Iraq Spinning Out Of Control....Again!

STOCKS SOAR! (IN BAGHDAD)

"Last month, Iraq's general index went up nearly 40 percent, about the same percentage the Dow dropped over the past year."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10102008/ne ... 132978.htm

Of course...Things are great....over there!

We are paying for all their reconstruction while they are banking billions & OUR economy is headed for a depression!!

(could it be that you & I actually agree on something political Stephen????)

Think it's time to take the training wheels off?

at the end of the article , i thought this was kinda funny. "You can't have a totally free market. You have to have rules. From what I understand of why the credit crisis happened, I can only describe their administration as stupid."

[to the tune of Toot-, toot-, tootsie, good-bye]:

Bye, bye, Baghdad, bye, bye!

stockingfull wrote:Bye, bye, Baghdad, bye, bye!

Certainly as it has calmed considerably since the surge, the Iraqi's seem to be taking an active role and are somewhat in control themselves. Obama isn't going to have anything to do with it or was he lying when he said ground commanders should make that decision? I beleive Petraeus has been indicating tentative draw down of troops. Now you can move onto bitching about Afghanistan.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g6GW ... AD94923HO0
US to cut troop levels in Iraq this month

By LOLITA C. BALDOR – 3 days ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Spurred on by a continued decline in violence, the U.S. military will reduce its presence in Iraq to 14 combat brigades this month — at least two months earlier than originally planned.

Richard S. wrote:Certainly as it has calmed considerably since the surge, the Iraqi's seem to be taking an active role and are somewhat in control themselves. Obama isn't going to have anything to do with it.

Still costing us over 10 billion a month there though Richard. (which we obviously can ill afford now)

http://theiraqinsider.blogspot.com/2008 ... month.html

President Obama will have to do something about that when he's sworn in on 1/20/2009.

I don't think it'll be anything rash but there was a story about the not-yet-completed status of forces agreement a couple of days ago. IIRC, unless we and the Iraqis agree, the UN authorization to be there expires soon.

So, since both the Iraqis and the Commander-in-Chief-elect want us out in a finite period of time, it looks like there'll be a timeline of some sort.

Now, if we just can get the Iraqis to help with the bailout.

It will be interesting to see what Obama actually does. Will he jump right on it like Pelosi and Reid did? Broken promises by the both of them are a mile long. Obama's now getting daily intelligence briefings from CIA. I think he's a changed man since the first one on the 6th. He now knows all the dirty little secrets the great unwashed (us) are not privy to.

I think he's way to smart to not realize (like Pelosi *& Reid didn't) that one of the main reasons why he was elected, beside the economy of course, was to get our troops out of an occupation of Iraq that is more & more unwelcome, accomplishing nothing good for our security & still costing us U.S. taxpayers over 10 billion per month which we obviously can't afford.

coalkirk wrote:I think he's a changed man since the first one on the 6th. He now knows all the dirty little secrets the great unwashed (us) are not privy to.

I might agree with you Terry, but only in the sense of realizing how deeply screwed we are by the policies we have been following in Iraq. Realistically though, between the press & government "leaks" I'm sure we taxpayers have a pretty good understanding of the problems we face over there & I doubt, other than "Operational" intelligence, Obama was told much he didn't already know. (with very little "Human Intelligence" available to us & the fact that we have so few people who can even speak their language, I fear our intelligence agencies have very little real information to provide anyone!)

Devil505 wrote: I doubt, other than "Operational" intelligence, Obama was told much he didn't already know.

He had already been informed by his terrorist buddies.

I don't mean just intelligence on Iraq, but the big picture. I'll guarantee you (Ok, I've got no way to prove it) that there are things going on in the world that you and I have no idea of that are very grave situations to which he is now privy. It changes his priorites and his perspective. Maybe it's just my limited ability to multi task 10 or 15 different things but personally I start to feel somewhat overwhelmed when I've got that many important things (projects, problems to resolve, etc) going on at once. He now has thousands, probably at least a hundred or so that are top secret, nasty little problems throughout the world that present very real threats to us. I wouldn't want his job. We will see what he does. Hopefully he won't have a problem the size and scope of 9/11 dropped in his lap on top of everything else.

coalkirk wrote:Maybe it's just my limited ability to multi task 10 or 15 different things but personally I start to feel somewhat overwhelmed when I've got that many important things (projects, problems to resolve, etc) going on at once.

Well that's where you & I are different Terry........I'm excellent at multi-tasking! At the same time, I can:

1. Chew a toothpick
2. Shake down my TLC
3. Manage to post here (& aggravate Richard)
4. Drink coffee

Phew!!...I'm exhausted!

coalkirk wrote:It will be interesting to see what Obama actually does. Will he jump right on it like Pelosi and Reid did? Broken promises by the both of them are a mile long. Obama's now getting daily intelligence briefings from CIA. I think he's a changed man since the first one on the 6th. He now knows all the dirty little secrets the great unwashed (us) are not privy to.

You nailed it Terry. In Reagan's memoirs he stated he was asked if inauguration day was his scariest, and he said no, his first full briefing day was by far the most frightening. He thought "what did I get myself into!!" He said we have no clue how many people are trying to kill us or at least take down America.
And that was in the eighties

Closing.