so sez incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Praetorian-speak is a weirdly limited language when it gets away from it's usual lexicon of threats and utopian fantasies.
Gates can't admit defeat or even say the word withdrawl, but he can clumsy execute a bad linguistic fandango around the concepts.
This is akin to the cherished habit of the Japanese Army in World War II which forbade the use of the hated word "retreat" when cutting orders. Thus soldiers of Hirohito (like Bush he was once revered as the "Son of the Sun")could be ordered to "turn around and advance" or some such twaddle as that.
So it would seem that GOP establishment has sent Gates in to settle Bush and Cheney down and prep the admin for some sort of pullout.
Such are the frayed flags of praetorian triumphalism, such is empire.
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