[theknife]

Originally Posted by Mazer

Iraq has some pretty good oil fields, the people are educated, and there's lots of motivation. I still think they'll show signs of becomming self sufficient in a year or two. I dont' think you can actually measure how long a generation is, it's a group of people rather than a span of time. You may have noticed that the 'political pendulum' swings back and forth with the comming and going of each generation, and right now it's swinging toward the conservative side. It probably wasn't just this administration that chose to liberate Iraq as much as this whole generation. And when the pendulum swings again this nation will turn it's back on Iraq and leave them to their own devices. Hopefully before that happens they mature enough to be left alone.

Maybe the message to liberals here is that your turn is comming, but first the rest of us have important work to do, so be patient and don't try to stop us. Help out if you want, give constructive criticism, keep those in power from losing sight of the goal of Iraqi soverignty, adapt to these changes, and most of all keep a positive attitude. You can't stop the tide, but you can ride it, that's what we're doing, and you would do no less if the tide favored you. In the mean time make some improvements to your party's orgainzation to keep wackos like Howard Dean from making it impossible for you to lead responsibly in the future.

no, a generation is actually a time span:

generation - The average interval of time between the birth of parents and the birth of their offspring

so obviously, since this interval could be anywhere from 15 to 50 years, 25 years is a reasonable average. since there is no foreseeable end to the bloodshed, and since neither you nor the President or the Vice-President can come up with anything more concrete than to dress the whole fiasco up as something resembling missionary work (save the poor Iraqis from themselves), there is little reason to assume the US future in Iraq holds anything other than further bloodshed, deceit, corruption, misappropriation of funds ($9 billion missing so far), profiteering etc.

"showing signs of becoming self-sufficient in a year or two" is not a good reason for young Americans to keep dying - i would suggest if you feel otherwise, you should down and see your local army recruiter because they desperately need young believers like yourself.

but before you put your life in the hands of the leaders who brought us this train wreck, you might want to check out a more realistic assessment of the situation from top Senate Republican Chuck Hagel:

"The White House is completely disconnected from reality," said Hagel. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq," said Hagel, who added that increasingly, fellow Republicans are coming to share his view.

listen to your party - your leaders are lost.