LIKE A THIEF IN THE NIGHT.....

Last US Combat Brigade Exits Iraq (BBC)

The last American combat brigade in Iraq has left the country, the US military has said.

The 4th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division began crossing by land into Kuwait in the early hours of Thursday, said a spokesman. (...) 

Most of them drove out of Iraq in a convoy of armoured vehicles, say reports.

The journey along potentially hostile desert roads had been carefully planned for weeks.

 (..) State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said the US involvement in Iraq was far from over, but that it would be less intrusive and more civilian focused.

"We are ending the war but we are not ending our work in Iraq. We have a long-term commitment to Iraq," he told MSNBC. 

Mr Crowley said the US had a trillion dollar investment to protect in the country and also wanted to see a significant return on the 4,415 troops who have lost their lives in the conflict.

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Does that cretin realize what he's just said??

If PJ Crowley's the best the US can manage these days in terms of diplomatic spokesmanship it's even further down the spout than I'd previously thought.

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Re viewing a war of aggression as an investment and counting one's fellow-countrymen's mangled corpses as interest-bearing assets, kinda-weird historical echo-chamber effect here:

“I only need a few thousand dead so that I can sit at the peace conference as a man who has fought,” said Mussolini in private to Marshal Pietro Badoglio, the Chief of Staff of the Italian Army.

Which was unquestionably one of the biggest miscalculations in history - but at least that miserable bastard still had the wit to say such things only "in private" not in public let alone by way of official national declaration-of-intent to the world's assembled journalists.

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