Watching The Snowball

[tw]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

Why are the Democrats politicizing "stay the course"? Why did they wait until just before the election to ... wait a minute...

Because Iraq has deteriorated so quickly in only last three months. US put massive forces in Baghdad including a four month extension of the Stryker brigade. Violence increased proving again that Americans only exagerbate the problem. One option is 500,000 troops in-country now. That option will no longer work in a few more months. A strong hawk named Kagan says that option has only four months left. Opportunity window is closing that quickly. Politics has nothing to do with that reality.

Situation has so deteriorated as to be apparent even in numbers. Deja vue Nam. Exactly what happened in Nam. Long before numbers said how bad it was, it was long before worse. Learn the history of Col John Paul Vann to appreciate the obvious. Meanwhile, Iraq had deteriorated so badly so long ago that it is suddenly becoming apparent this summer - in the numbers.

Politics has little to do with it. You should have seen those numbers coming long ago - as I have been posting bluntly and without any politiness. My recent acidity is because of what numbers are finally reporting. Accounting is finally reporting what Military Science already knew - what those five retired Generals were saying long ago. Too many Americans refuse to acknowledge reality until even accounting says the obvious: 90+ dead Americans and maybe 700 wounded troops in this month alone. Show me where politics has any factor in those numbers - and I will show you a lying president.

[richlevy]

Saddam's verdict will come out this weekend. It was supposed to be mid-October, but has been moved to this pre-election weekend.

On one hand it could boost the Republicans. Like the Iraq elections, they could point to this as progress in Iraq.

On the other hand, this could set off the bloodiest fighting in Iraq in the past three years, reminding us that these small milestones have no short term effect on the violence and may not have any long term effect.

An interesting note from this article on the verdict.

Most importantly, Scharf said, Dujail can set an important legal precedent, with consequences for the Bush administration, on where governments draw the line on the "war on terror".

Saddam has admitted ordering trials that led to execution orders for 148 Shi'ite Muslims in Dujail following an attempt on his life there in 1982 by underground Shi'ite guerrillas.

But he has said it was his legal right as a president fighting Iranian-backed "terrorists" at a time when Iraq was at war with Iran. Bush, Scharf noted, has used the same argument to justify wars and holding men without trial at Guantanamo Bay.

"This is an argument we have not heard since Nuremberg," he said, referring to trials against Nazi leaders after World War Two. "We'll have to read the reasoning very carefully."

Other legal experts said the case is so flawed that a verdict will amount to little more than victor's justice.

So, it's possible that the verdict could set a precedence whereby GWB would be unable to visit certain countries for fear of being tried in the world court.