18 responses to “Iraq Zero by December”

1. 

   john personna

   October 21, 2011 at 11:35 am

   Better late than never.
2. 

   anjin-san

   October 21, 2011 at 11:40 am

   Good. Libya operations should wrap up quickly too.

   Lets spend the money at home. And not on giveaways to Exxon.
3. 

   John Peabody

   October 21, 2011 at 12:00 pm

   I’m shaking my head at the word ‘zero’. There simply is no such thing. Any number over zero is not zero.
4. 

   Chris Berez

   October 21, 2011 at 12:04 pm

   Wait, so I thought previously there would be troops left behind to guard the U.S. embassy and it’s offices. That still has to be the case, right? I can’t imagine we’re going to rely solely on the Iraqis for that. Or are we withdrawing embassy staff as well? I still suspect the “zero” number only refers to combat troops, but I guess we’ll see.
5. 

   Chris Berez

   October 21, 2011 at 12:21 pm

   Ah, security contractors will provide protection, just as previously speculated. That answers that question. Makes sense. Still, this is good news. Now let’s get out of Afghanistan, Libya and Uganda. And stay the hell out of Syria and Iran.
6. 

   michael reynolds

   October 21, 2011 at 1:05 pm

   Thus ends one of the stranger episodes in American history.

   From the start I thought Mr. Bush was going in there to pull a Japan 1945 — forcibly remake Iraq as a democracy. Disarm them, write them a constitution, empty their torture chambers and political prisons, give ’em democracy good and hard and make it stick — as it has stuck in Japan, Germany, Italy, Austria. . . With some trepidation I backed that play.

   We ended up fostering a civil war won by Iran, and in the process justified torture, destroyed our credibility, filled our VA hospitals, made ourselves look weak and blew a trillion dollars.

   The only good thing to come out of it — and I’m using ‘good’ very broadly — is that Al Qaeda overreached and proved themselves to be such vicious animals to fellow Muslims that they lost their legitimacy in the Arab world.

   To this day I don’t know what the hell Bush and Cheney thought they were doing.
7. 

   Stormy Dragon

   October 21, 2011 at 1:35 pm

   @michael reynolds:

   To this day I don’t know what the hell Bush and Cheney thought they were doing.

   The exercise was based on the neoconservatives’ faulty belief that modern societies are mankind’s natural state and that all you have to do is prevent authoritarian groups from interfering and liberal democracies will spontaneously form in the vacuum.
8. 

   Ron Beasley

   October 21, 2011 at 1:40 pm

   @michael reynolds: Cheney used the war to get Halliburton out of bankruptcy – that part worked.
9. 

   sam

   October 21, 2011 at 1:43 pm

   @Chris Berez:

   Wait, so I thought previously there would be troops left behind to guard the U.S. embassy and it’s offices.

   US Embassies are traditionally guarded by US Marines. Their number ought not to count as “troops left behind”.
10. 

    Hey Norm

    October 21, 2011 at 1:50 pm

    And so ends what is without question the most imbecilic episode in American foreign policy. Unfortunately the ramifications…a strengthened Iran, fall-out from Abu Gharib, etc….will haunt us for a long, long while.
11. 

    mantis

    October 21, 2011 at 1:57 pm

    I’m surprised McCain hasn’t called this a surrender yet.
12. 

    michael reynolds

    October 21, 2011 at 2:28 pm

    @Stormy Dragon:
    Yeah, I think that’s right, it was a libertarian fantasy. It’s bizarre and tragic. Democracy was just going to ‘happen.’ Good lord.
13. 

    Doug Mataconis

    October 21, 2011 at 2:29 pm

    @michael reynolds:

    I don’t know any libertarian who supported the Iraq War, or believed we’d be greeted as libertators
14. 

    Moosebreath

    October 21, 2011 at 2:32 pm

    mantis,

    “I’m surprised McCain hasn’t called this a surrender yet.”

    Well Romney has already denounced it.
15. 

    michael reynolds

    October 21, 2011 at 3:14 pm

    @Doug Mataconis:
    Not every libertarian is a Libertarian. Probably more are Republicans, and at least one was Vice President.

    It does appear Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney believed they would go in, remove the jackboot of oppression from the necks of the Iraqis (a good thing) and then Democracy would flower.
16. 

    Stormy Dragon

    October 21, 2011 at 6:03 pm

    People always forget that it too English society (and I include the US as an extension of the society) nearly 500 years to go from absolute monarchy to liberal democracy, and that widespread voting was necessarily the last step in that process, not the first.
17. 

    A voice from another precinct

    October 21, 2011 at 8:12 pm

    @anjin-san: how dare you say no to “giveaways to Exxon?” Where will we get our gas from if the oil industry dies because there are no more tax giveaways? And what of those people who will be unemployed? Sometimes I think you liberals just don’t get it.
18. 

    Davebo

    October 22, 2011 at 2:25 am

    I don’t know any self proclaimed libertarian who supported the Iraq War, or believed we’d be greeted as libertators

    What ever helps you sleep at night Doug. However when I called your name at the antiwar protests in 2003 I never heard a recall…

    So either you aren’t as “libertarian” as you claim or you are like most libertarians, Republicans but ashamed to admit it. And don’t just phone it in. Liberators is indeed a word.

    I’m not dissing you for a typo. There are much bigger fish to fry here.