Japan "Cuts & Runs" From Iraq Today

Japan isn't just "cutting & running," though.

Japan is declaring victory and departing the field.

Japan to Withdraw Troops From Iraq
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 20, 2006

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan ordered the withdrawal of its ground troops from Iraq on Tuesday, declaring the humanitarian mission a success and ending a groundbreaking dispatch that tested the limits of its pacifist postwar constitution.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said the 600 non-combat troops -- deployed in early 2004 -- had helped rebuild infrastructure in the area where they were based, and he pledged further aid to Iraqi reconstruction.

"Today we have decided to withdraw Ground Self-Defense Forces from the Samawah region in Iraq," Koizumi said in a nationally televised news conference. "The humanitarian dispatch ... has achieved its mission."

600 Japanese "reconstruction" humanitarians are going home.

What will the Dutch troops do now that they are no longer providing security for the 600 Japanese troops in Iraq?

I guess we'll have to wait and see if the Dutch redeploy or "cut & run," themselves.

By the way, it's obvious that Bush lovers have no idea where the term "cut & run" comes from. If they did, they wouldn't equate the metaphor for "doing the smart thing" in an emergency with cowardice:

Cut & Run- NOT the cutting of the anchor cable and running away, but the process of furling the sails on their yards and stopping them there with light spunyarn ; this could be easily cut with a knife so that the sails fell and drew almost immediately.

Surviving to fight another day is not cowardice.

The sham Bush coalition continues to dwindle...


Best bar bet in the world: Delilah didn't do it.
Judges 16:19-- And she made him (Samson) sleep upon her knees; and she called for a man, and she caused him to shave off the seven locks of his head.