Mahdi Army Clashes in Diwaniyah

"Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney doesn't get it, as usual. The reason to draw down US ground troops in Iraq is that for the most part their presence in such numbers is counter-productive. Look at the fighting in Diwaniyah. All the US did was send helicopters to circle around. We don't need US or Coalition troops in Diwaniyah. And, why would we care who controls Diwaniyah, anyway? What Americans had even heard of it four years ago? It certainly is not a security threat to the United States.

As for this tag line that the the US was not in Iraq on Sept. 11, so Iraq cannot be generating terror, how stupid does he think we are? September 11 came indirectly out of the Reagan administration's use of Muslim fascists or mujahidin to fight socialism in Afghanistan. The lesson to draw is that unleashing large numbers of unconventional guerrilla forces and giving them billions of dollars and CIA training is a bad idea, and might well produce blowback. Afghanistan generated the last wave of terror. Now Iraq is generating a new generation of terror. Madrid and London came in response to it. Cheney's tag line is misleading and foolish."
Juan Cole

Not to be agreeing with Cheney or anything, I watched as much as I could stand of his speech yesterday, I liked the part where he's talking about the Talibans treatment of women and then got a bit confuted and referred to "our treatment" of women. He seems to be having a little trouble distinguishing between the two ideologies? Easy mistake considering..

Back to Cole, if we don't use our troops and we don't defer to local guerrillas, exactly what options are we left with. Surrendering with the French?