Thursday, December 07, 2006

Ungrateful ragheads -- THAT'LL teach 'em.


Ah, this should get their attention:

KIM LANDERS: The Iraq Study Group has been working on its report since April, speaking to 170 people.

But members went to Iraq only once, and only one of them ventured outside Baghdad's green zone.

Their report offers no hard timetable for a pullout of US troops from Iraq, but recommends combat forces could be withdrawn by early 2008.

And it has a clear message for the Iraqi Government: take prompt action to make substantial progress towards achieving milestones on national reconciliation, security and governance, or face the US withdrawing its political, military or economic support.

Leon Panetta is a member of the Iraq Study Group.

LEON PANETTA: If the Iraqis fail to implement the reforms, if they fail to get a handle on the violence, there's nothing the United States can do, militarily or otherwise, that can solve those problems. They have to assume the primary responsibility to govern themselves.

KIM LANDERS: Larry Diamond from the Hoover Institution agrees with the need to threaten US sanctions.

LARRY DIAMOND: So unless we put these conditions on the table, you have to make compromises, you have to assume responsibility. If we're going to continue to support this at the level we are, I don't think these compromises are going to happen. So I think this pressure is necessary to turn this situation around.

And it's about damned time. I mean, after illegally invading their country, bombing their infrastructure into bits of rubble and allowing anything of value to be looted out from under them, there's nothing like threatening a country in the midst of civil war with international sanctions if they don't stop fucking around and get their shit together.

Tough love -- that's the ticket.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I think I'll buy me a punching bag.