[stewart_photo]

(snip) Well, I don't think either excuse-making or demonstrations are in order (yet), since according to every reliable source, the Obama administration's policy of withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq in a manageable timeframe has not changed significantly, and certainly not changed to an indefinite occupation of Iraq (wherever you got that idea from). What is under discussion is whether this temporal framework should be by summer 2010, as originally proposed by Obama during the campaign, or end of 2010, as apparently suggested by at least some military commanders. If that extra 7 months is needed to bring an orderly end to this mess, I'll take it. Would you prefer a hasty, unsafe retreat? Would Limbaugh?

“When I promise that we are going to bring this war in Iraq to a close in 2009, I want the American people to understand that I opposed this war in 2002, 2003, '04, '05, '06 and '07, so you can have confidence that I will be serious about ending this war.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At The North Carolina Democrat Party 2008 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, Raleigh, NC, 5/2/08)

"In order to end this war responsibly, I will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. We can responsibly remove one to two combat brigades each month. If we start with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today, we can remove all of them 16 months." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks On Iraq, Fayetteville, NC, 3/19/08)

"Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the joint chiefs of staff in and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war, responsibly and deliberately, but decisively." (Sen. Barack Obama, Press Conference, 7/08)

“As president I will end this war in Iraq. We will have our troops home within 16 months.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At The Democrat National Committee Annual Fall Meeting, Vienna, VA, 11/30/07)

“But the overall strategy has failed, because we have not seen any change in behavior among Iraq's political leaders. And that is the essence of what we should be trying to do in Iraq. That's why I'm going to bring this war to a close. That's why we can get our combat troops out within 16 months.” (Sen. Barack Obama, CNN/Nevada Democrat Party Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Las Vegas, NV, 11/15/07)

Obama has been in office for a month with not a single combat brigade removed from Iraq.

stewart

[waqas]

Well, comparing Obama's plans and policies to Bush's is obviously perfectly appropriate. What is amusing is seeing people declaring Obama a failure, sight unseen, but anyway.

At least I'm not declaring him a failure, I'm saying that he is not much different from any other Republocrat, if different at all. I agree there were some nice words he used but can you point to a policy change? Do we see a change in the policy of policing the world, running the empire, maintaining the hegemony of the US in the strategic areas rich in oil and gas that the PNAC (pretty much the same guys as CFR and Trilateral Commission) recommended in their 2000 paper where they said that we need a "New Pearl Harbor" to revitalize America's Military?

Well, I don't think either excuse-making or demonstrations are in order (yet), since according to every reliable source, the Obama administration's policy of withdrawing all combat troops from Iraq in a manageable timeframe has not changed significantly, and certainly not changed to an indefinite occupation of Iraq (wherever you got that idea from).

Is Obama planning to take the military out of the Middle East? Is there a long-term policy shift or is he talking about taking x number of troops out of one country and adding y number of troops to another?

What is under discussion is whether this temporal framework should be by summer 2010, as originally proposed by Obama during the campaign, or end of 2010, as apparently suggested by at least some military commanders. If that extra 7 months is needed to bring an orderly end to this mess, I'll take it. Would you prefer a hasty, unsafe retreat? Would Limbaugh?

In the meanwhile we can continue to kill civilians, we can continue to illegally detain thousands of prisoners, err I mean "detainees" (because prisoners are supposed to have some rights), within Iraq and Afghanistan without charging them with any crimes without giving them the right to have a lawyer, without allowing them to meet their families.
We also continue to monitor phone calls illegally and continue to detain people illegally even within the US under the unconstitional so-called "Patriot Act".

Continuing to bail out big corporations with taxpayer money - check

Continuing to run the Empire the same way it has been run for decades - check

Continuing to bully Iran for its nuclear program (while neglecting the fact that Israel has hundreds of nukes and state of the art weapons, that we provide, to deliver the nukes to not only Iran but to anything within thousands of miles) in the same tone as all other Republocrats - check

Continuing to support the war criminals at home - check

Continuing to support the war criminals in Israel and pledge the support for "Israel's right to defend" against rockets (that killed zero Israeli civilians in the last 8 months), after Israel broke the ceasefire and killed 1330 people (more than half of them women and children) and continues to blockade 1.5 million people - check

He didn't mention the right of self-defence of the Gaza population that does not have any Cobra Gunships or F-16s or missle with White Phosphorus. he stressed that we must stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza but he didn't mention that we must also stop giving 3 billion Dollars to a regime that South Africans call "Worse than apartheid". He used the same logic that the Israelis fed Bush and now fed him; "No democracy would tolerate missiles fired at them", but he doesn't ask the question why Tijuana doesn't fire rockets at California, maybe they will start firing rockets if Californians had been occupying, torturing, bombing and blockading Tijuana for over 40 years and killing Mexicans at a ratio of 10:1.

Is there a single Policy change that Obama has brought into place on any of the real issues?

[slomojoe]

“When I promise that we are going to bring this war in Iraq to a close in 2009, I want the American people to understand that I opposed this war in 2002, 2003, '04, '05, '06 and '07, so you can have confidence that I will be serious about ending this war.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At The North Carolina Democrat Party 2008 Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, Raleigh, NC, 5/2/08)

"In order to end this war responsibly, I will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. We can responsibly remove one to two combat brigades each month. If we start with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today, we can remove all of them 16 months." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks On Iraq, Fayetteville, NC, 3/19/08)

"Let me be as clear as I can be. I intend to end this war. My first day in office I will bring the joint chiefs of staff in and I will give them a new mission, and that is to end this war, responsibly and deliberately, but decisively." (Sen. Barack Obama, Press Conference, 7/08)

“As president I will end this war in Iraq. We will have our troops home within 16 months.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At The Democrat National Committee Annual Fall Meeting, Vienna, VA, 11/30/07)

“But the overall strategy has failed, because we have not seen any change in behavior among Iraq's political leaders. And that is the essence of what we should be trying to do in Iraq. That's why I'm going to bring this war to a close. That's why we can get our combat troops out within 16 months.” (Sen. Barack Obama, CNN/Nevada Democrat Party Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Las Vegas, NV, 11/15/07)

Obama has been in office for a month with not a single combat brigade removed from Iraq.

stewart

And? I am sure you realize that 16 months from January 20, 2009 is July 20, 2010. As I said, a shift of that deadline to the end of 2010 is currently under consideration upon advice from military leaders. That the deadline may be extended by a few months, however, does not signal a significant change in strategy, let alone a "permanent" presence of combat troops in Iraq. At least not that anyone can see at this point.

Call me naive, but after the past 8 years of stubborn intransigence in the face of mounting failure, I would think that a certain extent of flexibility in policy decisions following expert advice and changes in available information would be seen as a positive, not a drawback. Or do you think it would be more sensible if the administration started popping brigades out of Iraq, willy nilly? That's just bizarre.

[slomojoe]

Post in response to Javajoe above deleted for purpose of detente.

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Last edited by slomojoe; 02-18-2009 at 05:18 PM.

[roentarre]

This is to inform the relevant posters in the thread that Blue has requested his posts to be withdrawn and deleted in this particular thread.

I have pmed slomojoe regarding Blue's decision, waiting for the response.

Moderation Team

Roentarre.

This post will be deleted pending the decision of involved parties.

[roentarre]

Far as I am concerned you can delete all of it except the very first one. That was pretty funny. Just hate to think all my typing would disappear though

Unless you want your posts to be deleted in this thread, I would leave them there. As far as the moderation team is concerned, a civilised exchange of opinions are acceptable as long as there is no open forum personal insults.

Whenever a member feels a certain post being inappropriate, you are welcome to either report the particular post for the moderation team to examine and we will respond to the concerns.

Roentarre

Moderation Team

[stewart_photo]

And? I am sure you realize that 16 months from January 20, 2009 is July 20, 2010. As I said, a shift of that deadline to the end of 2010 is currently under consideration upon advice from military leaders. That the deadline may be extended by a few months, however, does not signal a significant change in strategy, let alone a "permanent" presence of combat troops in Iraq. At least not that anyone can see at this point. (snip)

Of course, blame any delays on the military, not Obama. And if you read this paragraph again...

"In order to end this war responsibly, I will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. We can responsibly remove one to two combat brigades each month. If we start with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today, we can remove all of them 16 months." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks On Iraq, Fayetteville, NC, 3/19/08)

...I'm sure you realize "immediately" doesn't mean starting months or years later and "we can remove them all in 16 months" is dependant on both "immediately" and removing "one to two combat brigades each month" starting "with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today." Thus, any delay beyond "immediately" greatly reduces any possibility whatsoever of meeting the oft-repeated promise Obama made.

Obama has now been in office for a month and not even one, much less two, combat brigades have vacated Iraq. Instead, the military remains in Iraq at full force doing exactly what it did under the Bush administration - things Democrats now apparently have no objections to and even outright support for at least the next 15-22 months.

At the same time, Obama is also going right along with planned troop increases in Afghanistan, when our military really should be pulling out of that poor, heavily abused, country as well.

By the way, I didn't use the word "permanent," so have no idea why you're putting that word in quotation marks above. Instead, I used the word "indefinitely" when referring to Obama's military occupation of Iraq, which is an accurate term to describe the situation at this point.

stewart


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Last edited by stewart_photo; 02-18-2009 at 09:54 PM.

[slomojoe]

Of course, blame any delays on the military, not Obama. And if you read this paragraph again...

Generals seek to reverse Obama's Iraq withdrawal decision - IPS 2/2/09

Obama weighing Iraq withdrawal options - CBS News 2/6/09

...I'm sure you realize "immediately" doesn't mean starting months or years later and "we can remove them all in 16 months" is dependant on both "immediately" and removing "one to two combat brigades each month" starting "with the number of brigades we have in Iraq today." Thus, any delay beyond "immediately" greatly reduces any possibility whatsoever of meeting the oft-repeated promise Obama made.

Of course I understand that, but as i said, I personally find it refreshing that a president would consider modifying some of his plans according to his advisors' opinions on the matter, rather than sticking to an artificial timetable simply because of a campaign statement. As long as the promise of withdrawing from Iraq is kept, I couldn't care less if the withdrawal starts tomorrow or in 3 months.

By the way, I didn't use the word "permanent," so have no idea why you're putting that word in quotation marks above. Instead, I used the word "indefinitely" when referring to Obama's military occupation of Iraq, which is an accurate term to describe the situation at this point.

stewart


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You are right, and I apologize I misquoted you (I was going from memory). But "indefinite" is accurate only to the extent that your friends would worry that you intend moving into their homes "indefinitely" every time you overstay a visit and don't announce exactly at what time you'd be leaving.

The current Obama administration policy for US combat troops in Iraq is for them to stay there neither "permanently" nor "indefinitely", so really the point is mute.

[waqas]

Of course, blame any delays on the military, not Obama. And if you read this paragraph again...

....

By the way, I didn't use the word "permanent," so have no idea why you're putting that word in quotation marks above. Instead, I used the word "indefinitely" when referring to Obama's military occupation of Iraq, which is an accurate term to describe the situation at this point.

stewart
-

I meant to put more emphasis on permanent by setting the font to BOLD, not to use quotes. While I agree that it's not reasonable to expect an instant withdrawal, I don't see any difference in the policy on major issues.

About Permanent Bases, My understanding was that the bases/embassies/consulates being built in Iraq are/were the largest anywhere in the world, I don't have references to quote but please correct me if I'm wrong. If it's correct, is Obama going to reverse that decision and give those bases back to Iraqis?

Obama was quick to jump on opportunities to bail out big corporations and throw more into the money hole, I don't see any difference in what Bush did vs what Obama did, I think Bush didn't throw that much money down the hole as much Obama has / is planning to throw.

Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

Perhaps I should have also overspent and bought a house that was way beyong my reach. Is Rick Santelli's idea of "Chicago Tea Party" crazy or is our complacency to the this nonsense crazy?
Rick Santelli and the "Rant of the Year"

PS:
What about continuing to use drones on Pakistan-Afghanistan border that continue to kill more innocent civilians (if there are any "Alqaeda" personnel killed at all)?
His speech at AIPAC praised Israeli war criminals and condemnded Iran (a country that didn't threaten nor attack any country), the speech was no different than Hillary, McCain or Bush speeches.
His speech on Palestine conflict was the same old BS that Bush has been feeding us.

What was the change Obama was talking about? It was all rhetoric, he didn't give any specifics, he hasn't taken any action to change anything.