BLAIR CUTS, RUNS... NOW IT'S JUST BUSH... AND HOWARD'S 800 OZZIE TROOPERS

I don't know who's left from Bush's phony Coalition of the Willing Bought And Paid For... Fiji? Bulgaria? Honduras? I know the Spain and Italy are long gone. And I know that it's Wednesday today and that Tony Blair is announcing that he's withdrawing that last significant contingent of non-American troops from the midst of the Iraqi Civil War, a Civil War brought about by the inept-- even catastrophically inept-- policies of George W. Bush and the NeoCon thugs and war criminals he's surrounded himself with.

Yep, press reports are all about timetables and cutting and running. Blair will announce the withdrawal of 1,500 troops immediately and 3,000 before year's end. That's about 40% of Britain's force in Iraq. Does that mean Bush will have to add that many to his surge? Maybe he'd better wait to hear what the Danes and the South Koreans say about their troops first; both have been making noises about getting out too. Or is Bush's loud-mouthed Ozzie bag of wind going to step into the lurch and quadruple his countries 800 troops?

Blair says all is peaceful in the southern (Shi'a) part of Iraq. Funny, the Bush Regime claims it's Iranian (Shi'a) weapons killing Americans. Maybe the Shi'a weapons made in Iran only kill Americans and not Brits or anyone else. Or maybe someone is up to his old tricks of lying to protect the Saudis (Sunnis) again...

As Glenn Greenwald pointed out last night, this is quite the departure-- idea-wise-- for Mr. Blair, since just a few weeks ago, when Bush announced his escalation, and public opinion in the U.K., not to mention Parliamentary opinion, went bonkers, Blair refused to consider... exactly what he just announced he is doing. Blair insisted that "For us to set an arbitrary timetable . . . would send the most disastrous signal to the people whom we are fighting in Iraq. It is a policy that, whatever its superficial attractions may be, is deeply irresponsible."

That rather striking reversal does not appear to reflect much confidence in the prospects of success for the President's Glorious AEI Surge currently underway Moreover, given that British troops are deployed primarily in Southern Iraq, their withdrawal will either require a deployment of replacement American forces (thereby diluting the "surge"), or create a vacuum where Iran can exert still greater influence and/or provide a safe haven for Shiite militias to wait out the "surge" in safety (while American forces do their dirty work in battling the Sunnis).

Looks like Blair has been prevailed upon by sounder minds to choose door number "deeply irresponsible," as he prepares to leave government service and cash in with Bush-connected corporations that have promised him great wealth for the services rendered covering for the Bush Regime in the half dozen last years.

And just when everything was looking so swell too-- with American soldiers bombarding Muqtada al-Sadr's office, with every single poll indicating that Bush's ratings actually have no floor after all, with it raining helicopters over Iraq, with even a vicious warmonger like McCain blaming the disaster in Iraq on the Bush Regime (referring to it as "Rumsfeld" to be polite), and with civil war breaking out in the GOP congressional caucus, party whips Blunt and Cantor having green-lighted attacks on endangered Republican incumbents like Ric Keller (FL), Mike Castle (DE), Jim Ramstad (MN), Mark Kirk (IL) and Jim Walsh (NY) after they voted in favor of the nonbinding symbolic resolution. Maybe something will go right some time; you never know. The Republican-packed courts sure seem to be delivering for the Regime! I sure hope they can be part of the denazification policy once Bush is more a judicial problem than a political and national security problem.


UPDATE: MORE LIES FROM CHENEY & CONDI-- "THE COALITION REMAINS INTACT"

Bush's social studies tutor is on CNN every 30 minutes spinning the British withdrawal and timetable-- just as Bush is trying to convince Americans he needs to send more and more and more Americans into the conflict. She sounds like she's holding back tears and I'm not sure if anyone has told her that Denmark and Lithuania have also announced that they're getting their troops the hell out of Iraq too. Cheney and other Republican spinners are also touting this as a success. Will these guys ever stop lying? What about when they're under oath and on the stand?