Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Washington Post Excoriates Obama's Iraq Plans
When even the editors at the liberal Washington Post recognize that Obama was absolutely wrong on the effectiveness of the surge and that Obama still refuses to see reality- he has a big time problem.
The Iron Timetable http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/15/AR2008071502531.html
Whether the war in Iraq is being lost or won, Barack Obama's strategy remains unchanged.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008; A16
BARACK OBAMA yesterday accused President Bush and Sen. John McCain of rigidity on Iraq: "They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down." Mr. Obama then confirmed his own foolish consistency. Early last year, when the war was at its peak, the Democratic candidate proposed a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. combat forces in slightly more than a year. Yesterday, with bloodshed at its lowest level since the war began, Mr. Obama endorsed the same plan. After hinting earlier this month that he might "refine" his Iraq strategy after visiting the country and listening to commanders, Mr. Obama appears to have decided that sticking to his arbitrary, 16-month timetable is more important than adjusting to the dramatic changes in Iraq.
Mr. Obama's charge against the Republicans was not entirely fair, since Mr. Bush has overseen the withdrawal of five American brigades from Iraq this year, and Mr. McCain has suggested that he would bring most of the rest of the troops home by early 2013. Mr. Obama's timeline would end in the summer of 2010, a year or two before the earliest dates proposed recently by members of the Iraqi government. The real difference between the various plans is not the dates but the conditions: Both the Iraqis and Mr. McCain say the withdrawal would be linked to the ability of Iraqi forces to take over from U.S. troops, as they have begun to do. Mr. Obama's strategy allows no such linkage -- his logic is that a timetable unilaterally dictated from Washington is necessary to force Iraqis to take responsibility for the country.
At the time he first proposed his timetable, Mr. Obama argued -- wrongly, as it turned out -- that U.S. troops could not stop a sectarian civil war. He conceded that a withdrawal might be accompanied by a "spike" in violence. Now, he describes as "an achievable goal" that "we leave Iraq to a government that is taking responsibility for its future -- a government that prevents sectarian conflict and ensures that the al-Qaeda threat which has been beaten back by our troops does not reemerge." How will that "true success" be achieved? By the same pullout that Mr. Obama proposed when chaos in Iraq appeared to him inevitable.
Mr. Obama reiterated yesterday that he would consult with U.S. commanders and the Iraqi government and "make tactical adjustments as we implement this strategy." However, as Mr. McCain quickly pointed out, he delivered his speech before traveling to Iraq -- before his meetings with Gen. David H. Petraeus and the Iraqi leadership. American commanders will probably tell Mr. Obama that from a logistical standpoint, a 16-month withdrawal timetable will be difficult, if not impossible, to fulfill. Iraqis will say that a pullout that is not negotiated with the government and disregards the readiness of Iraqi troops will be a gift to al-Qaeda and other enemies. If Mr. Obama really intends to listen to such advisers, why would he lock in his position in advance?
"What's missing in our debate," Mr. Obama said yesterday, "is a discussion of the strategic consequences of Iraq." Indeed: The message that the Democrat sends is that he is ultimately indifferent to the war's outcome -- that Iraq "distracts us from every threat we face" and thus must be speedily evacuated regardless of the consequences. That's an irrational and ahistorical way to view a country at the strategic center of the Middle East, with some of the world's largest oil reserves. Whether or not the war was a mistake, Iraq's future is a vital U.S. security interest. If he is elected president, Mr. Obama sooner or later will have to tailor his Iraq strategy to that reality.
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With Obamas war of hatred against America in full swing, and escalating, there isn't a whole lot of humor going around about his presidential dreams these days. Being Americas greatest enemy from the inside isn't anything anyone can find a happy future in. And America is only beginning to pay the price for his life in Washington DC that is still only speculation at best.
freedom_road - so true. It is evident that LIES mean nothing to so many in the Dimwit party.
Barack Insane Obama has obviously tried to run with this reality. And when the other Dim leaders, pundits, and commentors do the same in trying to run interference for this deceiver - at some point, one would "hope" "change" finally comes to the forefront in this capacity (Wapo article).
The tragedy is so many are still going to be nothing but brainwashed robots (aka Obamabots)
right4us
Today, Der Spiegel reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has endorsed a 16-month timetable for the United States to withdraw from Iraq:
In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
“U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.” […]
Asked if he supported Obama’s ideas more than those of John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, Maliki said he did not want to recommend who people should vote for.
Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems. […]
“The Americans have found it difficult to agree on a concrete timetable for the exit because it seems like an admission of defeat to them. But it isn’t,” Maliki told Der Spiegel.
Not only is the plan now accepted by Iraqis, but as a Center for American Progress report explains, it is also logistically workable — despite what reporters such as ABC’s Martha Raddatz have suggested. Maliki’s comments come as Obama begins his trip in the Middle East, which will include Iraq.
CNN’s AC 360° on Friday took a look at both of the Democratic and Republican candidates and their wives, and the short bio they did on John McCain gave viewers little reason, if any, why he would be very well suited at all to become our next President or our military’s Commander in Chief.
In fact, it helped reveal a McCain who was an underachieving party boy during his military career - lucky to have graduated at all, much less fifth from the bottom of his class in the Naval Academy, and reminded viewers of his involvement in one of the biggest financial scandals to touch the capitol in the 80s and 90s.
As the CNN report tells it, the lessons John McCain learned during his time as a POW were “that one of the most important things in life - along with a man’s family - is to make some contribution to his country,” and that his involvement in the Keating 5 scandal which resulted in the Congressional finding that he had exercised poor judgment for intervening with federal regulators on behalf of his good friend and largest political contributor/fundraiser, Charles Keating, led to his becoming “a crusader for campaign finance reform and transparency.”
While the lessons learned parts may sound nice, what the segment didn’t reveal was the fact that his own actions have in large part belied that account. The McCain that learned the importance of family as a POW returned to divorce his first wife in a manner that offended many of his friends and colleagues to this day, and his supposed commitment as a crusader for campaign finance reform and transparency went out the window when he began skirting or breaking many of the very campaign finance laws he used to champion just as soon as they would have applied to him during this campaign.
Seriously, what part of John McCain’s past would lead anyone who actually looked at it to believe he’s the one who should lead this country forward? What part of what little we know about his military record suggests he’s leadership material? Is “there any significant policy position that John McCain currently holds, on any topic, that he’s consistently held” about anything?
The discipline and organization of the Obama campaign is truly remarkable.
A Cast of 300 Advises Obama on Foreign Policy
Every day around 8 a.m., foreign policy aides at Senator Barack Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters send him two e-mails: a briefing on major world developments over the previous 24 hours and a set of questions, accompanied by suggested answers, that the candidate is likely to be asked about international relations during the day.
Behind the e-mail messages is a tight-knit group of aides supported by a huge 300-person foreign policy campaign bureaucracy, organized like a mini State Department, to assist a candidate whose limited national security experience remains a concern to many voters.
In contrast, McCain has loose-knit group of about 75 advisers, consisting of a virtual “who’s who” of the neoconservative foreign policy establishment:
McCain receives advice from several generations of Republican strategists and former top foreign policy officials such as Henry Kissinger and Richard Armitage, often grouped in the realist camp of foreign policy, as well as William Kristol and Robert Kagan, leading neoconservative voices. The campaign lists Kagan as a leading foreign policy adviser…
The last two names on that list really tell you all you need to know about the direction of McCain’s foreign policy should he become President. McSame indeed.
Jimmy Carter delivered his so-called “malaise” speech 29 years ago today. What we wouldn’t give today to have done what he advocated (except perhaps the expanded use of coal):
CARTER: Point one: I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 — never…
Point two: To ensure that we meet these targets, I will use my presidential authority to set import quotas…
Point three: To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation’s history to develop America’s own alternative sources of fuel…
I will soon submit legislation to Congress calling for the creation of this nation’s first solar bank, which will help us achieve the crucial goal of 20 percent of our energy coming from solar power by the year 2000.
These efforts will cost money, a lot of money, and that is why Congress must enact the windfall profits tax without delay…
Point four: I’m asking Congress to mandate, to require as a matter of law, that our nation’s utility companies cut their massive use of oil by 50 percent within the next decade and switch to other fuels, especially coal, our most abundant energy source…
Point five: To make absolutely certain that nothing stands in the way of achieving these goals, I will urge Congress to create an energy mobilization board…
Point six: I’m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford.
To further conserve energy, I’m proposing tonight an extra $10 billion over the next decade to strengthen our public transportation systems…
Our nation must be fair to the poorest among us, so we will increase aid to needy Americans to cope with rising energy prices. We often think of conservation only in terms of sacrifice. In fact, it is the most painless and immediate way of rebuilding our nation’s strength. Every gallon of oil each one of us saves is a new form of production. It gives us more freedom, more confidence, that much more control over our own lives…
I do not promise you that this struggle for freedom will be easy. I do not promise a quick way out of our nation’s problems, when the truth is that the only way out is an all-out effort. What I do promise you is that I will lead our fight, and I will enforce fairness in our struggle, and I will ensure honesty. And above all, I will act. We can manage the short-term shortages more effectively and we will, but there are no short-term solutions to our long-range problems. There is simply no way to avoid sacrifice.
Thanks, America’s crazy right wing. We couldn’t have ignored our most important problems for three decades and thereby made them much worse without you.
McCain's Iraq Policy Evaporates
by Steve Soto
This interview in Der Spiegel pretty much settles it:
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told a German magazine he supported prospective U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama's proposal that U.S. troops should leave Iraq within 16 months.
In an interview with Der Spiegel released on Saturday, Maliki said he wanted U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq as soon as possible.
"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."
It is the first time he has backed the withdrawal timetable put forward by Obama, who is visiting Afghanistan and us set to go to Iraq as part of a tour of Europe and the Middle East.
[snip]
"Whoever is thinking about the shorter term is closer to reality. Artificially extending the stay of U.S. troops would cause problems."
A focus on the shorter term pretty much undercuts McCain's entire national security policy. And this came two days after al-Maliki spoke to Bush, so it's clear W no longer carries any sway with the Iraqis.
Troop Withdrawals Now On The Table
by Steve Soto
Before Barack Obama even gets to Iraq, and after months of Bush telling us that even talking about a withdrawal timeline constitutes appeasement towards terrorists, the administration says today they are now talking with Iraq about withdrawal timelines, even as they try and spin a difference.
Sure, it takes Iraq off the table to a large degree this November, but it also means that McCain is left to argue that he can manage a withdrawal better than Obama, at a time when Obama has been out ahead of McCain for a year on the need to redeploy to fight the real threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Rewarding Them For Negligence
by Steve Soto
A large scandal kept under wraps by the Pentagon:
Shoddy electrical work by private contractors on United States military bases in Iraq is widespread and dangerous, causing more deaths and injuries from fires and shocks than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to internal Army documents.
During just one six-month period — August 2006 through January 2007 — at least 283 electrical fires destroyed or damaged American military facilities in Iraq, including the military’s largest dining hall in the country, documents obtained by The New York Times show. Two soldiers died in an electrical fire at their base near Tikrit in 2006, the records note, while another was injured while jumping from a burning guard tower in May 2007.
And yet Bob Gates, the man Barack Obama and Carl Levin think would make a fine Defense Secretary in an Obama administration, just awarded KBR a new 10 year, $150 billion contract to do more of this kind of work.
Well - the idiot brigade is back with multiple posts, I see.
Pure mindless morons following their Islamic named leader.
That can be said because - in Islamic custom, a son born to an Islamic father is automatically born into the Islamic faith.
He has an Islamic name, went to schools/studies Islam/Koran, attended Mosques as youth - all of which is true according to Obama's family members, childhood friends/teachers and records.
Now, the problem is - just how big of a liar is this deceiver?
He said he was always a Christain (yet, enrolled as a Muslim in schools) - and "Obama never prayed in a mosque." - Yet "The childhood friends say Obama sometimes went to Friday prayers at the local mosque. "We prayed but not really seriously, just following actions done by older people in the mosque. But as kids, we loved to meet our friends and went to the mosque together and played," said Zulfin Adi.."
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5544
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/5286
Obama's Kenyan birth father: In Islam, religion passes from the father to the child. Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. (1936–1982) was a Muslim who named his boy Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. Only Muslim children are named "Hussein".
Obama's Indonesian family: His stepfather, Lolo Soetoro, was also a Muslim. In fact, as Obama's half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng explained to Jodi Kantor of the New York Times: "My whole family was Muslim, and most of the people I knew were Muslim." An Indonesian publication, the Banjarmasin Post reports a former classmate, Rony Amir, recalling that "All the relatives of Barry's father were very devout Muslims."
"The Catholic school: Nedra Pickler of the Associated Press reports that "documents showed he enrolled as a Muslim" while at a Catholic school during first through third grades. Kim Barker of the Chicago Tribune confirms that Obama was "listed as a Muslim on the registration form for the Catholic school." A blogger who goes by "An American Expat in Southeast Asia" found that "Barack Hussein Obama was registered under the name ‘Barry Soetoro' serial number 203 and entered the Franciscan Asisi Primary School on 1 January 1968 and sat in class 1B. … Barry's religion was listed as Islam."
Keep posting your crap, and I will continue to respond with these type posts - what do you think about that, you jerk(s)?
right4us
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