[Marxism] Rummy floats a trial ballon!

[Duane Roberts <duaneroberts92804@xxxxxxxxx>]

Robert Novak, a right-wing columnist for the Chicago
Sun-Times, wrote an article last week suggesting that
the Bush/Cheney junta is right now in the process of
making preparations to "cut and run" from Iraq
sometime after the phony elections they'll be staging
in that country are completed.

Although I realize this could be propaganda planted by
Karl Rove, there is a good chance this rumor might
prove to be true. The Bush/Cheney junta has so badly
botched up things in Iraq that unless they drastically
intensify the war by sending hundreds of thousands of
more troops, the U.S. will be defeated.

Given this politically untenable situation, "Dubya"
might pull a Nixon: declare victory and say he
accomplished his goal of bringing freedom to the
people of Iraq by getting rid of the Evil Saddam; then
withdraw troops and let the Iraqis sort out their own
affairs. Negotiate with whomever comes out on top.

The following statement made by Secretary of Defense
Donald "Abu Ghraib" Rumsfeld is a trial balloon
designed to gauge public sentiment and evoke a
response from the Kerry camp. It's doubtful "Rummy"
would have said any of this without consulting
higher-ups within the Bush/Cheney junta.

It will be very interesting to hear what Senator John
Kerry and his friends in the phony opposition party
are going to say about all of this given that over the
past year they've repeatedly attacked "Dubya" for not
sending more troops to Iraq to fight the growing
insurgency.

Sincerely,

Duane J. Roberts
duaneroberts92804@xxxxxxxxx


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040925/IRAQ25/TPInternational/Americas

>From The Toronto Globe and Mail (Canada)

U.S. could scale back troops in Iraq, Rumsfeld says

By PAUL KORING
Saturday, September 25, 2004 - Page A15

WASHINGTON -- Some U.S. troops could be ordered home
even if they fail to quash the mounting insurgency in
Iraq, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said
yesterday, admitting for the first time that the
"heavy footprint" of American tanks, soldiers and
warplanes might be fomenting more opposition than it
quells.

After talks at the Pentagon with Iraq's interim Prime
Minister Ayad Allawi, the hawkish Mr. Rumsfeld
signalled a shift in U.S. priorities from aggressively
stamping out the insurgency to taking an increasingly
back-seat role to Iraqi forces. He said U.S. troops
might be part of the problem, rather than the
solution.

"The heavier your footprint is, the more intrusive you
are in their lives," he said, adding that the military
advantage of maintaining nearly 150,000 heavily armed
U.S. ground forces in Iraq needs to be weighed against
the anger aroused by their continuing presence nearly
18 months after they toppled Saddam Hussein's regime.

"No country wants foreign forces . . . any longer than
they have to be there," Mr. Rumsfeld said, adding that
Iraq may never be entirely peaceful and that it would
be a mistake to maintain a huge number of U.S. troops
on the ground to attempt to achieve that goal. Rather,
he said, the focus needs to be on training and
equipping Iraqi forces to battle the insurgency.

"Any implication that that place has to be peaceful
and perfect before we can reduce coalition and U.S.
forces, I think, would obviously be unwise, because
it's never been peaceful and perfect, and it isn't
likely to be," he said.

"It's a tough part of the world," he said, adding that
nowhere -- and certainly not major American cities --
is entirely peaceful. "We had something like 200 or
300 or 400 people killed in many of the major cities
of America last year. . . . What's the difference? We
just didn't see each homicide in every major city in
the United States on television every night."

However, even in the most crime-ridden U.S. cities,
there are few days that compare to what passes for
Iraq's new normality.

Yesterday, insurgents kidnapped four more foreign
workers, fired a small missile that exploded on a busy
Baghdad street and sent a barrage of mortar shells at
the Italian embassy.

And the cycle of violence seems to be worsening.

Foreign workers are fleeing Iraq, fearing kidnappings,
and slowing already fitful reconstruction efforts. The
number of suicide car bombings has soared in recent
weeks, with more than 30 since the beginning of
September. Mr. Allawi said more than 3,600 Iraqi
civilians have been killed and 12,000 wounded in the
past five months of fighting.

Yesterday, Mr. Rumsfeld said that a significant
drawdown of U.S. troops in Iraq might come sooner than
years from now. It seemed an attempt to counter recent
political gambits by Senator John Kerry, the Democrat
trying to unseat President George W. Bush.

Mr. Kerry has said he would bring some U.S. troops
home by from Iraq next summer, and all of them by the
end of his first four-year term, if he were elected
president.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com

_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism