Posted 9:16 PM by steve

Anyone notice how US forces in Iraq seem to have shifted from rooting out Al Qaeda terrorists (whether imported or of the domestic variety) to serving as the (corrupt and incompetent) Iraqi government's police force, going after Iraqi militias?

I was fine with US troops going after real terrorists, the fanatics who wanted nothing more than to kill Americans, but I really am bothered by US soldiers being put at risk in order to play Maliki's enforcer, going after Iraqis who, were we not in Iraq and meddling where we don't belong, would have no gripe with us whatsoever.

I don't know the last time we've done anything similar to this. We're not protecting Iraq from foreign invasion, the way we protected Western Europe from Soviet attack and the way we help protect South Korea from the North Koreans; if we were, our troops wouldn't be fighting the militias in the streets of Baghdad, they'd be deployed along the Iranian border to deter any cross border incursions by the Iranians. We don't seem to be protecting Iraqis from terrorists, at least not so much anymore, as the one thing the surge seems to have done is deplete the number of terrorists able and willing to go after Iraqi civilians.

No, we're stuck in the middle of a civil war, having American soldiers die because some groups of Iraqis (the militias) don't like what another group of Iraqis the so-called national government) are trying to do to them.

What a stupid reason for Americans to die. They're not dying protecting America, they dying because Bush and the (thankfully, few) kool-aid drinkers have it stuck in their head that we have to stick around because leaving would be taken as a sign of weakness. Obama (I believe it was him) had it right when he ridiculed Bush for not wanting to take troops out when things weren't going well, yet not wanting to take troops out now that things are going better. It's as if Bush is playing a game of 'it's bad, we stay, it's good, we stay'.... in which the losers are the American soldiers who get killed because Bush is a stubborn clueless fool.