Monday, September 26, 2005
GTFO Iraq: Prof. Cole Now Agrees
Juan Cole has changed his previous stance of supporting only a limited pullout of US troops. Read the whole thing. The Good Professor (as opposed to the Ol' Perfesser AKA Instacracker, and also as opposed to the Bad Magician) drops the sweet sounds of science: facts, research and logic.
It looks like someone noticed the Ugly Ducklings. Juan Cole:
Tin foil hat tip to Tin Foil Hat Boy for revealing his obsession with this subject in comments here.
UPDATE: Per alert reader Tom Scudder, the Good Professor is a Tricksy Professor:
But it seems to me Juan Cole is gradually moving away from his original position. As of Saturday 9-24:
That's almost close enough to GTFO for me. Prof. Cole thinks the aftermath of a withdrawal will be more like Bosnia than Vietnam. So we could treat it the same way, by bombing the bejeebus out of any faction that goes too far. I have some issues with this plan: without US ground troops there will be no Iraqi army left to request air support, the Serbs had a government and infrastructure that we could punish from the air while most of the Sunni area has been turned to rubble already and there is no official Sunni government or army, and also the bosnian operation had an international mandate. But that's just my less-informed comment.
I conclude that the presence of the US ground troops is making things worse, not better.
Let's get them out, now, before they destroy any more cities, create any more hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons, provoke any more ethnic hatreds by installing Shiite police in Fallujah or Kurdish troops in Turkmen Tal Afar. They are sowing a vast whirlwind, a desert sandstorm of Martian proportions, which future generations of Americans and Iraqis will reap.
The ground troops must come out. Now. For the good of Iraq. For the good of America.
It looks like someone noticed the Ugly Ducklings. Juan Cole:
The hundreds of thousands of protesters who came out throughout the world on Saturday were demanding a US and British withdrawal from Iraq.
The protesters are right that we have to get US ground troops out of Iraq.
Tin foil hat tip to Tin Foil Hat Boy for revealing his obsession with this subject in comments here.
UPDATE: Per alert reader Tom Scudder, the Good Professor is a Tricksy Professor:
Note the qualifier: "Ground" troops. It's the same pull-back-to-the-air-bases plan as he's been pushing for the last two weeks or so.
But it seems to me Juan Cole is gradually moving away from his original position. As of Saturday 9-24:
The point of the US air forces and special ops is simply to support the Iraqi army; the special ops would have to be there to rescue any US crews that were shot down. The air bases could be in Kuwait in the south and in Kurdistan in the north. They would not be permanent.
That's almost close enough to GTFO for me. Prof. Cole thinks the aftermath of a withdrawal will be more like Bosnia than Vietnam. So we could treat it the same way, by bombing the bejeebus out of any faction that goes too far. I have some issues with this plan: without US ground troops there will be no Iraqi army left to request air support, the Serbs had a government and infrastructure that we could punish from the air while most of the Sunni area has been turned to rubble already and there is no official Sunni government or army, and also the bosnian operation had an international mandate. But that's just my less-informed comment.
