Put "strong horse" and "weak horse" into Google and let me know what you find.

C'mon, this is SPIN.

If you are going to take up the mantle of telling it like it is - as conservatives often do - then do just that, tell it like it is.

This is a pull-out cloaked in a mission accomplished banner.

Liberal, moderate, and conservative should all be able to readily see that. Forget where your partisan loyalties lie for just a blasted second and just tell it like it is. No spin.

If Southern Iraq is so stable, than surely the British can use those troops to augment our 'surge'. But they aren't. They're getting out.

They're getting out because 1) it is politically expedient and 2) a completely hopeless situation. That they've come up with such a neat and tidy way to sell it is just that, a neat and tidy way of selling it.

Forget where your partisan loyalties lie and just admit it. This war should never have happened. This administration lied, distorted, and cherry-picked intelligence (something that was clear to me from the very damned beginning by the way). They executed their mission with all the compentency of the keystone cops. Now we are trapped and all options suck.

Honestly, I don't know what to do. I don't trust a damn thing about this administration, so I have zero confidence in a surge. That said, I don't necessarily think a pull-out or a draw-down is the best option either. The argument that a pull-out or draw-down would motivate the Iraqis to get things under control is simply more spin. Really, it is a cowardly way of washing our hands of the mess we created.

That doesn't logically follow. Britain, which has a large portion of anti-war people, wouldn't be able to politically support the surge. But that doesn't mean that Southern Iraq isn't stable.

How do you know it isn't stable? Have you heard anything about Southern Iraq in the media prior to this? No. You only hear about things in Afghanistan or Iraq when things aren't going well. You will probably start hearing stories about problems in Souther Iraq now that Britain is OK with leaving.

But this generally supports my view of the problem with anti-war stuff since we've been there. We don't need perfection to leave. We just need the Iraqis to take over. But if that condition is met people will assume we are reacting to anti-war sentiment instead of the conditions on the ground. In other words, anti-war types have created a no-win situation.

And this is why this is horrible. Al Qaeda will claim the same thing which will make them look better in Muslim eyes helping them. Again, if you doubt me, do the "strong horse" "weak horse" Google search. Perceived weakness increases Islamic terrorism.

Southern Iraq is and always (since the invasion) has been more quiet and more stable than Baghdad and central Iraq. That's because southern Iraq is overwhelmingly Shiite. Without a substantial Sunni population, there is nobody to have a civil war with. So, it's quiet. Simple.

This doesn't imply hope for those parts of Iraq in which there is a mixture of Sunnis and Shiites. Those two groups are struggling for control of the country and, I'm afraid, just have to be allowed to fight it out until one side wins. I can't even imagine what "success" looks like in this scenario.

BTW, if "perceived weakness" is such a liability, it seems to me that the wise thing to do would be to avoid situations in which you'll come off as looking weak (and stupid). Ergo, we never should have invaded the damn country in the first place.

The first Bush made that point in his book...it's a shame the son can't read.

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Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.
Sigmund Freud

"l"

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"People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people".

Don't you think avoiding hard situations would be noticed? Why do you think Saddam, Iran, etc., etc. aren't frightened by the "world community." If I were a bad guy I would just wait until January 2009 and then go hog-wild.

Avoiding hard situations, or creating them? The fact that there was a problem (Saddam Hussein) does not mean that the problem must be solved. Many problems can be lived with because the solutions are worse. Often, they solve themselves. Time, for instance, will cure our Castro problem and would have solved our Saddam problem. Other people pay the price of our impatience.

Or time may have made things worse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Survey_Group

Might, maybe, coulda, shoulda. The right wing is transfixed by theoretical problems. To eliminate a theoretical problem, it has gotten 3,000+ Americans killed, plus...how many Iraqis? And to justify these very real deaths, it presents theoretical benefits:

"...the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially..."

Why does this remind me of the "Great Maybe" promises of lottery and casino advertising: "You, too, could be a winner (or loser)!"?