Watching Hardball today with a debate between Stolz of Votevets.org and a McCain shill from "Vets for Freedom" concerning Maliki's push for a timetable, I was struck by the strong indication that the McCain campaign is ready to take credit for Maliki pushing the U.S. troops out of his country.  

In responding to McCain's "not very important" remark about troops staying in Iraq, Senator Obama today was better than other Democrats yesterday. But he still missed the real point, and I hope he'll get it.

A lot can hinge on the meaning of 'is'.  I think it was Bertrand Russell who said that most philosophical problems are confusions of the 'is' of predication, the 'is' of identity, and the 'is' of existential quantification.  The mining of such careful logical and grammatical distinctions that began with Frege and matured with Russell flourished in Wittgenstein's thinking with the idea that there are no real philosophical problems, only logico-grammatical confusion.

President Bush has abrogated his role as Commander in Chief by letting Gen. David Petraeus choose the troop levels in Iraq, Afghanistan, and also the reserves at home.

One weakness of news coverage of the Iraq war has been the lack of convincing "big picture" stories.  Even when reporters try to do this, they invariably give snapshot views of events in a few provinces, or quote a single set of numbers -- the statistic du jour -- with maybe a single comparison to the numbers at some single previous point.

But in this case, as in many others, a lot of information is out there and just needs to be put together and made accessible.  This diary is an attempt to do that.

The following (except the U.S. levels) is collected from: Bush's disappearing alliance. The Boston Globe gave no figure for U.S. troops or mercenaries; my sources for the U.S. levels are below.

Combined with the info below the fold, this indicates the total coalition force to be approximately 345,700, of which 335,000 are U.S. Military or paid for by the Pentagon. Thus 97% of the coalition troops are provided by our government. Some of the US-hired contractors may not be considered mercenaries, but all of the contractors are supporting our military effort and doing jobs that our military would have fulfilled in past wars.

New York Times, Sept. 13, 2007:

Yet as the president outlines his plan, his critics say he is trying to have it both ways. He is, they say, taking credit for a drawdown that has been envisioned since he first announced the current buildup on Jan. 10 — a withdrawal that had to be carried out unless he was willing to take the politically unpalatable step of extending soldiers’ tours further.

The White House declined on Wednesday to preview Mr. Bush’s speech, but one senior administration official, speaking anonymously to avoid upstaging the president, said the reductions would be heavily conditioned on the situation in Iraq and would fall far short of the rapid withdrawal Democrats want.

Anyone whose blood does not run cold at reading those ten words, "reductions would be heavily conditioned on the situation in Iraq," has not only not been living in America for the past four years; they've also never even heard of George W. Bush.

Greg Sargent at TPM Election Central just published his summary of Barack Obama's speech today about the war in Iraq.  Of particular interest is Sargent's characterization of Obama's plan for managing the war in the immediate future.

Obama will...propose that withdrawal from Iraq begin immediately, to be completed by the end of next year, as well as proposing a new constitutional convention in Iraq, to be convened with the United Nations.

Obama's actual words after the jump.

Last night, ABC News published a damning story where U.S. officials told ABC News that the senior commanders in Iraq were expecting to keep the troop surge going until December, and were expecting to make this recommendation in the September report to Congress.  The U.S. officials told ABC News that there were two plans being considered that would provide a partial U.S. withdrawal of the 150,000 U.S. troops to between 100,000 to 130,000 troops.  These U.S. troops would remain in Iraq well beyond January 2009.  The ABC News story was posted last Friday evening, and then deleted this Saturday morning.

Now Junglered1 first reported this strange deletion of the ABC News story in this post.  I want to go into a little more detail as to what this story means, and to speculate as to why did ABC News delete this story.  More on the flip.  

The New York Times has a story up indicating that Bush my cut American forces in Iraq by up to 50% just prior to the 2008 elections.

White House Is Said to Debate ’08 Cut in Iraq Troops by 50%

This of course would give Bush "credit" for winning the war, still allow Bush to push the failure off onto the next administraion and allow the GOP highlight the Democrats' bumbling failures at ending the war - or at least paint the Democrats as a hinderance to Bush's "successful" policy.

I've quoted Madison before here, but since the bizarre "micromanaging" accusation is now being repeated in the Senate debates he deserves to be pushed again.

Something I read here several times recently: That it was obvious that the WH spin of 20,000 combat troops was disingenuous as the support staff needed for the "surge" far exceeded the combat troops ..... It seems now that the WH realizes too and have gone public with it.

After he'd left for Montevideo, Bush released a rejigged request for funds to Nancy Pelosi with an accompanying note:

"This revised request would better align resources based on the assessment of military commanders to achieve the goal of establishing Iraq and Afghanistan as democratic and secure nations that are free of terrorism,"

Reuters
http://www.alertnet.org/...

So, is the surge working? Some would say it is, at least in Baghdad. It hasn't been reported on widely, but murders in Baghdad are down 70%, attacks are down 80%. Some who had fled the violence in Baghdad now feel it's safe enough to return.

The question is, will it last? And are the instigators of violence in Baghdad merely waiting for an opportunity to strike, waiting for the surge to end, or withdrawing out of Baghdad to regroup elsewhere.

This turnaround in Baghdad is confirmed at home by the media's near-deafening silence. "Fool me once... shame on you; fool me twice..." Well, you know the phrase. The media seems reluctant to draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of the surge so far. It appears to be accomplishing the goal of reducing -- albeit not eliminating -- the violence in Baghdad, but for how long, and will it translate to lasting peace once American soldiers come home?

The announcement of a troop draw down from Iraq by the UK on Feb 21, 2007 resulted in considerable misunderstanding. This was increased by the spin applied to this announcement by the governments of both the UK and USA. To this must be added the desire on both the Right and the Left to draw conclusions to better support their own agendas.

The Internet, through the ability to write commentaries on ePluribus Media, Daily Kos, and the invitation by Juan Cole to be a guest editor on Informed Comment, allowed the opportunity to rectify some of the misunderstanding that had occurred.

Beyond simply attempting to gain a clearer view of the reasoning behind this specific action of the British government, it is the wider consequences and implications that are the real interest in undertaking a much fuller analysis.

Emergency spending Bill tied to Iraq Withdrawal, Bush promise's Veto, wouldn't he be the guilty party? Would anything stop him?
           I heard this earlier today but didn't think too much about it until I thought it over and realized what it would mean. I really have to laugh! You would now have a date for Bush's attack on Iran. I have to laugh when Democrats think they can stop anything. They are well intentioned but powerless. Bush will merely attack Iran before any stop date came into effect if it did. The only thing this is going to do is give you the date when Bush will attack Iran. I refuse to believe they think they are going to top the chief idiot from his plan for new world (dis) order.
         Antiwar lawmakers Thursday called on colleagues in the House of Representatives to set a "clear timeline" for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, challenging fellow Democrats to assume the political risk of ending the war.
         In a press conference, members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Out of Iraq Caucus proposed legislation that would require
       

SO, now that the deployment of troops is officially underway,
the Army is admitting what it has always known.

The the "Surge" is really an escalation.

The NYT Reports

The day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq has recommended that the heightened American troop levels there be maintained through February 2008, military officials said Wednesday.

when is  a surge not a surge?  

Answer: When it's an escalation.

How to get Bush Not to fund the Iraq War

With poll

It is very simple.

The argument is about being fiscally responsible. In every other war Americans sacrificed for the troops and the war effort.

The Iraq war is costing more than the Bush White house estimated.

If Bush wants to increase the troop levels and continued US presence in Iraq then Bush must expect ALL Americans to sacrifice for the Troops and America's common good. This is called shared sacrifice.

The way to do that is to either let the tax cuts sunset to pay for the war effort or simply rescind them now.

Every American understands it is their patriotic duty to support the troops. Who would disagree?

Can someone please, pretty please, explain to me why, exactly, we care about what "the enemy" thinks of us? If I hear one more time that opposition to The Surge "emboldens the enemy" I am going to scream.

"Emboldening the enemy" is a justification for not doing something, not a justification for doing something. It’s not as if sending more troops will debolden the enemy. Let’s assume, for a moment that America doesn’t send more troops into Iraq. How does this embolden the enemy any more than they already are? I would say that our enemy in Iraq is already pretty damn bold.