Iraq

How about some non-US spin on General Petraeus leaving Iraq? Ajazeera is a good place to start. Here’s a video discussed by Juan Cole this morning. Instead of the happy talk of victory that the US media would spin, Juan Cole quotes a more realistic statement by Gen. Petraeus himself:

‘ In a telephone interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, Petraeus said experience in Iraq shows it will take political and economic progress as well as military action to tackle increased violence in Afghanistan. “You don’t kill or capture your way out of an industrial strength insurgency,” he said.’

Click on the YouTube and watch the heavies! There’s quite a bunch there. Also, what sounds to Juan Cole (and me) like realistic reporting. Worth a three minute watch.

Juan Cole provides an interesting news item from Aljazeera this morning: “Almost all of the wealth generated in Iraq comes from two off-shore oil rigs. Guarding these sites is a priority, not just for war-torn Iraq, but for a world in which oil prices have touched record highs.”

Hendrik Hertzberg has the best analysis of the McCain quip, Make it a hundred, in answer to a questioner complaining that Bush wants to stay in Iraq for fifty more years. Hendrik was there and he puts the whole exchange in context. The bottom line:

But what the context shows, I think, is that yanking that sound bite out of context isn’t really all that unfair. McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal—that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we’ll stay.

SeevsPlace is now backing Edwards for President. We took a vote and all one of us have picked Edwards. Here’s why: Economists Warm Up to Edwards and Edwards Calls for Quick End to Iraq Training.

Open discussion, even criticisms, welcome from my vast panolopy of readers.

I’m predicting he wins in Iowa today.

UPDATE (10:15pm): Whooops, it looks like Obama takes it by a 37% to 30% margin with Edwards and Clinton in a virtual tie at 30%. Well, I could live with Obama. Maybe the rest of the country could too. It would be fitting if he could beat McCain in a Obama vrs McCain national contest with Joe Lieberman the VP under McCain.