don’t need a declaration of victory besides the left will never let us anyway.

And how will we know when the situation on the ground is right? Is there specific difference between right and not right, or will it be somebody's judgment call?

Going back to your prairie dog example, would you have accepted a job of "removing the prairie dogs and ensuring that they would not return", to be paid only upon achievement of that task?

Obviously the psychology of the actual situation makes this an imperfect analogy, but I think you know where I am going with this.

Today the left and MSM went ballistic when Bush had a mission accomplish sign after overthrowing Iraq. Iraqi military and government surrender. Just like WWII there was much to do after their surrender. Many of our troops came home but many stayed for security reasons.

The 5 to 10 base agreement needs to be done more for Iraqi security and to prevent the government from sliding back into a dictatorship. The benefit we receive from it is just icing on the cake.

When the situation on the ground is right we can withdraw our troops. We don’t need a declaration of victory besides the left will never let us anyway.

The idea is not to have or declare a perfect world but to make it better. To strive for perfection is fine. To allow the world to decline because it isn’t perfect is not.

Grewgills

“meant larger breeding populations of prairie dogs in adjacent fields”

That is exactly what happened. However since we killed them they didn’t gain much headway in our fields. They move to our neighbors’ field. Neighbors quickly killed them, waited until the dogs destroyed enough of their fields then killed them, or went out of business in which case others bought it and killed them. The one exception was when we had some tree huggers buy a plot of land for the prairie dogs to live. They go unmolested until they cross the border. They are contained and it is much better to have a couple hundred acres of them than couple million acres.

To have done nothing would have destroyed our land and economy.

The fact was and remains the names do not matter

I see. If they don't look like us, just start shooting at them. Gotcha.

The fact was and remains the names do not matter. What does matter is the ideas and ideals involved, which do not change.

Names are self-identification, which is a very useful tool in any divide and conquer strategy. The ideas and ideals, too, are quite different between the separate identity groups. Even Al Qaeda and the Taliban have differences that can be understood and exploited, and the differences between them an Arab nationalists or Shiite theocracies is huge. If we can't or won't differentiate these groups, then any action we decide to take will likely harm one group and help two others.

bit you can spin your ignorant statements all you want. But you cannot change their nature...

I opted to leave the spinning to your hands some time ago.

I think we can all easily picture bit going all mushroom cloud if Obama had made such an inexcusable mistake and then tried to hide behind "names don't matter".

If that were true, don't you think I'd have made the most of the gaffe rich environment that Obama himself has so gerously provided us?

The fact was and remains the names do not matter. What does matter is the ideas and ideals involved, which do not change.

As an example: "New Democrat" certainly is a name, but since the ideas and ideals behind it have not moved away from the tired old liberalism, the new name is meaningless.

* increases exceeding extermination

I may have not known how many prairie dogs there were, how fast they were breeding, or even how many I was killing. I knew if I was killing them or not. I knew of fields where they were safe. I knew who to pressure to change that. I usually knew if the situation was improving or not.

But did you have another goal that required the elimination of the prairie dogs before you could start? In Iraq, if we are going to make our withdraw wait until "victory", then we need to have a clearly defined, and definitively testable definition of "victory". We don't want there to be any disagreement about whether of not "victory" was achieved.

In WW2, "victory" meant unconditional surrender of Axis forces. There could be no disagreement over whether that goal was achieved at any given time, it either was or it wasn't, there was no room for debate. Nobody ever asked "Did we already win?" after Normandy. Nor did anybody ask after Japan signed their surrender on the Missouri.

We do need to have a five to ten year military base plans after that with some government reforms condition on leaving.

Given our existing bases in KSA, extended range of our aircraft and munitions, and our much improved logistics, does the justification used for bases in Germany and Japan still hold true in Iraq?

You are making me bring up my prairie dog example again. Back in the days and I know it still holds true for those that deal with them. I may have not known how many prairie dogs there were, how fast they were breeding, or even how many I was killing. I knew if I was killing them or not. I knew of fields where they were safe. I knew who to pressure to change that. I usually knew if the situation was improving or not. There were many things that I knew without knowing it all. We sure didn’t throw up all hands and say it pointless to battle them. If we did we would have been overrun with prairie dogs. Now the animal right people want to put them on the endanger species list and it much tougher to find a field to shot them at.

Yes it is hard to have hard defined prerequisite. It is more of a judgment call which is why we need a President with good judgments. We can’t expect them to be perfect but hopefully decent.

The Maliki government is friendly and no I don’t believe in guarantees. However I not comfortable enough for a complete withdraw. It is not like if we don’t like the results of leaving we can do a do over. I think next year we will have some significant drawdown. We do need to have a five to ten year military base plans after that with some government reforms condition on leaving.

What is ironic is that troop reduction could very well be done within 16 months of the next president taking office but this does not mean Obama was right in his assessments only he got lucky on the timing. A reduction because the situation is right is the right approach but Obama said he would have done it regardless of the situation isn’t the right approach. If Obama stated a plan that would have improve the situation enough to be able to draw down that would have been different but he didn’t.

Permanent bases similar to what we have in Germany would be nice but has little to do with “winning”. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

Yes we don’t want to overstay our welcome but we don’t want to leave too soon and let another dictator take control. It is going be a tough call.