Suddenly American troops aren't such a bad thing....

Just when you think NOBODY likes us overseas it becomes clear that they really will miss us. At least that's what I'm getting from THIS AFP piece found on Yahoo! news.

Just as we are about to pull our troops away from the civilian centers and allow autonomous Iraqi troops to police their own properties, we find out that wait a second... umm... they don't want us to leave.

The same Iraqis who we have been told hate our guts.... the ones president hussein has said are being systematically tortured into horrible submission by us, are concerned about the vacuum of power left behind in the northern region of Iraq, historically a Kurd-dominated province.

The Kurds, for their part, have good reason to hate Americans. George Bush Sr. gave them every reason to believe that post-Gulf War he would provide material support for a coup attempt against Saddaam. That support never showed, and hundreds of Kurds were slaughtered as they wondered where their American friends had gone to.

Flash forward to present day, and the Kurds are boxed in between their own country and the increasingly hostile Turkish government. Smell the fear? I'd be making any kind of power-grab I could there too.

So the people of northern Iraq don't want the Americans to leave. We provided peace, stability, an opportunity to rebuild under protective eyes.

What cads we are. How inhuman could we be?

We want to bring our men and women home safely and we pray for the day they need not be placed in harm's way, and that day is getting further and further away from us as each new movement by our beloved overlord becomes known. I am grateful that we could secure the nation and protect the Iraqis.

In truth, the lives lost in Iraq from US military is dwarfed by the murders and bombings and Al Qaeda tortures committed by other countries and by the Iraqis themselves. With great effort and very rare slip-ups, our soldiers have conducted themselves with great honor and held no malice toward the Iraqi citizens.

I'm proud to support our troops and more proud to challenge and harass the authority of the interloper sitting on the throne of the White House. For the same reasons.

I'm Dr. Calamity and I approve this message.