Left I on the News

"WHATEVER THE future holds, the United States has not "lost" and cannot "lose" Iraq. It was never ours in the first place."

Well, at least they started out right...

"But what now? After four years of war, more than $350 billion spent and 3,363 U.S. soldiers killed and 24,310 wounded,"

And not a single dead Iraqi! Imagine that! (And by that way, that wounded number is way too low, omitting, among others, tens or hundreds of thousands of mentally wounded personnel, and of course there are hundreds of additional Americans - contractors and others - and hundreds of "allies" also dead; apparently they don't count any more than Iraqis)

"it seems increasingly obvious that an Iraqi political settlement cannot be achieved in the shadow of an indefinite foreign occupation."

Quite right, which leads us to...

"The Bush administration should convene national peace and reconciliation talks as early as possible - say June 1."

Neatly contradicting their own statement that "an Iraqi political settlement cannot be achieved etc." They don't even have the sense to say that "The Bush administration should recommend to the Iraqis that they convene...," no, it's "the Bush administration should convene."

And, for the piece de resistance...

"The precise date for completing the withdrawal need not be announced, but the assumption should be that combat troops would depart by the end of 2009."

Whoa, now, hold on, L.A. Times! Let's not be precipitous here. (And I'm sure you all caught the restriction to "combat troops", which leaves, once we include mercenaries, well over half of the foreign forces still in Iraq)

Gheesh.