Tertiary thoughts about my previous post: Or half a loaf is better than no loaf

Tertiary thoughts about my previous post. Or half a loaf is better than no loaf.

Thinking over my most recent post, I just want to add that, in a way I am suggesting something along the lines of cut, and partially run. Thus a more creative solution to the impasse that is the present policy might be for, US troops to withdraw to Prosperity zones in the North of Iraq, and the South of Iraq. Similar to the no-fly zones, but on the ground.

Thus the area around Mosul, along the Turkish Border, and overlapping somewhat with the Kurds, would get 37,000 Us troops. The other 100,000 US troops join the British around Basra, and the first 3 southern provinces to the North.

Secure areas are formed where their is law and order, Oil refineries can be fixed, that part of the border with Iran is secured, and over time as people are free to go about there business, prosperity returns , at least to these areas.
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Well, this was interrupted by events in Iraq. Namely, the bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra. It just goes to show, that there are limits to what a people, with even best intentions can do, when faced with being caught in a nest of hornets.

Here is most of a post from Rep. John Murtha over at Huffington Post, which echoes where I was going with this, and points out what is becoming obvious to 61% of us:

"According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Second Edition, the definition of a civil war is a "war between political factions or regions within the same country." That is exactly what is going on in Iraq, not a global war on terrorism, as the President continues to portray it.

93 percent of those fighting in Iraq are Iraqis. A very small percentage of the fighting is being done by foreign fighters. Our troops are caught in between the fighting. 80 percent of Iraqis want us out of there and 45 percent think it is justified to kill American troops.
Iraqis went to the polls in droves on December 15th and rejected the secular, pro-democracy candidates and those who the Administration in Washington propped up. Preliminary vote results indicate that Iyad Allawi, the pro-American Prime Minister, received about 8 percent of the vote and Ahmad Chalabi, Iraq's current Oil Minister and close associate of the U.S. Iraq war planners, received less than 1 percent. According to General Vines, the top operational commander in Iraq, "the vote is reported to be primarily along sectarian lines, which is not particularly heartening." The new government he said "must be a government by and for Iraqis, not sects."
The ethnic and religious strife in Iraq has been going on, not for decades or centuries, but for millennia. These particular explosive hatreds and tensions will be there if our troops leave in six months, six years or six decades. It is time to re-deploy our troops and to re-focus our attention on the real threats posed by global terrorism."

--- 01.12.2006