Well, that is what he Berkeley Daily Planet would have you believe:
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi didn’t wait for the result of the joint American-Italian probe into the killing of Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari, and the wounding of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, before announcing the withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq. Combined with a hastily arranged Ukrainian departure and a planned Romanian retreat, Berlusconi’s announcement shatters the so-called Coalition of the Willing, rendering the Iraq occupation a de facto Anglo-American operation.
Really? Anglo-American? Shattered? First, what countries are in Iraq:
Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, El Salvador, Estonia, Georgia, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, United Kingdom, Ukraine.
Not all Anglo, is it. Italy had already planned on a September pullout, no matter what the BDP would have their readers believe. The way the announcement was made was simply politics. But they were going. The Ukraine? Notification was short for their 150 troops leaving, but not unexpected. Newly elected Ukrainian President had stated while campaining that he would do just that. Pull the troops out. The rest will soon follow in 2 stages through October 2005. And Romania? At this time, the news of their pullout is simply a rumor. Nothing more, nothing less.
Besides, is this not what both the Right and Left want? The Left just wants everyone to leave Iraq, and, apparently, allow Iraq and possibly the Middle East degenerate into warfare. The smart people on the Right understand that now is the time that a phased withdrawl of troops will occur and continue as the Iraqi’s are able to take control of their own security and country. There are no plans to stay in Iraq indefinably: we want to hand over their country to them, and move on.
The Berkeley Daily Planet has just shown that they, like so many on the Left, just slaps some negative, anti-American words and phrases together, without doing their homework.
Yeah, yeah, but saying that “The coalition is slightly dented” just doesn’t have the same bang, eh?
well its not like there was much of a coalition to begin with 😉
It’s hard to imagine anything more pathetic than the anemic glee moonbats psyche themselves into whenever Iraq encounters some minor bump on the road to democracy.