Stay the Course ?

[Don_1967]

The blue-ribbon Iraq Study Group (ISG) headed by James Baker and Lee Hamilton will meet today in Washington to discuss the first draft of its review of Iraq policy. According to the New York Times, the current draft does not include a proposal for the phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq. It is the latest sign that U.S. policy in Iraq is unlikely to undergo a significant shift despite the midterm election results, which were viewed as a decisive national rebuke of the Iraq war. NBC News correspondent Norah O'Donnell noted yesterday that the Pentagon is "already developing an alternative" review of Iraq policy "to give the President an out if he doesn't like the recommendations" of the ISG. According to media reports, that review is likely to recommend a "stay-the-course-plus" strategy, combining a temporary increase of 20,000-30,000 troops with a long-term effort to train and advise Iraqi forces. Also, the White House this weekend repeated its "insistence that Iraq was not in a civil war," days after one of the worst spasms of sectarian violence since the war began, intensifying the bloodshed that scholars say "already puts Iraq in the top ranks of the civil wars of the last half-century." Just before the recent elections, Vice President Dick Cheney announced that the White House would go "full speed ahead" with its current Iraq policy regardless of the election results. "We've got the basic strategy right," Cheney said. He was not bluffing.

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

1. Insanity is, by definition, shameless. n/t

[gratuitous]

2. Congress should pass two bills

A general amnesty and revocation of all continuing spending bills. The administration can then go "full speed ahead" with whatever troops and money it can find in the West Wing of the White House.

[MoseyWalker]

3. Where the hell did "stay the course" come from

and become some damned mantra? I blame Reagan, but it was surely before that.

Stay the course. What a retarded, short-sighted view.

Don't think, don't evaluate, don't adjust to current or potential future events.

Let's just "stay the course".

fuck'em

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. Maybe. But, they'll definitely stay for lunch at the meeting.

The study group, like the military presence in Iraq has already become irrelevant. Iraq and it's neighbors are deciding the fate of the Iraq and the American forces are merely hunkering down awaiting the withdrawal plan by the people who count.

[thereismore]

5. just give bush* a number of plans so he can choose one that he

likes. :puke: