Five years of “international pressure” plus two rounds of sanctions plus endless threats of a bombing campaign by Bush and Cheney hasn’t convinced them to stop enriching uranium. It won’t convince them to stay out of Iraq, either. The Times knows that, of course, but they’re ashamed to say what they really want — an immediate pullout regardless of the consequences to Iraq or Iraqis — so they feel obliged to offer some sort of pro forma, dead-on-arrival “solution” to cover their tracks. Pathetic.

EXACTLY!. You are dead on correct AP. They are pathetic.
They know that they are not the trip wire vote for pull out which would cause the price of oil to top $100.00 for a very long time, ie: economic disaster.
So the moment a pull out could look imminent they would do just that, cover their a** with a “brilliant” insight.

What they are really doing of course is trying to make the Bush Admin look stupid, while they come out looking “brilliant”.

Note to the Times management: this doesn’t make you “shine” like a hero. This is why you are losing subscribers, you idiots!

Yep. One or the other.

says Rusty Bill on July 8, 2007 at 1:49 AM

You mean like when Walter Duranty was writing for them?

I interrupt my summer vacation (wife & boys in Europe for a month, while I relax/zone-out at San Diego beaches) to bring you this unsurprising newsflash: The New York Times’ ombudsman is another bad joke. Clark Hoyt, of distinguished……

In last week’s video announcement, Ayman al Zawahiri confirmed what many have long suspected — that a primary goal of al Qaeda is to establish an Islamic caliphate in Iraq:In the unusually long video — at just over an hour……

One day, One edition of the New York Times, Two different worlds…..

There is a big shift on concerning Iraq, but depending on which NYT article you read, it may not be the one you were thinking of….

Last week I attended a panel discussion (video below) on the accomplishments and plight of “fixers.” These are natives of war-torn areas who help Western journalists by – in the words of one participant on the panel – finding hotel……

Lots of discussion today about the NYTimes editorial which blithely suggests mass slaughter of Iraqis as preferable to methodical targeting of insurgents and jihadis, with little loss of American life – over the next few months. Well, this is the……

MB4 on July 8, 2007 at 6:42 PM

I’ll ask when I write back

I am not denigrating our armed forces but it’s a farce saying we have an offensive underway. There is no end to the supply of brainwashed islamic death-eaters they can throw at us. We will never be able to kill them all. We have to start targeting the leaders and doing it in a brutal and very obvious fashion. Sadr needs to die an ugly death and anyone who raises his hand to be the leader next needs to die within 24 hours of his identifiing himself. Keep working hard at rebuilding the country and anyone who gets in the way goes.

For how long?

5 more years? 10 more years? 25 more years?

Until there are troops serving how many Iraqi tours?

Four tours? Six tours? Eight tours? Ten tours? Twelve tours?

Until there are how many dead American troops?

5,000? 10,000? 25,000?

Until Islamic Shiites and Islamic Sunnis all learn to get along and build a nation together or until Hell freezes over, which ever comes first?

But they are getting scared that their overseas team, the headchoppers, are losing.

I ask, is there no reporter at the NYT who has the basic decency to publicly resign over this and expose their agenda?

“These letters we got are important to us. Soldiers sometimes feel that we are alone in this. that we are in the fight of our lives and nobody supports us. We know not many Americans seem to support this war. We have a lot invested in it now. We’ve spent hundreds of hours putting our lives on the line for the Iraqi people, and have seen their communities flourish for it (at least I have). We have given them more freedom, security and and basic social services than they’ve ever had in their own country. We’ve also fought terrorist and Anti-American resources on this soil as opposed to American soil. We’ve all paid a price, lost comrades, friends. And we owe it to them to make sure they didn’t die for nothing. No matter where you stand on this war, please know, for us defeat is not an option. We cannot leave here like we left Vietnam. We leave victors, or not at all. Supporting the troops means supporting the war, and giving us the tools we need to win.”

Timed perfectly to coincide with the upcoming push in the Senate by Democratic Presidential wannabees for immediate withdrawal and, as Allahpundit observes, to give Russert something to pant over [this] morning.
…

Jules Crittendon notes an incomprehensible editorial by the New York Times. The NYT says that an American withdrawal could make Iraq “bloodier” and “more chaotic” and invite “power grabs” by Iran. And yet, despite this statement that a withdrawal…

There is no such thing as treason, or being held accountable for it anyway, in America anymore.

Not since Jane Fonda sat on that North Vietnamese gun.

Sulzberger’s paper illegally published national security secrets, twice. Why isn’t he and his editor Kellor sitting on death row awaiting execution for treason?

That my friend is a damn good question to which there is currently no good answer…

I don’t think you get it. Are you reading what is happening in Iraq?

“The Iraqi government is unlikely to meet any of the political and security goals or timelines President Bush set for it in January when he announced a major shift in U.S. policy, according to senior administration officials closely involved in the matter. As they prepare an interim report due next week, officials are marshaling alternative evidence of progress to persuade Congress to continue supporting the war.”

“July 8, 2007 – A flurry of bombings in Baghdad killed 26 people Sunday, and officials said the death toll from a giant suicide truck blast that devastated the market of a Shiite farming town north of the capital a day earlier could reach 150.

Officials earlier had said Saturday’s bombing in the town of Armili killed 115 people, one of the deadliest attacks in Iraq in months. The blast suggested Sunni insurgents are moving further north to strike in less protected regions beyond the U.S. security crackdown in Baghdad and on the capital’s northern doorstep.”

“Sunday, July 8, 2007 – U.S. soldiers in night-vision goggles piled out of a Chinook helicopter under a wide, orange moon. They crawled through mud along canals south of Baghdad, then stormed a chicken farm that the U.S. military believed doubled as a car bomb factory.

But something was missing: Iraqi partners.

The Iraqi army has yet to deploy a single soldier on this 380-square-mile swath, where the U.S. military is waging an offensive to dislodge al-Qaida fighters from marshlands along the Tigris River.

In Tuesday’s predawn raid, the lack of Iraqi backup meant a frustrating outcome for U.S. forces. When suspects fled, there was no Iraqi cordon to catch them.

But more broadly, it illustrated a key weakness in the new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy of “clear, hold, rebuild.” American commanders say the “hold” phase relies on Iraqi forces’ ability to move into cleared areas and keep insurgents in check once the U.S. draws down its troop levels.

But areas such as Salman Pak – once an enclave for Saddam Hussein’s favored officials – reinforce the accusations that the Iraqi military is still a long way from meeting U.S. expectations.

“We’re all very frustrated. We’re trying to fix this country, but the Iraqis are having trouble recruiting and getting their numbers up,” said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, commander of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which is deployed in the area.”