Gen. Petraeus testimony today and the fallacies in reasoning

General Petraeus testified today that the cost to the war while expensive has been worth it. He also said he was not in agreement with Al-Maliki about the military actions against Al-Sadr's militia in Basra, as in his view the planning was not done adequately and that he was only informed a day before the actions were taken. The big question for me for the day is why is it that that Al-Sadr's Militia doesn't need similar training that other people in Iraq seem to need? Can anyone explain that? Is it because Iran is doing their training? If so, can't we outsource this job to Iran? I jest. :) But see my point. The arguments don't make sense by our Generals and political figures.

Ambassador Crocker thought that we had a strategic interest in being there (for the long haul). He said their was going to be a Status of Forces agreement between Iraq and the U.S. signed by President Bush in a bilateral agreement between the two countries.

There is a reasoning by both Petraeus and Crocker that suggests we can't and shouldn't leave Iraq as chaos would ensue and the gains made would be reversible. That is the same kind of argument that went on with ending the Vietnam war. In that war many suggested that the entire area of Asia would fall under Communist rule if and when we left. It didn't! Today Vietnam is a trading partner and it took less than 25 years to do it. Looking forward, I don't see Iraq being any different, UNLESS WE STAY! As the demonstrator said at the hearings, "Bring them home! Bring them home!"

U.S. Fatalities for the first 2 weeks of July

U.S. Military fatalities for the Iraq war in the first 2 weeks of July totaled 35. For the entire month of July 2006 there was a total of 43 fatalities.

As I said during the second week of June, the hot summer months of June, July and August in Iraq hopefully will keep the death rate down, as it did last year. This is finally bearing out this month, but did not last month, as new records were set. However, we are already at 35 deaths for the first 2 weeks of July and there were only 43 in total for all of July last year. My guess is that we will surpass those numbers. This is all while the Iraqi Parliament gets ready to take the month of August off, because they say it's too hot. They should try to carry a flak jacket and 80 lbs of gear, while trying to find the bad guys out in the sun all day, like our troops are. This is a disgrace. They should "suffer" a little and work to get the accommodations for a true participative government. But that's not what they want. Al-Maliki knows, that if we leave, the Shiites will run the country, without having to share Oil revenue with the Sunni's or Kurds. It appears that's their end game.

Things can't get better without a diplomatic solution and our President and his Secretary of State, Condi, seem to have gone AWOL in that area. Bring the troops home.