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I actually agree with him. The whole notion of "timetables" is stupid and reeks of bureaucrat-think. The process of stabilizing and governing a violent country in the wake of a power vacuum is not something you can plot out in "timetables" or as some big Microsoft Project file.

If he wants continued U.S. military support (i.e. my Soldiers, me, and 150,000 others like us), then he had damn well better put up with a few metrics from us. We have dumped almost 4,000 lives, over 20,000 or so wounded, and neary hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars into this dump, and he thinks he has the right to say, "No one can tell me what to do! No one can hold me accountable!" Bullsh*t.

Every time I hear some manicured Washington DC politician or bureaucrat spout off about "timetables" or "benchmarks" I want to p*ke.

Really? Does it make you sick enough to join up and help us out over here?

If he wants continued U.S. military support (i.e. my Soldiers, me, and 150,000 others like us), then he had damn well better put up with a few metrics from us.

You make it sound like we are providing military support there solely and exclusively as a nicey-nice favor to Iraq, not because it is in our national interest to do so. If this is really the case, then I cannot support the military presence in Iraq any further in the first place, regardless of what Iraq's government does or does not do.

Personally I had always thought it was in our interest to prevent Iraq from becoming a failed-state / Al Qaeda safe haven, and that's why we maintain a military presence there. If that's the case, then applying "metrics" to Iraq's government is irrelevant because regardless of whether or not Iraq's government meets any of our "metrics", whatever they might be, the reason for which (I had thought) we have a military presence there in the first place remains.

So you tell me: why are we there? As a favor, or because it's in our interest?

“If he wants continued U.S. military support (i.e. my Soldiers, me, and 150,000 others like us), then he had damn well better put up with a few metrics from us. We have dumped almost 4,000 lives, over 20,000 or so wounded, and neary hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars into this dump, and he thinks he has the right to say, “No one can tell me what to do! No one can hold me accountable!” Bullsh*t.”

The above is clearly the post of this thread, and likely the post of the month.

Bravo to you, Sir! is all that can be said in response by anyone capable and willing to take it at face value.

roger that...some folks think the “six inch” view is the one from in front of the television or the computer...one tends to see it a little different from the ground than from a Google Earth snapshot...keep up the good work, LT