This public relations farce of an American "withdrawal" from Iraq's cities (primarily by redrawing the borders of the cities) reminds me of nothing so much as that scene in
Alice and Wonderland where the Queen of Hearts orders the execution of her unexpected guests and then demands to know: "Are their heads off?" To which one of her equivocating military henchmen replies (of his escaped prisoners): "Their heads are
gone, if it please Her Majesty!"
Not to put too fine a point on the obvious obfuscation, President Obama has promised the American people, not to mention the Iraqis and the world at large, that American troops would leave Iraq's cities by an agreed-upon date this summer; and when inquiring of our General Motors Generals, Petraeus and Odierno, if American troops have "left," he appears perfectly willing to accept as answer: "The cities have moved 'right,' sir!"
Now I think I see the way that "all" American forces will withdraw from Iraq by yet another date certain two years hence: "Iraq" will simply move to the right on some American-drawn map until it merges with Kuwait and Iran. This will leave American troops, mercenaries, and corporate camp followers in exactly the positions they occupy today, only in some nebulously named territory not named "Iraq."
President (and Army General) Dwight Eisenhower spoke truly when he said that he pitied any future President who did not understand the American military the way he did. Certainly, President Obama -- America's newly-minted Commander-in-Brief -- clearly doesn't understand the U.S. Military one bit, or else he would have long since cashiered Generals Petraeus and Odierno for flagrantly and publicly deriding, while actively working to undermine, his announced policy of withdrawing all American military forces from Iraq within a perfectly reasonable -- indeed far too leisurely -- time frame. Coupled with the disastrously dumb idea of escalating an equally stupid quagmire conundrum in Afghanistan, it appears that President Obama has settled, by default, on the same failed "guns AND butter" policies of his failed predecessors Johnson, Nixon, and Bush, Jr.
At any rate, I'd like to know what this up-coming panel discussion has to say about neutralizing the ticket-punching American military careerists who put personal promotion and Orwellian Newspeak ahead of sane national foreign policy any day.