Signals

"Pulling the troops out would send a terrible signal to the enemy," the president told reporters between meetings with his military and foreign affairs advisers.

And that signal is what? Clarification would be nice because there's a lot riding on it, and we might get a clue as to what the administration is up to now. The signal appears to be that we can't handle the fire, that we don't have staying power, that we're giving up on those few Iraqis that still want the US to remain. Or that we've lost. But here's the problem: we are losing, we have perhaps even lost (if only we knew of a goal that didn't look like losing), and the longer this goes on, the greater the loss will be. "Withdraw the troops now"? That's too simple. But worrying about a "terrible signal to the enemy"? That's insane.