The father of modern capitalism, that’s who:
The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. . . . The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess. . . . It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. -Adam Smith.
Guess who agrees with him about withdrawing US troops from Iraq?
The Iraqi government:
The Iraqi cabinet shot down the draft security agreement negotiated by the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and the Bush administration, insisting that several of its paragraphs need a change of wording. Bush administration officials say that they are unwilling to engage in yet another round of negotiations. Without cabinet approval, the draft probably would not even be submitted to parliament, much less passed by it. Some of the objections, as I reported yesterday, come from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is al-Maliki’s chief political partner, the support of which he would need to get the draft through parliament. ISCI is close to Tehran, which objects to the agreement.
Even al-Maliki seemed lukewarm about the draft his office had negotiated, complaining that the US government ‘takes away with one hand what it gave with the other.’
But not to worry, McCain picked up a key endorsement today.
What part of get out of jail free don’t you understand?
What part of having the free and sovereign government of a country declare that US troops are excess to their requirements don’t you understand? We get to go home! You appear to regard this as a dismal failure of arms or of policy or something. We are not Romans. Yeah, we learned a bad habit in Europe when we accepted that our role was to keep the Germans down and the Russians out. In Asia we served a dual role of keeping the Japs from becoming a damned nuisance and to keep the rest of Asia from exterminating the bastards.
Korea goes back and forth on the US forces in Korea. [import your own visual of a korean whore sucking up to America]
When the douche bags in Iraq decide to kick us out, well that is victory and they can join the Islamic Republic in their new found liberty and freedom.
poor bastards. it’s not what i would have wished for them. it shows little resemblance to what we offered the japs after 60+ years of occupation. And the japs were truly evil.
so, back again,
Actually, I regard Iraq kicking us out as a victory of sorts, except victory or defeat have no meaning in Iraqi context. It is something that could have and should have happened 3-4 years ago-but for the fact that the Iraqis were so tied to a useless religion and a system of tribes that makes no sense.
Our being in Europe and in Asia-are and were not the same thing. And the Japanese are nothing like the Iraqis.
However the key issue here is that it wrong to castigate Obama for wanting to lead our troops to “defeat”-when the terms are meaningless in the Iraqi context. McCain has been acting like the US can act unilaterally to stay-when in reality the Iraqis want us out. And if, in the end, the nation of Iraq joins the Islamic Republic to what purpose or gain will it have been for the US? It won’t have been for any.