Apparently not.

So Zarqawi has been killed, the Iraqis have finally created that government that was supposed to have been done since December’s elections and our troops are still in harm’s way. Guess there hasn’t been enough bloodshed over there yet. So I wonder how high the death toll, both military and civilian, has to be before we pull our troops out or redeploy them as Rep. Murtha and several others have suggested. Any of you guys know?

The sad fact is that neither of these two events will make a bit of difference. There will still be infighting among the different factions of the Iraqi government and somebody else will take over where Zarqawi left off. There will also be continued abuses and indiscriminate killings of Iraqi civilians because, as several Iraq War veterans have stated, every Iraqi is a suspected terrorist/insurgent.

Maybe after November’s midterm elections we’ll begin to see an honest plan at removing our troops from Iraq. Between you and me, I don’t buy that whole “As Iraqi units stand up, we’ll stand down” bullshit the president is quacking about. Anybody got any hard data on how many US units have “stood down” in correlation to Iraqi units “standing up”?

Oh well, just another day in Iraq, albeit with some good news for a change. Unfortunately, the news isn’t good enough to start a drawdown. Everybody knows we have to “stay the course” until the mission is accomplished.