Free Republic

I guess you can only fire the new CEO on Election Day.

President Barack Obama insisted on Sunday that military force alone would not end the war in Afghanistan and suggested a U.S. "exit strategy" could be part of a new comprehensive policy he is expected to unveil soon... "What we can't do is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems," Obama said. "So what we're looking for is a comprehensive strategy. And there's got to be an exit strategy ... There's got to be a sense that this is not perpetual drift..."

Iraqi, U.S. officials cite different pullout terms As the endgame of the U.S. involvement in Iraq develops, some plans are in place but there are several practical questions that remain unanswered. Under the withdrawal plan announced by President Barack Obama in late February, some 35,000 to 50,000 U.S. troops will remain in Iraq from summer 2010 to the end of 2011. Their mission is supposed to be limited to training Iraqi forces, conducting counter-terrorism operations, and protecting U.S. civilian and military personnel operating in the country. Some of the previous ideas about a continuing U.S. presence in the region have...

The Family Research Council is accusing the National Republican Campaign Committee (NRCC) of "abandoning" two socially conservative female congresswomen who are running for re-election. FRC says the National Republican Campaign Committee has pulled ad spending from races involving freshman Minnesota Representative Michele Bachmann and Colorado Representative Marilyn Musgrave. It was Musgrave who proposed the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2004. David Nammo is executive director of FRC Action PAC. He says whether it was going to give Bachmann and Musgrave money or stop running ads for them, the NRCC sent the wrong message to social conservatives by announcing it was pulling...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AP) -- On leave from the violence he had survived in the war in Iraq, a young Marine was so wary of crime on the streets of his own home town that he carried only $8 to avoid becoming a robbery target. Despite his caution, Lance Cpl. Robert Crutchfield, 21, was shot point-blank in the neck during a robbery at a bus stop. Feeding and breathing tubes kept him alive 41/2 months, until he died of an infection on May 18. Two men have been charged in the attack, and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason said Friday the...

Bin Laden Looks for an Exit StrategyBy Stephen Schwartz : 11 Sep 2007 Since 2001, each September we remember. Today, we first think of the frontline fighters in Iraq, Americans, Iraqis, and other members of the Coalition in combat, first against Saudi-incited, Wahhabi terrorism - miscalled a "Sunni insurgency." But none of us forgets the terror inflicted on the whole world six years ago; the sudden appearance, after so many years, of a real sense of American national unity, and the equally-surprising commitment to change in U.S. policies in the Middle East. President George W. Bush, in vowing to...

NEW YORK The Pittsburgh newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife yesterday called the Bush administration's plans to stay the course in Iraq a "prescription for American suicide." The editorial in the Tribune-Review added, "And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about 'sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved,' we had to question his mental stability." ...

The war in Iraq is approaching a kind of self-imposed climax. Public disenchantment is palpable. Congress will surely press for an accelerated, if not total, withdrawal of American forces. Demands for a political solution are likely to mount. But precipitate withdrawal would produce a disaster. It would not end the war but shift it to other areas, like Lebanon or Jordan or Saudi Arabia. The war between the Iraqi factions would intensify. The demonstration of American impotence would embolden radical Islamism and further radicalize its disciples from Indonesia and India to the suburbs of European capitals. We face a number...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. may be able to reduce combat forces in Iraq by next spring if Iraq's own security forces continue to grow and improve, a senior American commander said Friday. He denied reports the U.S. is arming Sunni insurgent groups to help in the fight against al-Qaida. Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, the top day-to-day commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, did not predict any reductions in U.S. forces but said such redeployments may be feasible by spring. There are currently 156,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Speaking to reporters at the Pentagon from his headquarters outside Baghdad, Odierno...

Pardon my rant, but this ridiculous debate about when we should abandon, retreat, wave goodbye to Afghanistan is getting under my skin. Considering the sacrifices of Canadians killed and maimed to date, and those of their families and loved ones, the "let's go home" crowd just doesn't get it. Western democratic governments of all political stripes have spent the past four decades, post-Vietnam, agonizing over the criteria to be applied when determining if their nation should deploy in support of a war effort. Overworked bureaucratic terminology such as "an identifiable end-state," "adequate resources to ensure victory," "willing partners" and, the...

It is early 1943. The Nazi Study Group has just released its Report on how to get out of the “entanglements” of WW II in Europe. There was no such study group, I hear you cry. But if there had been, based on the evidence of the Iraq Study Group Report, here’s how it would have gone. The war in Europe is going poorly, and getting worse. The Nazis have beat the snot out of the Allies in Europe (threw us off the continent, in fact). The Nazis are beating the snot out of our Allies in North Africa. Field...

James Baker's "Iraq Study Group" seems to have been cast on the same basis as Liza Minnelli's last wedding. A stellar lineup: Donna Summer, Mickey Rooney, the Doobie Brothers, Gina Lollobrigida, Michael Jackson, Mia Farrow, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Jill St. John. That's Liza's wedding, not the Baker Commission. But at both gatherings everyone who was anyone was there, no matter how long ago it was they were anyone. So the fabulous Baker boy was accompanied by Clinton officials Leon Panetta and Bill Perry, Clinton golfing buddy Vernon Jordan, Clinton's fellow sex fiend Chuck Robb, the quintessential ''moderate'' Republican...

A workable winning exit strategy. Basically, stop pussy footing around and win the war in Bagdad by an Iraq led divide and conquer strategy. Get the Iraq's government to take their gloves off and take the lead in this conflict... It's a winnable strategy, but only one that the Iraq leadership can successfully execute. * Step 1 -- Iraq needs to get Sadam's trial over and done ASAP -- execute him... OK, perhaps a side issue... * Step 2 -- Iraq needs to stop pussy footing around with the insurgency (whoever it is). o Start by dividing Bagdad into various...

Five years is not so very long in the life of nations, but there is a sense that the attacks of Sept. 11 and their aftermath have been too long with us. On Monday, as is right, there will be solemn commemorations and strong statements of resolve. I was in New York for the first anniversary commemorations and, amidst the still raw emotions, the attitude was resolute. Neither in Canada nor the United States, nor in the West in general, is that the case today. It is an ominous development, because resolve on the home front is the indispensable requirement...

In light of Bill Clinton's recent criticism of the US armed conflict in Iraq while on Saudi soil, of continued allegations by Congressional Democrats that President Bush lied about WMDs (or at least twisted the truth) in spite of their own votes in support of the war utilizing the same intelligence, I think it is well that we review President Clinton's own assessment of intelligence during his administration, a couple of years before 9/11/01. Exactly where WMDs might be is still a question though recent findings of enriched uranium next to sud missles indicates President Clinton's assessment (below) was accurate....

There is a repulsive conversation going on in Washington at the moment. Journalists, un-named Pentagon officials and many politicians are discussing, as if true, the precise method by which President Bush intends to exit from Iraq in time for the midterm elections next year. Perhaps future events will reveal me to be naive (not a charge usually posted against me). But for the record, I do not believe that President Bush is cynically looking for an exit strategy. However, most of the Washington political class clearly believes he is planning to pull troops out of Iraq in the next three...

The United States needs a new strategy in Iraq and the Persian Gulf. The war is at best a stalemate; the large American presence now causes more trouble than it prevents. We must disengage from Iraq—and we must do it by removing most American and allied military units within 18 months. Though disengagement has risks and costs, they can be managed. The consequences would not be worse for the United States than the present situation, and capabilities for dealing with them are impressive, if properly employed. Some people argue that the United States should disengage because the war was a...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 29, 2005 – "Quitting is not an exit strategy" for Iraq and would open a Pandora's box of risks to the American people, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Pentagon reporters today. "It would be a formula for putting more American people at still greater risk (and) an invitation for more terrorist violence," the secretary said. "Indeed, the more the enemies make it sound as though the United States is going to quit, the more encouraged they will be," Rumsfeld continued. "And the more successful they will be in recruiting and in raising money and in trying to...

Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said. Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end...

Rumsfeld fuels hopes of cut in US forces in Iraq by Guy Dinmore in Washington and Steve Negus in Cairo Published: November 20 2005 18:58 Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, on Sunday fuelled expectations that the US was contemplating a big reduction in its forces in Iraq next year, following reports that commanders had submitted plans to cut troop numbers to below 100,000. Appearing on several Sunday television news shows, Mr Rumsfeld spoke of the significant progress in Iraq on the political front and in training Iraqi government forces, which he said now numbered 212,000. Mr Rumsfeld was asked...