So.. does this mean that because we still have troops based in such places as Germany, that we still have an "occupying army" there? 

Bullocks.

Of course we're not completely leaving - that would only allow for the eventual civil war to take place far earlier than anticipated.

We are not at war with Germany. American troops & Iraqis are not being killed in Germany. 

So a big fat BULLOCKS to you.

Info.. this is taken directly from what you posted:

“Residual force” is a euphemism for “occupying army,” since only the most stupidly naive could ever believe that Iraq is now nothing more than a subservient client state of the new world order empire.

Technically, we were at war with Iraq.. or did you forget that it was Saddam that we were after?  Who was Saddam?  Oh yeah.. he controled Iraq.. the country we have forces in.

My argument is that the "residual force" is there to help the Iraqi army via training and special forces back up, and is not an "occupying army."  The hand-off today is more symbolic than anything else - it's a step further towards Iraqi control of their own country.  We will no longer have tactical command of the counter-insurgency - it's in Iraq's hands now to begin taking the helm.The vast majority of people realize that our involvement in Iraq is not finished.  If we withdrew all forces tomorrow, the country would lose any stability it currently has, thanks in part to Iran's continued support of the counter-insurgency.

Your copy and paste once again proves to be lacking in any real depth or analysis, and as usual, you are also lacking in that department.

FSG you would be correct if the war on terror wasn't a hoax.

Our troops are nothing more than cannon fodder in the eyes of the elite.

It's all about destroying nations & setting up puppet governments that are controlled by the Globalist.

Here is another copy & paste job for you.

Of course your view is going to trump his because of your intellectual ego.

---------------------------

February 03, 2009

Why No Neocon Assassinations? Because The War On Terror Is A Hoax

By Paul Craig Roberts 

According to US government propaganda, terrorist cells are spread throughout America, making it necessary for the government to spy on all Americans and violate most other constitutional protections. Among President Bush’s last words as he left office was the warning that America would soon be struck again by Muslim terrorists.

If America were infected with terrorists, we would not need the government to tell us. We would know it from events. As there are no events, the US government substitutes warnings in order to keep alive the fear that causes the public to accept pointless wars, the infringement of civil liberty, national ID cards, and inconveniences and harassments when they fly.

The most obvious indication that there are no terrorist cells is that not a single neocon has been assassinated.

I do not approve of assassinations, and am ashamed of my country’s government for engaging in political assassination. The US and Israel have set a very bad example for al Qaeda to follow.

The US deals with al Qaeda and Taliban by assassinating their leaders, and Israel deals with Hamas by assassinating its leaders. It is reasonable to assume that al Qaeda would deal with the instigators and leaders of America’s wars in the Middle East in the same way.

Today every al Qaeda member is aware of the complicity of neoconservatives in the death and devastation inflicted on Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza. Moreover, neocons are highly visible and are soft targets compared to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. Neocons have been identified in the media for years, and as everyone knows, multiple listings of their names are available online.

Neocons do not have Secret Service protection. Dreadful to contemplate, but it would be child’s play for al Qaeda to assassinate any and every neocon. Yet, neocons move around freely, a good indication that the US does not have a terrorist problem.

If, as neocons constantly allege, terrorists can smuggle nuclear weapons or dirty bombs into the US with which to wreak havoc upon our cities, terrorists can acquire weapons with which to assassinate any neocon or former government official.

Yet, the neocons, who are the Americans most hated by Muslims, remain unscathed.

The "war on terror" is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel’s territorial expansion.

There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq. The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law. The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.

Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.

Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.

The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah "terrorist organizations" for no other reason than the US is on Israel’s side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State’s "finding" that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.

Americans and Israelis do not call their bombings of civilians terror. What Americans and Israelis call terror is the response of oppressed people who are stateless because their countries are ruled by puppets loyal to the oppressors. These people, dispossessed of their own countries, have no State Departments, Defense Departments, seats in the United Nations, or voices in the mainstream media. They can submit to foreign hegemony or resist by the limited means available to them.

The fact that Israel and the United States carry on endless propaganda to prevent this fundamental truth from being realized indicates that it is Israel and the US that are in the wrong and the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqis, and Afghans who are being wronged.

The retired American generals who serve as war propagandists for Fox "News" are forever claiming that Iran arms the Iraqi and Afghan insurgents and Hamas. But where are the arms? To deal with American tanks, insurgents have to construct homemade explosive devices out of artillery shells. After six years of conflict the insurgents still have no weapon against the American helicopter gunships. Contrast this "arming" with the weaponry the US supplied to the Afghans three decades ago when they were fighting to drive out the Soviets.

The films of Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza show large numbers of Gazans fleeing from Israeli bombs or digging out the dead and maimed, and none of these people are armed. A person would think that by now every Palestinian would be armed, every man, woman, and child. Yet, all the films of the Israeli attack show an unarmed population. Hamas has to construct homemade rockets that are little more than a sign of defiance. If Hamas were armed by Iran, Israel’s assault on Gaza would have cost Israel its helicopter gunships, its tanks, and hundreds of lives of its soldiers.

Hamas is a small organization armed with small caliber rifles incapable of penetrating body armor. Hamas is unable to stop small bands of Israeli settlers from descending on West Bank Palestinian villages, driving out the Palestinians, and appropriating their land.

The great mystery is: why after 60 years of oppression are the Palestinians still an unarmed people? Clearly, the Muslim countries are complicit with Israel and the US in keeping the Palestinians unarmed.

The unsupported assertion that Iran supplies sophisticated arms to the Palestinians is like the unsupported assertion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. These assertions are propagandistic justifications for killing Arab civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in order to secure US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East.

Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury during President Reagan’s first term.  He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal.  He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University, and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He was awarded the Legion of Honor by French President Francois Mitterrand. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington;  Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct.

Fsg there is no amount of BS you can post that will justify the phony war on terror. You get your talking points directly from CIA infested news outlets.

The war on terror is not a "hoax" - but it is a joke, at least the way Bush ran things.  I'm not going to bore you with commentary on everything, but here's some more fact and some questions:

There were no al Qaeda in Iraq until the Americans brought them there by invading and overthrowing Saddam Hussein, who kept al Qaeda out of Iraq.

That's true to a point, but a little misleading.  There wasn't a real Al Qaeda presence in Iraq until we invaded Afghanistan, at which point Zarqawi moved into Iraq and had medical treatment in Baghdad, later visiting Iraqi Kurdistan where he made connections with Ansar Al-Islam (Kurdish militant Islamic group).

The Taliban is not a terrorist organization, but a movement attempting to unify Afghanistan under Muslim law.

Hmm.. so extremist interpretation of Islamic law isn't a form of terrorism? 

The only Americans threatened by the Taliban are the Americans Bush sent to Afghanistan to kill Taliban and to impose a puppet state on the Afghan people.

The Taliban supported and harbored Bin Laden.  I'll be the first to speak out about how we created Bin Laden, so to speak, but our invasion of Afghanistan wash technically justified.

Hamas is the democratically elected government of Palestine, or what little remains of Palestine after Israel’s illegal annexations. Hamas is a terrorist organization in the same sense that the Israeli government and the US government are terrorist organizations. In an effort to bring Hamas under Israeli hegemony, Israel employs terror bombing and assassinations against Palestinians. Hamas replies to the Israeli terror with homemade and ineffectual rockets.

Terrorism begets terrorism? 

Hezbollah represents the Shi’ites of southern Lebanon, another area in the Middle East that Israel seeks for its territorial expansion.

Hezbollah is also funded by Iran, both of which consistently use terrorist principles to further their agendas.

BTW - my talking points come from years of CREDIBLE research from reliable primary sources.  If you're unwilling to listen to someone who actually takes the time to, as you say, "do his own research," then I feel extremely sorry for you.

 It's all about destroying nations & setting up puppet governments that are controlled by the Globalist.

Again this was happening before even you were born (see Spanish-American War, 20th Century Latin American History, Vietnam, Korea, etc.) in the name of neo-liberalism.  At what time was you Republic "Great"?  What is so different today from the days of yore?  What exactly is at stake?  What do the globalist control now that they didn't control before (financial institutiona, government infiltration, humanity)?

Taking it to the "globalist" or government going too far?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/...

The AP story hmmm....looks like some more underlings are going to get burned.

Nothing new. Just more good cop bad cop. I don't really have the energy to explain what I just typed. All I can say is, more of the same crap from the powers that be.

At what time was you Republic "Great"?

To bad evil exist. It's an ever present entity that plagues humanity.

I believe in the vision our founders had for this country.

Anything can be exploited to carry out an agenda.

Either way I think our Country is done for. I am still going to fight for what I believe in....until I die.

 Either way I think our Country is done for

Yes.. the sky is surely falling..

When Bush and Powell were making their case for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, I would have bet the farm that Saddam would suddenly accommodate inspectors, show them anything they requested, and make fools of the President and the Secretary of State. He didn't. One woman who was the wife of Saddam's personal pilot noted in her journal that Saddam was advised the US would invade Iraq. Saddam dismissed the idea, convinced moslem nations would not allow Bush to invade a moslem country. He was wrong. So was I. I guess I wasn't thinking like a madman.

I have read from a couple of sources that Saddam did not want Iran to know he did not have such weapons. Plausible, but I have not heard of any first hand info saying this.

catpaw - I was watching 60 minutes a while back, and they were speaking with the FBI agent who was Saddam's interrogator. Luckily, I found the full interview.. it's really very intriguing.. here's a snippit about the WMD's"

"He [Saddam] told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the '90s. And those that hadn't been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq," Piro says.

"So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk, why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?" Pelley asks.

"It was very important for him to project that because that was what kept him, in his mind, in power. That capability kept the Iranians away. It kept them from reinvading Iraq," Piro says.

www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/24/60minutes/main 3749494_page4.shtml

Appreciate the additional insight.