"Two Years! Two Years! Talk to me about this in two years"

Friday, 20 August 2010

"Two Years! Two Years! Talk to me about this in two years"

So Iraq is free of occupation now

First, how many times have we since 2003 read about how the US is "transferring" authority and sovereignty to Iraqis. I mean, the departure of Paul Brenner was full of pomp and fanfare (fanfare is etymologically from the Arabic farfarah, according to W.M. Watt). So now, we are told, Iraq is free because ONLY 56,000 US occupation troops remain, in addition to the 100,000 US "contractors."

Posted by As'ad at 8:43 AM

"Two Years! Two Years! Talk to me about this in two years"

Via Friday-Lunch-Club

SST:

"...To fill the gap left by departing troops, the US State Department will more than double the number of security contractors it employs in Iraq to around 7000, the New York Times reported.
Citing unnamed administration officials, it said private contractors would operate radar to warn of enemyfire, hunt for roadside bombs and fly surveillance drones.
"This is an irresponsible withdrawal," said Hamid Fadhel, political science professor at Baghdad University."There are dangers to do with security of the country, concerns and fears for Iraq's external security, because of the lack of a military that is able to protect the country."
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"... The departure of this brigade means that we really are through in Iraq. The remaining 50,000 troops will be drawn down between now and the 2012 election. By that point there will only be a handful, a few thousand left. Will there be contract guards for the State department? Certainly, but they will be bodyguards operating within the confines of the Vienna Convention and Iraqi law.
Let us remember that US combat forces completed their withdrawal from Vietnam in 1972. I know because I was on one of the very last chartered aircraft (a Boeing 747) to leave Tan Son Nhut AFB at Saigon.....
Two years passed with five thousand or so advisers, diplomats, logistics people left behind in Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army stayed in its sanctuaries near the borders. There was little fighting, if any. Then, in 1975 Congress passed a law forbidding any further assistance of any kind for South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese Army then attacked en masse, defeated the ARVN and captured Saigon. In defense of the ARVN, I would point out that it is a much more difficult task to defend population centers spread over a country as big as California than it is to attack in specific sectors in locally overwhelming numbers.
Two Years! Two Years! Talk to me about this in two years."