In October, Obama gives a speech at an antiwar rally in Chicago
opposing the invasion of Iraq, saying, "I am not opposed to all wars. I
am opposed to dumb wars."
Obama’s Plan
In February, 2007, when Barack Obama declared that he was running
for President, violence in Iraq had reached apocalyptic levels, and he
based his candidacy, in part, on a
bold promise to begin a rapid withdrawal of American forces upon
taking office. At the time, this pledge represented conventional
thinking among Democrats and was guaranteed to play well with primary
voters. But in the year and a half since then two improbable,
though not unforeseeable, events have occurred: Obama has won the
Democratic nomination, and Iraq, despite myriad crises, has begun to
stabilize. With the general election four months away, Obama’s
rhetoric on the topic now seems outdated and out of touch, and the
nominee-apparent may have a political problem concerning the very issue
that did so much to bring him this far.
In January 2007, Obama outlined a
plan to begin "redeployment of U.S. forces no later than May 1, 2007"
and "remove all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31, 2008."
Obama’s plan called for the remaining combat brigades to be
pulled out at a brisk pace of about one per month, along with a
strategic shift of resources and attention away from Iraq and toward
Afghanistan. At that rate, all combat troops would be withdrawn in
sixteen months, or, by March 31,
2008. In hindsight, it was a mistake -- an understandable one,
given the nature of the media and of Presidential politics today -- for
Obama to offer such a specific timetable. In matters of foreign
policy, flexibility is a President’s primary defense against surprise.
Obama, whatever the idealistic yearnings of his admirers, has turned out
to be a cold-eyed, shrewd politician. The same pragmatism that
prompted him last month to forgo public financing of his campaign will
surely lead him, if he becomes President, to recalibrate his stance on
Iraq. He doubtless realizes that his original plan, if implemented
now, could revive the badly wounded Al Qaeda in Iraq, re-energize the
Sunni insurgency, embolden Moqtada al-Sadr to recoup his militia’s
recent losses to the Iraqi Army, and return the central government to a
state of collapse. The question is whether Obama will publicly
change course before November. So far, he has offered nothing more
concrete than this: "We must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we
were careless getting in."
Losing Touch With Reality
Even the Washington Post recognizes that Obama has lost touch with
reality,
referring to Obama's Iraq withdrawal plan as "The Iron Timetable" --
observing that whether the war in Iraq is being lost or won, Barack
Obama's strategy remains unchanged -- retreat -- surrender -- bug out!
Obama's Pleased
Obama
said he was "pleased with the progress taking place" in Iraq and
said that it was his impression that among Iraqis there was "more
optimism about what is happening."
"You see the activity taking place, the people in the shops, the traffic
on the streets, clearly there’s been an enormous improvement," he said.
Of course, if Obama's widely praised judgment
were followed, there would have been no surge and al Qaeda in Iraq and
the Mookie al Sadr would be running things.
Obama is now going to have to admit the surge worked and victory in Iraq
is at hand. The trick now, is for him to figure out a way to take
credit for it.
Against The Surge
Obama still opposes the surge -- even if it worked ( 1:02)
Here is video of Barack Obama from Iraq, in an interview with ABC News, saying
he would NOT support the "Surge Strategy" if he had it to do over again.
This is the very "Surge Strategy" that has undeniably transformed Iraq.
But Obama says he would still oppose it because . . . well, just because.
(There are two other videos
here, illustrating the
stupidity of Obama's position)
There's another interview with Katie Couric who presses Obama on the surge and
he hums and haws and squirms, but absolutely refuses to admit the surge has been
successful. (I will try and post it later in the
day)
The question becomes, do we really want to elect
someone to lead this country, who is so breathtakingly arrogant, that even after
learning he was wrong, refuses to acknowledge reality?
Obama and his supporters on the left are invested in the defeat of our own
forces to the political damage of Bush. It means everything to them.
They would risk losing everything before they give the president a dime's worth
of credit.
America is at war in the mideast, but the dhimmicrats are at war with Bush.
It's that simple.
Obama would rather lose a war
Redstate
notes that John McCain has gone and said one of the things you are
not supposed to say in American politics:
"This is a clear choice that the American people have. I had the
courage and the judgment to say I would rather lose a political campaign
than lose a war. It seems to me that Obama would rather lose a war in
order to win a political campaign."
Mainstream media liberals like Joe Klein and Obama flacks like John
Aravosis headed for the fainting couches at the suggestion that Obama
was willing to lose the war in Iraq in order to win this election.
But the facts are the facts, and they show beyond any doubt that Obama
chose to pursue defeat in Iraq instead of a strategy that is leading us
to victory:
1. Obama's public statements from 2004 through 2006 recognized
that withdrawal from Iraq would lead to defeat and disaster.
2. In early 2007, when President Bush announced the "surge"
strategy to try to win the war, leading Democrats -- Obama included --
publicly concluded that the war was lost and accordingly opposed the
surge.
3. Obama went further and rolled out a plan to begin drawing down
troops in May 2007, leading to a full withdrawal by March 2008.
There was no pretense that this was to be a victorious withdrawal; Obama
stated in his press release that "no amount of American soldiers can
solve the political differences at the heart of somebody else's civil
war" and that he was proposing to "reverse the President's dangerous and
ill-conceived escalation of the Iraq war" and "bring a responsible end
to this war and bring our troops home". The press release made no
mention of victory or even honor.
4. Obama's opposition to the surge and calls for an immediate
commencement of withdrawal proved popular with his supporters in the
Democratic primary and helped him win the nomination of his party.
5. John McCain, by contrast, supported the surge on the grounds
that it would lead to victory.
6. It is now obvious, and so broadly conceded that Klein paints it
as beyond dispute, that the surge has succeeded and will lead to victory
in Iraq.
7. Had we followed Obama's strategy instead of McCain's, it is
equally clear that we would have lost the war, as the Iraqis could not
have done it without us.
While Aravosis calls McCain's statement "a brutal lie," he does not take
issue with any of those facts. Meanwhile, Ann Althouse delivers a
devastating rebuke to Klein for his insistence that it is out of bounds
to present America with the facts of Obama's choice and the necessary
consequences of that choice.
Since Obama has NO EXPERIENCE at anything
except running for office, he has based his campaign on his superior
judgment. Obama has been wrong about Iraq for 5 years.
If Obama had his way in 2003, Saddam and Sons would still be torturing,
killing and poisoning Iraqis; they would still be shooting at Coalition
aircraft over the "No-Fly Zone"; they would still be pursuing their
weapons of mass destruction goals; they would still be building palaces
with Iraq's oil money, instead of its infrastructure; and they would
still be a threat to their neighbors.
More recently he was against the Surge when it was proposed; he was
against the Surge when it was implemented; and now that the Surge has
been successful, he's STILL against it.
And let's not forget Obama's selection of
friends and associates.
But, The Surge Works
Related to the above, Randall Hoven,
writing in American Thinker, notes that the "Surge" in Iraq sure
appears to have worked. let's look at the results to date:
1. US troop and Iraqi civilian fatality rates are at their lowest
points since the war began in 2003.
2. Today Iraq has legitimate elections, a constitution and a
functioning parliament. It is considered more politically free
than virtually any country in the Middle East, including Iran, Syria,
Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait.
3. Gross Domestic Product has almost tripled, from $20.5B (US
dollars) in 2002 to $60.9B in 2008.
4. Oil production in each of the last three months (May-July 2008)
has exceeded the peak pre-war estimated rate of 2.5 million barrels per
day. Oil exports now bring in about $7 billion per month, and
rising.
5. Pre-war, only 4 to 8 hours of electricity were available per
day nationwide, on average. In July 2008, electricity was
available an average of almost 12 hours per day, an improvement of 50%
to 200%.
6. There are more than twice as many registered cars, more than 10
times as many telephone subscribers and more than 50 times as many
internet subscribers.
7. Under Saddam, Iraq had no commercial TV or radio stations and
no independent newspapers or magazines. Zero. Today it has
dozens of TV stations and hundreds of radio stations, newspapers and
magazines.
8. More children are in school, and more doctors, judges and
security personnel have been trained and are being trained.
In addition to the above, the White House has reported that the Iraqi
government achieved "satisfactory" progress on 15 of 18 political
benchmarks as set by Congress and the President.
With results like these, who can deny the
"Surge" is working? Well, Obama, that's who.
X Number Of
Troops
Ed Morrissey wrote about this a
few days ago when Obama
ducked Katie Couric’s question by torturing the distinction between
tactics and strategy. According to The One, the president sets
the strategy: Most troops out in 16 months but some left behind for
various missions. The generals supply the tactics: To carry
out those missions responsibly, we need X number of troops.
What does X equal? Why, it’s … "entirely
conditions-based":
Bob Novak’s column this
week cites unnamed Obama advisors as saying this could mean leaving
as many as 50,000 troops in place. According to a recent essay
by Colin Kahl, who runs
Obama’s working group on Iraq, in the "near term" they might keep as
many as 12 brigades there for "overwatch," i.e. support,
duties.
Obama finally abandoned his dangerous
insistence on an unconditional withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from
Iraq by making clear that for the foreseeable future, troop levels
in Iraq will be "entirely conditions based." This latest
shift in Senator Obama’s position is welcome, but it is obvious
that it was only a lack of experience and judgment that kept him
from arriving at this position sooner.
Obama Comments On Surge
Obama comments on the "Surge" (01.09)
and don't miss the last 10 seconds -- definitely
Commander in Chief material
I'm Committed
Politico blog is
wondering
about a trip that has nothing to do with the cost of fuel. I am
wondering about Barack Obama’s planned trip to Iraq.
Is it necessary? Why? What is he going to learn from it?
Besides, as he said last Thursday and documented below, "I am
absolutely committed to ending the war." He also said
that he would call his Joint Chiefs of Staff in and give them a new
assignment and that is to end the war.
Notice, he's not absolutely committed to winning the war -- just ending
it.
How's he going to do that. Blow a whistle and call time out? This
ain't B-ball, Barry -- it's a war -- you win it or you lose it.
Armistices don't work. Ask the French. Ask the Israelis.
Ask the Koreans.
Because Obama is a logical guy, he said there was a logical reason for
him to go to Iraq. He was going to talk to military people there, he
said, and "continue to refine" his Iraq policy.
"I am going to do a thorough assessment when I’m there," he said at a
news conference last week in Fargo, N.D. "When I go to Iraq and I
have a chance to talk to some of the commanders on the ground, I’m sure
I’ll have more information and continue to refine my policy.
How do you refine, "I am absolutely committed to ending the war?"
-- and remember, he can't give the Joints Chiefs a new assignment to end
the war. They're not in the chain of command, as explained below.
So let us get this straight once and for all and stop all this frenzy:
Barack Obama is going to Iraq because he does not intend to change his
mind about Iraq.
An Obama trip to Iraq is nothing more than a political stunt.
Obama Demands End To Negotiations
Here is an
excerpt from Susan Duclos' 15 September blockbuster article on
Obama's attempted manipulation of GIs troop withdrawals from Iraq for
his own political purposes.
Iraqi government sources have revealed to the New York Post that
Presidential candidate Barack Obama demanded Iraqi officials stop
negotiations with the Bush Administration to withdraw U.S. troops
from Iraq. Fearful that the success in Iraq would harm his political
aspirations, Obama sought to keep U.S. troops in Iraq so he can continue
attacking the Bush Administration for not imposing a timetable for
withdrawal.
Maliki's advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win -- but the
prime minister worries about the senator's "political debt to the
anti-war lobby" -- which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster
to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was "the biggest strategic blunder
in US history." [...]
Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn't want Iraq to
appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The
reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive
the Bush Doctrine of "pre-emptive" war - that is, removing a threat
before it strikes at America.
Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects
pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his
foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a
disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other
apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past
five years.
In a brief press conference back in June, Obama
admitted to this outrageous act.
"He said he told Zebari that negotiations for a Status of Forces
agreement or strategic framework agreement between the two countries
should be done in the open and with Congress's authorization and that it
was important that that there be strong bipartisan support for any
agreement so that it can be sustained through a future administration.
He argued it would make sense to hold off on such negotiations until the
next administration."
Obama Says Our Commitment In Iraq Is
Changing
Julie Pace
says Barack
Obama will set a course Monday for the nation's changing mission in Iraq
as the military prepares to end its combat operations there.
In a
speech at the national convention of the Disabled American Veterans in
Atlanta, Obama was to address the progress being made to meet his
deadline of drawing down all combat troops by the end of the month.
A transitional force of 50,000 troops will remain to train Iraqi
security forces, conduct counterterrorism operations and provide
security for ongoing U.S. civilian efforts.
"Make no mistake: Our
commitment in Iraq is changing, from a military effort led by our troops
to a civilian effort led by our diplomats," Obama said in excerpts
released ahead of the speech.
Obama has said all U.S. troops will
be gone from Iraq by the end of next year.
Obama's Credit-Grab
The New York Post
asks, how's this for hubris: Obama extolling his "new strategy" in
Iraq -- even though it never would have succeeded had his original
vision prevailed? Obama struck a triumphal tone this week about
the Iraq mission coming to an end -- but shunned the word "success."
He spoke of "ending" the war, but took pains to avoid context.
Sen. John McCain rightly called the address "small-minded" and
"bizarre."
Indeed, Obama couldn't bring himself to give a shred
of credit to the man who most deserves it: George W. Bush whose surge --
and Gen. David Petraeus' on-the-ground leadership -- created the
conditions for Iraqis to take full control of their country, allowing
Obama last year to introduce his "new strategy."
At the time,
then-Sen. Barack Obama said of the surge: "20,000 troops is not going to
make a difference." A year later, he responded to Bush's State of
the Union Address by declaring that "tonight we heard President Bush say
that the surge in Iraq is working, when we know that's just not true."
Obama's lack of graciousness even barred him from noting that
his speech occurred 20 years to the day after the invasion of Kuwait.
He couldn't offer even a small nod to the first President George Bush,
who led the liberation of Kuwait, but that's a minor quibble measured
against Obama's overweening hypocrisy.
Obama scorned the
strategy that produced the outcome he's now celebrating with a straight
face. And he won't say one kind word about his predecessor, no
matter how warranted.
If any president has shown less class than
Obama, it's hard to say who.
Obama Will Take Credit For Iraq Victory
If Barrack Obama had his way, Saddam Hussein
would still be funding Terrorism from Baghdad. Instead we now have
a semi-democratic ally where we once had an enemy. Tonight, watch him take credit for the victory.
It's important
to remember that Obama vehemently opposed the troop surge in Iraq, and
simply abiding by the "Status of Forces Agreement," signed by President
Bush doesn’t make you the guy who brought the troops home.
Obama vehemently opposed the troop surge in Iraq (00:45)
From
The New York Times
(8/22/07) -- "Obama Sees a 'Complete Failure' in Iraq"
Senator Barack Obama said that even if the
military escalation in Iraq was showing limited signs of progress,
efforts to stabilize the country had been a "complete failure," and
American troops should not be entangled in the sectarian strife.
"No military surge, no matter how brilliantly performed, can
succeed without political reconciliation and a surge of diplomacy in
Iraq and the region," Mr. Obama said. "Iraq’s leaders are not
reconciling. They are not achieving political benchmarks."
Related:Robert
Gibbels lies
about Obama’s position on the Iraq Surge (with
video) -- then Gibbels refuses to answer Gretchen Carlson's
question, "Will Obama credit Bush," 5 times? Then he insults her.
He's as classy as his fuehrer.
A Limp And Boring Speech
Paul Mirengoff
says
Obama's speech from the oval office, only his second, was surprisingly
limp. With three momentous subjects to cover -- Iraq, Afghanistan,
and the U.S. economy -- Obama struggled to say anything new or
interesting. It isn't just that the soaring rhetoric of 2008 has
disappeared; Obama is now affirmatively boring.
In "turning the
page" on Iraq, the Great Speechifier could find no words with which to
give meaning to our epic struggle there. Let's give Obama the
benefit of the doubt and assume this is because he thinks the struggle
had no meaning, except as it related to domestic politics in the U.S.
But then why give a speech about it?
Perhaps the idea was to
signal our resolve going forward. The best he could do on this
front was to say that after our troops leave at the end of 2011, we'll
still have diplomats, aid workers, and advisors on the scene. But
we have diplomats, aid workers, and advisors all over the world; what if
Iraq needs more than that, given all of its challenges? If Obama
signaled anything in this speech, it was his lack of interest in Iraq's
past, present, and future.
In his speech, Obama was his slippery
self when it came to President Bush. He acknowledged that Bush is
patriotic and cares about the troops -- how big of Obama -- but gave him
no credit for the surge, or for liberating Iraq, and the region from
Saddam Hussein (who went unmentioned).
Despite the fact that
Afghanistan has become Obama's war in a way Iraq never did, Obama
displayed no great interest in, or true sense of commitment to, that
action either. In ten short months, Obama once again pledged, we
will begin pulling out of Afghanistan too. These words can only
comfort our terrorist enemies and cause sleepless nights for anyone in
Afghanistan who has ever supported us.
When it came to the
economy, Obama had nothing new to offer. So instead, he provided
America with a pep talk, exhorting us to "honor" our troops by "coming
together" with a great sense of urgency to "restore our economy."
Presumably, this means rallying around Obama's unpopular domestic
agenda. In any case, Americans are unlikely to be impressed by a
guy whose answer to our economic woes sounds something like "hug a
soldier and hope that some of his grit rubs off."
Related:Obama takes total credit for Iraq -- are you surprised?
Related:More Iraqis approved of U.S leadership under President Bush than Obama,
says Gallup Poll.
Mr. Cut 'n' Run
used the word "victory" only once, and not in the context of a
military victory, saying, "In an age without surrender ceremonies, we
must earn victory through the success of our partners and the strength
of our own nation."
Sadly, in his address to the nation last
night, Obama said he called President Bush, but he didn't publicly thank
him or give him credit for the successful Bush Surge -- the successful
surge that Obama vehemently opposed -- and the reason Obama is
announcing the end of combat operations.
And, if combat operations
are over in Iraq, why do 11 "combat" brigades
remain?
And 5 thousand special operations forces, including Army Green Berets
and Navy SEALs, will
continue to hunt, and kill al-Qaida and other terrorist fighters.
Despite Obama’s declaration of an end to the combat mission in Iraq,
combat almost certainly
lies ahead.
