Extricatia clusterfuckum prontus

Extricatia clusterfuckum prontus is my favorite Latin for "Bring the troops home."

But there is also

• Copiae subducentes sunt or perhaps Copiae subducendae sunt or maybe
• Extricandae copiae.

At least, according to Mark Kleiman at his "The Reality-Based Community."

Mark's post explains the "whys" of each phrase (except my favorite, which has what a researcher might, by a stretch, call having face validity. Having never studied Latin myself, and having absolutely no interest in the study of the language, I will leave it to Mark and his cohorts.

But the idea of such a bumper sticker does intrigue me. A quick Google search of the Internet brought me to this site which claims it does small quantities. A single 3 X 10 bumper sticker, Black and White or Color, is $4.95 (and I assume postage plus handling.) There is a volume discount, but they specifically say that they specialize in small quantities and that for large volume there are probably less expensive sites.

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DISCLAIMER

I have no connection to the makestickers site and do not offer any warranty of any kind. Any purchase anyone makes is on their own. I did no more due diligence than to merely read their website.

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So - anyone with Photoshop or some graphics capability interested in designing the bumper sticker or stickers?

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Addendum 9:28 AM CDT May 29, 2007
OK. From the comment, here is the suggested website CafePress.com. Again, I provide this link for anyone who wants to try it but I know nothing about CafePress.com. No warranty here.

Iraq to have ungly ending - Bush making sure it is not on his watch.

As long as American troops are still fighting in Iraq in January 2009, the ultimate failure and disaster there cannot be blamed on Bush. So Bush will drag out the unwinnable war American occupation in Iraq so that a Democrat will be blamed for the loss when someone sensible actually pulls us out of that benighted country.

Other than the cost in American blood, does it really matter whether we start withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq on Oct. 1, as the Democrats called for in the bill Bush vetoed last week, or after the next presidential election? The outcome is likely to be the same - bloody chaos as sectarian factions slaughter each other and settle scores. Is postponing that awful day of reckoning worth the lives and the limbs of hundreds or even thousands more American soldiers?

The president talks about a "way forward" in Iraq; Democrats are talking about a way out of Iraq, and most Americans are with them. But Bush continues to defy both.

Bush is as stubborn as he is cocky, and he has made it clear that public opinion be damned, he's going to hang tough until Iraq becomes his successor's problem. He must know that the next president will have a popular mandate to end the war, whatever the consequences for Iraq and the region.

There is another reality closing in on the White House, the fact that the U.S. combat role in Iraq cannot be sustained much longer without breaking the back of our severely stressed military. How long can we maintain current troop levels before exhausting our soldiers, many of whom are on their second and third tours of duty in Iraq? Some units are being deployed to Iraq without adequate training or equipment, often with fatal consequences for underprepared troops. The Army has lowered its recruitment standards and increased retention bonuses to meet its manpower needs.

So what should Americans do? Ask the deputy commander of al Qaeda himself. This is from Juan Cole:

"Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's no. 2 leader complained in a videotape released Saturday about the Democrats' plan to withdraw US troops from Iraq. Al-Zawahiri said he preferred that the US remain so that Muslim guerrillas could bleed the US military. Where have I heard that sort of reasoning before? Aha! It is a fly trap strategy!

Al-Zawahiri's opposition to the Democratic plan suggests that it is the right plan."

The current American death rate in Iraq runs roughly 60 per month, and the wounded are eight times the death rate. That's going to be roughly 1200 more dead in 9600 more severely wounded in the next 20 months until a new President is installed. After that it will take roughly another year to get all the American troops out, with casualties continuing.

Iraq presents no danger to the U.S. that continued combat operations can prevent. Sen. Jim Webb has it right.

"We won this war four years ago. The question is when we end the occupation."

Gregory Stanford in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel points out

... that the cumulative $564 billion allocated for the war by Sept. 1 could pay for pre-school for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country for the next eight years."

And that's only what America is spending on the occupation of Iraq. The cost for Iraqis is a great deal higher in both casualties and treasure. We just don't have those numbers.

America is spending massive amounts of blood and treasure in Iraq for only one reason. That reason is so the angry, emotionally-crippled little boy in the White House doesn't have to admit that he failed when he preemptively invaded Iraq and incompetently handle the occupation. Dante would have to describe an additional, even lower level of Hell just for George W. Bush to occupy. There is no reason other than Bush's sick ego for those casualties or the military expenditures. None!

Democrats to unite behind bill to end War.

The Liberal Democrat holdouts in the House have approached Nancy Pelosi and given her their support to pass the bill to end the war in Iraq. This is what Greg Sargent at TPM Cafe has to say on the subject.

It's official: Less than 24 hours before the House Dem Iraq supplemental spending bill is set to go to a vote, the key liberal House Dems holding out against the bill have decided to back it, making its passage far more likely. [Snip]

One Hill staffer confided that the liberals realized that they'd be better off backing the bill, because it would keep them at the negotiating table, rather than rendering them pariahs -- allowing them to have greater influence over the future debates that will inevitably unfold around future House measures to stop the war. "The liberals are in a stronger position now to push for tougher measures against the war down the road," the source said.

So much for the right-wing and MSM pundit talking point about how the Democrats are too divided to get the important stuff done.

British withdrawal of Iraq troops a blow to Bush's "surge."

Dan Froomkin does a roundup of media reaction to the Bush/Cheney effort to "Spin" the British announcement of the withdrawal of troops from Southern Iraq.

There are numerous links to other journalists, but the short story is "This is a real blow to the effort of the Bush White House to push the Iraq troop surge."

Blair pulling Brits out of Iraq.

It looks like Britain is getting their troops out of the mess in Iraq. This is from the Guardian Wednesday Feb 21.

LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce on Wednesday a new timetable for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq, with 1,500 to return home in several weeks, the BBC reported.

Blair will also tell the House of Commons during his regular weekly appearance before it that a total of about 3,000 British soldiers will have left southern Iraq by the end of 2007, if the security there is sufficient, the British Broadcasting Corp. said, quoting government officials who weren't further identified.

The BBC said Blair was not expected to say when the rest of Britain's forces would leave Iraq. Currently, Britain has about 7,100 soldiers there.

If the Brits pull about 3,000 troops out by the end of 2007, and we are increasing our troops numbers by 21,500, this cuts the increase back to 18,500. And we are conducting the increase by holding troops already there longer and sending new troops early, both without all the training or equipment they need, we have clearly gotten to the end of our ability to effect change militarily in Iraq.

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See also Victory in Iraq is not an option.

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Update: Feb 21, 1:53 PM CDT
This is from Juan Cole today:

"Tony Blair is taking 1600 troops out of Basra in the next few months and will aim to be down to only 3,000 or so (from 7,100 now) by the end of the year. Denmark is also going home.

This is a rout, there should be no mistake. The fractious Shiite militias and tribes of Iraq's South have made it impossible for the British to stay. They already left Sadr-controlled Maysan province, as well as sleepy Muthanna. They moved the British consulate to the airport because they couldn't protect it in Basra. They are taking mortar and rocket fire at their bases every night. Raiding militia HQs has not resulted in any permanent change in the situation. Basra is dominated by 4 paramilitaries, who are fighting turf wars with one another and with the Iraqi government over oil smuggling rights.

Blair is not leaving Basra because the British mission has been accomplished. He is leaving because he has concluded that it cannot be, and that if he tries any further it will completely sink the Labor Party, perhaps for decades to come."

I wonder how long it will take for Gen. David Petreaus to get the idea that he is in a killing field with his troops and has no way of changing the actual situation. It looks like Tony Blair has figured that out and decided to act on it this year and next.

Without a draft, the U.S. simply does not have enough troops to pacify Iraq, no matter what strategy is applied. Bush/Cheney really want to blame the problems they are facing on the Iranian, but the Iranians are just a small side issue in Iraq. The U.S. has lost because it bit off a whole lot more than it had teeth to chew, and then did even that in a manner that can only be described as grossly incompetent.

Twenty-three more months, or a pair of impeachments, or a pair of resignations or other such removal from office of Bush and Cheney. That's probably another 2,000 dead American soldiers, 20,000 or more severely wounded soldiers, and God only knows how many Iraqis dead or wounded. For nothing more important than Bush's ego.