Article: Iraqi Fledglings Still Refusing To Fly Solo

"No doubt it shed (as unfeelingly as any fledgling) the shell which had fostered it; but the shell had been cracked from outside." -- Moore Prematurely asserting his independence from his American parents, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani rejected the setting of conditions, as contained in the ISG report, as "dangerous" and an "insult to the people of Iraq . . . written for a young, small colony that they are imposing these conditions on." AP reported today that Talibani has also criticized the ISG proposal to embed U.S. 'trainers' in the Iraqi military, saying, the Iraqis would take responsibility for the training of their military forces themselves. Talabani said the report "is not fair, is not just and it contains some very dangerous articles which undermine the sovereignty of Iraq and the constitution." It would be understandable if the Iraqi president just cut ties with Bush and opted for our troops to leave immediately. However, that's not what Talibani had in mind when he rejected the advisory review of America's continuing occupation. Talibani would conspire with Bush to hold our soldiers in Iraq indefinitely, without any qualifying measure of accountability or timetable for the Iraqi's forces to assume responsibility for their own security, while at the same time, rejecting any attempt to manage the conflict either in Iraq or elsewhere in the region. "I believe that President George Bush is a brave and committed man and he is adamant to support the Iraqi government until they've reached success," Talibani was quoted as saying. Setting conditions, however, was "an insult to the people of Iraq," according to the Iraqi leader. After the sacrifice of over 2900 American soldiers who fought and died to create and prop up the junta where he assumed the leadership, Talibani wants to dodge the verdict of the American people, expressed in the last U.S. election and reflected in the ISG report, that our troops should be withdrawn from Iraq whether or not his regime ultimately gains control over it's own destiny. This privileged Kurdish politician apparently has the same indifference to the lives and livelihoods of our soldiers as his benefactor as he praises Bush for 'staying the course' and keeping his regime's primary U.S. defenders in place as his lopsided, enabled, majority government consolidates power and influence over the suppressed Sunni minority. Talibani's regime is, as he says, no longer a mere child, to be hovered over and coddled by its American parents. Yet, it is, in fact, still an adolescent with an insatiable appetite for American lives to feed its manufactured existence. It needs to mature, and quickly, before we become further obligated to defend against recriminations from even more of those factions they antagonize and suppress with their U.S. enabled aggression. The Iraqi puppets at the head of the new regime have always viewed our troops as expendable, even as adversaries as they condemn them from time to time for their deliberate atrocities, as well as for the collateral casualties and destruction. The fact that Talibani, or any other Iraqi official, would continue to operate their own little war of aggression against their Sunni and Batthist resisters behind the sacrifices of our soldiers, indefinitely, is enough to cut ties immediately with these pretenders, Bush included. Where is it in our nation's interest to continue to force our soldiers to fight and die on one side of Iraq's multi-fronted civil war? That won't stop the violence any more than the temporary suppression by U.S. troops of the resistance forces in Baghdad put an end to the chaos and unrest there which has gripped the capital since the escalation of violence after the Samarra mosque bombings. Talibani has no credible role for our troops to play in Iraq if he's going to reject the comprehensive approach of the ISG in favor of the same tired protection scheme Bush has been engaged in for three years, where our soldiers leapfrog from conflict to conflict in Iraq to defend the indefensible government there. Talibani believed Bush's bluster about giving Iraqis "more time" to set their regime upright, and thought they could drag their heels on giving Bush his expected prizes of a share of their oil wealth, and dominance over their military and political agenda. The Iraqi president still believes he can wait Bush out about the troops; likely because he doesn't give any more of a damn about their welfare than does our own lame-duck loser. If he wants to train his troops, himself, to replace our soldiers and allow them to come home, that proposal should be embraced by all concerned. It would certainly remove the next to the last straw Bush is holding on to as he tries to justify continuing his occupation on the pretext of providing Iraqi forces with embedded U.S. 'trainers'. But, that's not what Talibani, or Bush, really have in mind. They still expect for our troops to bear their regime's security load, whether our soldiers are training Iraqis or not. Now that Rumsfeld is back in Iraq, he should put on a uniform and pitch in. Better yet, he should call Bush and Condi to join him in an extended exile in Iraq from the American democracy they so abhor, and an exile from the verdict of the American people who demanded an end to their bloody charade. As long as Bush and others argue to continue the mindless deployment in Iraq, they should be forced to further embed themselves with Talibani, suit up, and jump directly into the quagmire that they expect our troops to endure. After all, "George Bush is a brave and committed man and he is adamant to support the Iraqi government until they've reached success." It's past time for Bush and his Iraqi puppets to do their own fighting and dying, without their continued squandering of the resources and the humanity of our nation's defenses.