This seems like good news. But I’ve learned not to trust good news?

I agree, but, it’s a major milestone! Think about how stubborn Shrub has been about ‘Timelines’…!

I recommended you, CTuttle!

Oh, and I submitted you to Digg!

Why not leave now? Save a few hundred billion and stop the oppression at the same time.

Dang, ES, getting greedy, eh? Itty-bitty steps… Shrub couldn’t possibly eat that much crow in one sitting!

It sounds like 39 long Months for something to go wrong. I’ve been around long enough to become a true believer of Mr. Murphy.

While the timelines sound good, I have to still wonder about what had been the realy bone of contention until now, and what it seems, from the AP story at least, to be still completely unresolved:

But the most contentious issue — legal jurisdiction and immunity for U.S. troops under Iraqi law — remains unresolved.

It was the US SOFA with Iran that exempted US soldiers from any Iranian law no matter what offenses were committed that was pretty much the cause celebre that was used in overturning the Shah. It’s been kind of a hot button issue with the Iranians for a long time and I have to kind of wonder what will happen there. Maybe they think the agreement to move back onto bases (why would we still be there, btw, if all we are going to do is sit on a base? no air raids no support to local police or troops - umm, why would we be there instead of coming home at that point?) after June is a trade off that will make the Iraqis agree to waiving jurisdiction for crimes - but I have to wonder.

OTOH, I’m not all that much a big believer that there is any valid waiver of jurisdiction now - certainly, the Iraqi parliment has never granted it and the Bremmer order was never adopted by the current govenment and the current government is a completely different entity (not a successor, but a new entity operating under a constitution that did not exist when Bremmer was ther) than the CPA.

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see.

congrats on the front page CT!

they need to get out of Iraq ASAP.

Whah did they surrenduh to the terris? Bunch o’ libruls.

Amen, Tex, and mahalo!

Heh, Is Shrub waving the white flag of surrender…?

We don’t need no stinking white flag. We’re winning damit! /s

Mr. Murphy was an optimist!

ct! front paged at the lake! congrats dood

And the ‘Surge’ worked… Right…?

With my Sox winning, Life is Good! *g*

It’ll be great seeing our guys come home,I just wish it could have been sooner!!

There will still be the need to re-build the country it’s still pretty much in shambles.

Another Bush mess for the Obama administration to clean up!

Hell yes! You know it did!/s

OTOH, I’m not all that much a big believer that there is any valid waiver of jurisdiction now - certainly, the Iraqi parliment has never granted it and the Bremmer order was never adopted by the current govenment and the current government is a completely different entity (not a successor, but a new entity operating under a constitution that did not exist when Bremmer was ther) than the CPA.

If no such waivers exist now, why wouldn’t the furious Iraqi’s have pursued charges against Blackwater by this point in time?

Well done, ct. Good news indeed. Does President Obama have to stick to this timetable? Does this firmly tie us to Iraq until that date?

Anyone know what McPain has to say about this? He’s always been so attached to Bush’s policies and has spouted often how a timeline is the wrong way to go. He must be smoking through his ears. I’d love to have seen the look on his face when he found out about Bush’s decision. What’d he going to say now???

GO SOX!!!!!!

we win! I mean loose! i mean, something, wtf!

I guess this means we’ll get to relive the iraq ‘issue’ in the 2012 debates.

Middle of the 6th, 1-0. Don’t start crowin’. *g* My Dodgers got no stick but my Rays are famous for bottom of the 9th ass kickin’.

Rays? I guess it’s been a while since i’ve watch baseball.

We can have the debate theme be The Never Ending Story. You can bet your ass the republics will come up with a thousand more reason why we can’t leave Iraq even in 2012.

It would be wonderful to see Obama after being sworn in as President turning to shake the Deciders hand and as he grasps that cold, clammy lifeless limb he slips handcuffs on GW wrist and has him sent off to the Hague.

That’s over 3 years from now. I hope we can get everybody out sooner than that.

Seriously, I think the current economic meltdown and the pressure it’s going to put on government spending is likely to scale back or curtail some of our superfluous military commitments, including the Iraq occupation.

Aren’t you rooting for the rays over at the other place?!?

No it doesn’t! Actually, Maliki wants an earlier timeline and I’m sure Obama would comply…!

Now that is a beautiful mental image.

Congrats on the front page. Would like to see more like this on the front page. Just cuz the corporate morons don’t want to talk about it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

The butcher bill as of today - 4180 +

This is where you digg CT’s post.

I don’t think I’ve ever left any doubt in anybody’s mind whom I root for…! *g*

When will McSame come out and accuse Shrub of waving the white flag of surrender?

Tomorrow would be best exit strategy but it’s all about Cheney’s beloved Halliburton et al raking in obsene profits for three more years and the Democrats have to pay for it. The extra bonus for the neocons is that it further cripples an already frail economy. Grover Norquist, the traitor, may finally get to “drown the goverment in a bathtub”

Don’t forget the leg-irons, don’t want him hopping on his mountain bike and pedaling away.

So proud of you, CTuttle!

The ongoing saga of the debate of defeat! Staring Le Fem Dem and Pug the Great!

Don’t have cable so I have to listen on da radio. Dodgers were on regular Fox earlier, though.

Only if they stick Timlin in… Gawd, I was so pissed when Francona said he’d activated him for the ALCS…!

He could declare him a terrorist and ship his a** to Gitmo.

last time i paid any attention to baseball kent was still throwing with that crazy side arm.

eli up at the mothership

Congrats CT, it seems we will share an anniversary although I have to say this is an awesome post.
I notice Stupie didn’t interrupt national television to brag about this historic agreement.

Weasel.

“The immunity for US troops and contractors still remain a thorny issue”; then kiss it off;the Parliament will NOT go along with any immunity for contractors period. And al-Sistani is saying is what he has said repeatedly in the past; Kabuki by al-Maliki.

Until the details of what this ‘agreement’ says is published, no reason to get excited. Simply stated, the U.S. can’t afford to stay in Iraq past 2009.

Don’t mean to be a downer but I’ve been against the invasion since the beginning of the buildup of ships and troops prior to the invasion and want to have us out of Iraq ASAP(meaning yesterday) but don’t trust AP reporting(especially when it comes on the heels of a Negroponte visit).

I guess it’s time to throw the contractors mercenaries under the bus. Immunity for the regular Army but you can have the Blackwater Boys. Hey, there’s plenty more where they came from…

I’m fascinated that nobody is picking it up… All the press corpse are burying it… What’s the deal…?

To the issue at hand

including agreeing to pull U.S. forces back to their bases by the end of June

This is huge. The devil is in the details, however.

The cost in treasure, alone, makes a 2011 deadline problematic. And who in their right mind would set an agreement for immunity for corporations?

What a beautiful image….waving Good by.

It negates the McSFB mantra. If our illustrious corporate Rethug media ignores it they believe it will simply disappear.

“Irak? Oh, that’s not important anymore. Did you know Bill Ayers was an Weather Underground terrist?”

Honestly, I’ve been tracking it from the beginning and I really think the concession on the time line might do the trick, and, Sistani’s nominal approval is a seismic shift on his part… I think the immunity issue, as distasteful as it is, won’t break the deal in Parliament as long as they can secure the definitive removal of our troops…!

w3rd.

Someone in my town has been stealing all the obama signs. The field office has even run out of signs!

logical

You betcha. Once any agreement has been formalized regarding the troops, Blackwater and the rest of the mercenaries and contractors will disappear like cockroaches under a spotlight.

as long as they can secure the definitive removal of our troops

The Irakis don’t trust us. Do you think Parliament will approve immunity? I’m skeptical.

They can read our polls too…!

This just takes a major tile out of McCain’s mosaic. No more bottomless committment. The Iraqi’s have definitely said that they want a timetable and received a firm “by” date. Of course, we can leave earlier.

No Korea-style occupation. The Iraqis don’t want us there. Period.

Something is wrong with the Digg counter, it has been Dugg 13 times but it still sez ZERO at the top.

Something is wrong with Oxdown’s diggs…!

Works for me.

Great post CT, but I got’s to ask ya hoss:

So what happens to all the big ass bases we built?

What happens to The Green Zone, the world’s biggest embassy?

I see a LOT of unanswered questions in all this.

I don’t see USA leaving all this behind. Ever. I don’t buy it.

And as I’ve said before, the minute USA stops paying off Awakening, Sons Of Iraq, and any OTHERS we’re buying off including Shia and Kurds, they’ll be at each others throats in a New York Minute. And we’ll be staying a bit longer than expected, won’t we . . .

There’s just NO way, despite the genocide and relocation of Sunni’s (which USA enabled), that the Shia of Al Maliki, or anyone else, can rule this mess over there. It’s too fractured, and now there’s new debts to resolve, tribe by tribe.

Al Maliki is weak as a central government, and will fracture fast once we stop making our blood payments. I’ll be surprised if he lasts thru the year. Can you say, Karzai?

And the Kurds. Who is gonna stop the Turks from beating the crap outta them up north, and maybe even claiming some land and oil?

What with Iraqi VP Talibani’s recent medical issues keeping him out of the game, perhaps forever, The Kurds have no political clout within Al Maliki’s government anymore . . not real clout.

Now all they got is oil, which everyone wants, and a fierce pride and a history of being dumped on by all their foreign PARTNERS, who let them down time after time. Including USA (can you say Meo, Mien, Hmong).

So, lemme clarify MY position. We get out, as fast as possible and let it play out. It’s our mess, but we can’t fix it, ever. All we can do is get out, and let it fall where it may.

I don’t believe we WILL get out, SOFA or not . . . . I just don’t believe it.

But if we do, then we can invest and rehab and redevelop afterwards to atone for our god fucking awful sins of invading and destroying one of the oldest civilizations on the earth and all it’s relics.

How you atone for more than a million dead and millions displaced thru ethnic cleansing we enabled, though, I don’t know.

We as a nation should be ashamed and should have held our leaders who GOT us into all this accountable at The Hague, long ago.

But, here we are . . . fracturing OURSELVES now, over a dying old man who has 4 stage lymphoma, a fundie governor who thinks the planet’s only 6K years old and doesn’t believe in women’s rights and a black man with dignity and PERHAPS the vision to lift us out of our many decades old entrenched failings of governing to keep the rich richer . . .

We as a nation don’t HAVE what it takes to make other places better anymore.

And so it’s time we took care of our own and we cleaned out our OWH house.

Then maybe, we can set forth once again upon the world stage as a leader and builder, and not a destroyer.

Harumph.

Yeah, I gotta make sure I acknowledge that also . . . I drifted off on my OTHER reply.

RAWK CT!!! *G*

All very good points, however, in regards to building bases and then abandoning them is not unusual, three bases that I’ve personally served at were turned over to the foreign government or BRAC’ed…! the rest of your rant is notable, but, not up to us to decide…!

Kent? A pitcher named Kent, throwing sidearm/submarine?

You sure you don’t mean Satchel Paige? Or maybe some of THESE guys?

Ted Abernathy – after 1957
Ken Johnson – occasionally
Andy Hassler – occasionally
Kent Tekulve – 1980’s revival starter
Dan Quisenberry
Bob Long
Terry Leach
Mark Eichhorn – after 1983 injury

I miss the Quis. Sad.

He was the man in his time, wasn’t he . . . . and we lost him all too soon, too. Agreed.

I’m wondering if tw3k @ 44 might have meant Jeff Kent’s second base throwing arm? Maybe I assumed pitcher . . . and missed the mark . . . ?

I think not…
Kent played here for a good while, until Bonds asserted his contract (asshole), but I don’t recall anything but a very good arm - sidearm… don’t know.

tw3k?

Thanks CT . . . on the base closings . . we’re talking the mid east, with oil, hoss, oil.

And pipelines, too . . .

I just don’t see the 1% giving up on that kind of positioning and control. And maybe leaving it all for the Russians and Chinese. I just don’t see it, no matter HOW much I want it to be, for us to get OUT, and let it be.

But ya know, I keep overlooking something you point out regularly. The economy. This is NOT 2003 when we invaded for all the neocon PNAC points.

And the economy, it’s bad for EVERYONE! Global wise. So expanding global aspirations to control energy resources just MIGHT be out of the realm of doable for anyone, at this time.

Even for the 1%.

Man, to live in the islands and catch fish and eat pineapple and coconut and surf all day. Now THAT’S a life a bad economy can’t hurt too bad . . Mahalo, CT!

I’ve always been a HUGE Jeff Kent fan . . . was he hurt this year, is THAT why he’s not starting?

Me, too. Barry’s drag on that team was greater than just the homer machine.
And the injury is probably it. Gifted player. Infielder with more than common pop in his bat.

There are these Iraqi families that filed a lawsuit (a civil case in the U.S. though)against Blackwater. I’m not sure if they tried to file or have some kind of charges brought in Iraq or if they did what became of it.

Seconded.

Great post, thank you.

Dugg. Thanks for the link.

I think this is terrible news.

Oh it’s good there’s an itsy, bitsy little glow at the end of the tunnel 38 months from now considering we’re supposedly in a long term war. 3+ more years… that’s only half as long as we’ve been in so far.

We all know, or should know there was never a reason for us to be in there in the first place. My question is “why should we stay?” The response would be something about the abomination that we created collapsing on our leaving. This may sound brutal in the extreme but: so?
More brutality: Let God sort it out.

This war has been the sleight of hand that the Neocon right has used to distract us from the rape, plunder and pillage of America by the modern Robber Barons. The very conservative cost so far is $700 billion with a probably equally conservative total cost of $2 trillion. Not to mention 4180 American KIAs and over 25000 wounded, the majority of them severely wounded.

If we abandon all the permanent structures and just pick up our toys and leave it’ll cost a mere $85 billion but it will save over $295 billion. Of course Afghanistan and Pakistan are filling up the rearview… another abomination created by the Republican party. Unless we go after it aggressively (instead of the Rumsfeld method of war-on-a-shoestring), we’ll be stuck there for another 10 years, 5500 KIA and an easy 3 trillion dollars.

A better solution would be to do what we did against the Indians 200 years ago: put out rewards for terrorists. Osama Bin Laden: $250 million. High level terrorists: $5 million. Mid level: $1 million. Low level: $100,000 Lackeys and minions: $10,000. As they say on Wall Street: Put the profit motive to work for us. Compared to what we’ve paid so far the cost would be infinitesimal.

These wars are killing us in too many ways to mention. No one really knows what the total cost will be but if we stay in Iraq for 3 more years and engage Afghanistan with the same brilliant tactics and strategy that we’ve used in Iraq, say another 6 years of battlefield mismanagement, you’re looking at a 6-10 trillion dollar hit on the economy–if we ‘win’.
What’s winning anyway? Is like the ‘Peace With Honor’ we ended up with in the Vietnam War?

Left out of every solution for the economy’s problems is the impact of the war on terror. Neither McCain or Obama have mentioned it. Money spent on the war has no return for anyone except the military industrial complex. Social Security, Medicare, healthcare and college/school for everyone; the list goes on and on for items that would have provided a much bigger return on investment.

Now more then ever it’s time that we just cut our losses and move on.

Wombat, hard to argue with your logic… I’m only trying to point out that there finally is a glimmer of light at the end of the abysmally long tunnel…!

The timeline is to save Bush’s pride he wants another President to lose Iraq on their watch Or thats what G.W is hoping for.

Hey, CTuttle, you’re missing a couple of exclamation points in that title, aren’t you???!!!

Recommended and dugg.