WE CAN'T WAIT UNTIL 2008 TO BRING THE TROOPS HOME

Here is a post from a friend, a Paratrooper stationed in Iraq: "All of us wont be out of here for some time. It wont be a full withdrawal for some years. You have to pay attention to their definitions and nuance. Combat troops: I dont really know what this means but the media has been slinging this phrase around re: "pull out all combat troops." First of all troop refers to a member of a Cavalry unit which are a minority of Army units, and two we are all over here in combat which would give everyone over here the first part of that moniker. But what they mean is pull out all Line tactical units aka Combat Arms personnel (Infantry/Armor/Cav/Arty/Engineers), which would leave Combat Support and Service Support (Logisitcs, Mechanics, MPs, MI, Medics etc.), to do what????? Drive convoys to supply Iraqi units on routes secured only by Iraqis with a few embedded American trainers? That seems like a bullshit proposition to me. They're trying to make it sound like we'll all be out of here by 2008 but I sincerely doubt it. We'll have PTTs and MTTs here for sometime and we have to build up there logistics infrastructure which takes more than one year. It briefs well and sounds great but I'm not counting out another deployment to Iraq." ANGER MANAGEMENT

When the good guys won back Congress, I felt as if we had awakened from a terrible nightmare, and there was hope again. But half-measures avail us nothing. We cannot stand by and let our troops be killed for the bully-dictator's ego. I am proud of the Iraq Study Group, but will wait to hear from Robert Dreyfuss (who has a cover story in this weeks NATION.) Dreyfuss was there today at Congress, and at the White House press conference and he has some wisdom on how this will pan out.

Here is a photo of Larry Johnson, of Kokomo Indiana, taken on my trip there with Robert Dreyfuss. I have an article in today's "Perspective on Labor" issue. I'll have a monthly column in the Kokomo Perspective starting in January.

THANK YOU TO ALL my BLOGGERS called in on Sunday. You guys are incredible, and I feel so lucky to have such a great support system. The show I did was BARRY GORDON FROM LEFT FIELD with Arianna Huffington, Congresswoman Holtzman and Swannee Hunt.
Here's the archive link: DEC 3 SHOW ARCHIVE
Here's the direct podcast link: PODCASTmp3 I am on in the 3rd hour, after Arianna.

Ten more U.S. troops died today. Ten innocent American lives. On NPR last night I heard of one young soldier who was on his third tour of duty, on his way home, and he was killed in a roadside explosion. This is too much to bear. And thinking about Bush having the gall to ask James Webb about his son, and then ordering Webb not to respond in a way that made the dictator "uncomfortable," is just too much.