Obama harped on irritatingly about change and a lot of it is empty political rhetoric.

However he epitomises a change of attitude from the Bush presidency. In regards to Afganistan and Iraq – he inherited these wars and their aftermath so his hands are tied somewhat in the cards he has been dealt – despite his earlier campaign promises – to pull out too early would be stupid – whether you agree or not with the wars. Certainly in Iraq – Obama – wouldn’t of invaded in the first place. But we are here now.

Naturally Bush had to go after his 2 term limit but I wondered if he would of invaded more countries had he stayed. Like Iran. Bush instincts seemed to be more unilateral and pre-emptive – but not in all cases (e.g. N.Korea). Obama would rather get more international agreement and consensus (pretty impossible but certainly room for improvement as to what when on before).

So with change under Obama – I don’t expect much. But I don’t believe the US will get involved in any new wars which will be a relief. Hopefully Afganistan and Pakistan can get more of a focus than it seemed to have before under Bush – at least after the invasion of Iraq.

However it’s funny (as in bizarre not ha ha) when on this board – it seems people are saying Obama is some evil communist who is going to bring about WWIII and the same time saying his policies are the same as Bush. So which is it?

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@widmarc clark:

MINOR CORRECTION:
“…impact could will be severe.”

Also, I disagree on Palin, but since the VP is a figurehead, unless something happens to the P, that’s a mute point. I may be wrong, but since she and the other guy weren’t elected that too is a mute point.

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Obama won’t change a thing, he has no idea what to change. He ran, he got elected, but this
empty suit won’t do any better as president than he did as senator. He talked a blue streak and
never gave me a clue about how he would make changes. If your not a truck mechanic how can
you work on trucks.

If you can’t drive a truck, why apply for the job. This man can’t do anything, what’s he qualfied
to do except possibly be a lawyer. He has limited experence at that. John McCain at least had
some idea how the government is run, up and above that thin ice he too would not be effective.
Bad choice on Sarah Palin. That killed McCains bid to get elected along with other blunders proved McCain had no business as our President.

Neither of these candiates should have been seriously considered as presidential material. A lot
of our citizens are lead to believe ” Obama ” is a cure all for what’s making them sick and just
because he’s black and they are black things will get better for those folk. Not true, Obama has
favors to return to many, Many, rich influential’s all over the country especially in Chicago and
in the senate. Ted Kennedy for one and there are many more.

The pay back’s to his party for their support will lean heavy on much of his time. He will do what
The Speaker of The House request of him. We will all reap the whirlwind that will follow Obama.
Better have a ” BIG AIR BAG ” and a “Strong Seat Belt” the impact could be severe.
Widmarc Clark

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Every General says they’re seeing success.

and yes…Obama does not have the unconditional timeline that is wanted by Doug; a withdrawal based on a calender date rather than (to quote Senator Obama) Conditions on the ground.

http://www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSN26392694

Bush-withdrawal after success on benchmarks & pace dependent upon conditions on the ground

McCain-withdrawal after success on benchmarks & pace dependent upon conditions on the ground

Obama-withdrawal after success on benchmarks & pace dependent upon conditions on the ground
“Obama says conditions to dictate final Iraq force”
Or do one of those people have a plan for Iraq that fits Doug’s worn in talking point of timetables (yeah, so many wars are fought and won on a schedule & the enemy’s actions have little to do w i)

C’mon Doug, pick one: withdrawal should be based on calender date as faux-anti-war types have advocated since 2002, OR it should be based on meeting benchmarks, goals, objectives, and conditions on the ground as the Bush Admin proposed in
2002 w Jay Garner’s draft plan for post war Iraq
2003 CPA plan for reconstruction
2004 National Strategy for Iraq at WH site
2006 New Direction in Iraq strategy for Iraq at WH site
2008 DNC platform
2009-2010 Obama, McCain, Bush plan for Iraq

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Yep, my mistake. Bing West is one general who thinks the war is essentially won. I guess i have a tin ear for another ‘mission accomplished’ book or banner.

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Doug, Maliki spews that stuff every few months.

I’m sorry, but I missed the part where you showed that YOUR glasses are not colored by the election (to use your phrasing); where you complain that Sen Obama’s timeline of 1-2 brigades a month (logistically almost impossible btw according to the generals) for 16 months, or where you complain that he’s leaving combat forces in Iraq indefinitely even after May 2010.

Oh, and btw, when I speak w commanders in Iraq (people who are actually there, actually fighting the war, and actually DOING the transition to the ISF)….they repeatedly talk about the end of 2010/early 2011 (warning: indefinite timetable coming up) “Depending On Conditions On the Ground.”

Also, if you’re against indefinite timetables, then how can you complain about a definite date for withdrawal as you did earlier? I just don’t see the consistency here (and instead see hypocrisy)

First you make it sound like basing the conditions for withdrawal on a calender date is bad:
“Signing on to a staged withdrawal with gunpowder dry, guns laying around in plentiful supply and numerous questionable, and angry characters is hardly a prudent thing to do when you have been planning to “win” a war, be “victorious”, or leave “honorably”. “-Doug post 12

NOW, you’re saying that a withdrawal of US forces should be unconditional; set a date/timeline and leave.
“I’ve always been for timetables, unconditional ones.”-Doug post #16

Pick one, and please tell us how Sen Obama and the DNC’s vague pledge to pull out most combat units by May 2010 is good or bad, and what your thoughts are on Senator Obama’s and the DNC’s pledge to keep tens of thousands of combat troops in Iraq indefinitely

Rather than make a decision, you continue to runaway-err, redeploy your rhetoric to complaints about the six year old decision that Sen Biden and others made to re-authorize the use of force Iraq.

Obama-most US combat troops out by May 2010
Bush-most US combat troops out of cities by July 2009, most combat brigades out by 2011, and most forces out by 2012.
McCain-withdraw as many as we can as fast as we can without letting violence get out of control again as has happened after every other withdrawal or reduction in US troop levels.

Seems like Obama supporters simply put a lot of faith in change and hope and sort wish/force things to work out with a little post 911 intervention.

Oh yeah….one more cute distortion of truth (presumably via ignorance and not arrogance or deceit), “no generals are saying we have won, no military brass are using such inflated dross. “-Doug, post #16
http://www.amazon.com/Strongest-Tribe-Politics-Endgame-Iraq/dp/1400067014

You are correct that whether it’s Petraeus, Holmes, Trombitas, West, or any general who’s been in Iraq…they (like McCain, Bush, and Obama) all use the same caveat: DEPENDING ON CONDITIONS ON THE GROUND

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It’s my view that Malilki pushed the issue of US withdrawals quite forcefully when Obama visited Iraq, resulting in Bush, McCain to bend with Maliki.

Fly in your soup. Maliki announced to the world week’s before Obama’s visit that they were now ready to talk withdrawals.

Your problem is you think this is all about Obama’s stance. It’s not. Maliki could give a flying whit about Obama. And probably even less now that he’s selected Joe “let’s split up Iraq” Biden as his #2.

This is about Maliki’s election, their improvement in security, and feeling bolstered by their recent successes against Sadr and the Mahdi.

We all want out. You and your associates will always deem Iraq a failure… even if the nation stands as a solid and secure Arab Republic after we leave. You have to for a couple of reasons… you’re vested in calling it a failure and can’t afford the credibility hit as a party platform. And second, because you genuinely think the US coalition is a failure. I truly find your attitude offensive on this one, Doug.

In truth, our guys will have *always won*, as we have helped prevent Iraq being taken over by those attempting to overthrow the elected government while it was still weak. Iraq’s personal success story will only be told over decades. Can they hold on to their new country, or not?

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Curt,

I’ve always been for timetables, unconditional ones.

When I’m discussing it above, I’m discussing it as a republican hypocrisy due to the election season backdrop and heft. It’s my view that Malilki pushed the issue of US withdrawals quite forcefully when Obama visited Iraq, resulting in Bush, McCain to bend with Maliki.

Of course this story is not even over yet, we know next to nothing on what the MoU (it’s no longer a Sofa) will contain and it may never even be glossed in its final form by Bush. … most probably the next president will approve it. Furthermore, Najaf appears to want concrete timetables in the MoU.

Personally, I’m wondering how Maliki will damage what Bush and McCain have to say about “timehorizons” or timetables: Maliki:

“There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said in a speech to tribal leaders in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

“An open time limit is not acceptable in any security deal that governs the presence of the international forces,” he said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/25/AR2008082500863.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/08/25/iraq.main/
Just how long will McCain, Bush continue to deny that the time horizons/time tables Maliki wants that the administration has agreed to are not really “timehorizons”, “aspirational” and “conditions based?

Maliki will most probably continue to kick up dust like this as he’s under pressure to do so. One day, or perhaps more than once, before our election, the clouds will part and I see him standing before parliament, making a noteworthy statement to such an affect; thus, making it clear as glass to us, Bush, McCain, the parliament, congress, Sistani, Sadr and the Baghdad bombers: A US troop withdrawal will not be condition based, we want US troops out according to dates in time and place. There will not be walk-back on this statement either.

But returning to my earlier comment; it’s here that I find a republican hypocrisy in an election year context: no generals are saying we have won, no military brass are using such inflated dross. They are measured in statement, held by the prudent counter weight that things can go wrong, again (and now they really can and may). Yet, given that prudence, Bush, McCain and other political salesmen are still selling their goods, the war is near won, it’s a victory and the surge is the elixir ( Yet Petreaus himself has stated otherwise: “Petraeus is careful not to credit all the progress to the surge of U.S. troops in 2007. The sea change came last year from a series of movements now known as the Awakening. […] So would the Sunni Awakening have succeeded without the surge? “Possibly,” he concedes.”) http://www.newsweek.com/id/154587/output/print.

‘Caution’ is these sages universal watchword for Iraq. …But McCain, you, Gateway Pundit and others are in a hurry, in less than one year you have gone from decades to several years, and even declaring “military success” in Iraq, that “victory is in sight”— while even overshadowing Maliki’s attempts to posit a dated timetable for US withdrawals.

It is your colored glasses, color by this election season, that do not enable you to see the facts for what they are in Iraq. Me, personally, and my associates, we want out, we respect their self determination and will leave, when asked; you, you want to bend the truth of Iraq into a republican Bush/McCain celebration, where winning and victory have more holding power than the truth itself regarding Iraq. You want to gloss over the ruins of Iraq and its present and future instability. You want to make the surge a magic wand that stills all discord and stabilizes all tremors. You want to sell a bill of goods that does not reflect the reality of Iraq.

You scam on a war that has no clear indications of victory, and on a people that want us to leave.

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imo, best part about Doug’s posts are that he goes on and on about how Bush, McCain, Flopping Aces writers, and other “wonks” opposed timelines (withdrawl of forces based on a date instead of conditions on the ground), and then he turns right around and opposes timelines himself while denying that Sen Obama and the DNC 08 platform specifically give a timeline for withdrawal of combat forces by May 2010 except for combat forces needed to fight AQ, and protect US forces who are training ISF, supporting them, etc.

The guy just can’t decide if a timeline is a good or a bad thing, and absolutely refuses to acknowledge that Obama should dare be examined or critiqued re his plan (a plan which is almost identical to the past SIX years of Bush plans (I found a new one from 2002 that doesn’t give a timeline, but puts withdrawal based on conditions on the ground).

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Doug, INRE your comment:

The Bush administration and McCain has stood steadfastly against setting a timetable for exiting Iraq. Now it is exploring a “time horizon” for troop reductions. You, and them, argue this is due to a significant and durable change in conditions in the ground. Yet it’s simply not that simple. There is evidence out there in Iraq that the coming days are going to be very hard going for Maliki to keep this tenuous “stability”. Yet Bush, after years of a foreign policy dominated by hard-line pronouncements, is bending to ‘time-horizons’ a buzz word vaguely defined to mean near anything, as long as it means the US will be leaving sometime soon.

Of course they stood steadfast against setting a timeline when the chaos was a’rage. Only the DNC wanted to beat the feet out of there in that era.

And there is more than “exploring”. You are behind the times, or perhaps distracted and a’twitter with flushed cheeks at the DNC convention hoopla… LOL. Dat’s a joke, son. But it certainly didn’t make huge news late last week when it happened.

Now you suggest the timeline is disingenuous because it is a “tenuous” stability. No one suggests waiting until the danger goes away… just until they can deal with their own problems effectively. Iraq will always be tenuous and difficult – it’s an Arab democracy, the heart of the Caliphate, and Islamic jihad movements will always want that territory as an Islamic state. They will be assailed until the cows come home.

However Iraq is more equipped as of this time to handle their internal problems without US help. Not totally capable as of today, but when the deadlines outlined in the new draft agreement being submitted first to Iraq security chiefs, they have the time to increase their proficiency. After security signs it off, then the Iraq Assembly must do the same.

Rather a wind out of the sails of Obama if this goes thru. Since withdrawal at the right time, and under the right conditions, was the plan from day one… despite what you want to believe… BHO will have little left to talk about. However none of this is thanks to him, or his DNC cohorts in Congress.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, revealed that the White House and the Iraqi government are “very, very close” to agreeing a provisional timetable for troops to return home, when she paid a surprise visit to Baghdad.

Under the terms of the draft agreement, to be presented to Iraqi security chiefs on Friday, American forces would leave Iraqi cities by the end of June next summer, at first withdrawing to bases outside the major population centres as numbers are reduced from the current level of 140,000 troops.

Mohammed al-Haj Humood, the Iraqi deputy foreign minister and chief negotiator, told the Wall Street Journal that the deal sets out a series of drawdown arrangements depending on the security situation, culminating in arrangements for all frontline troops to pull out by 2011.

American officials insist the date is a goal not a firm deadline. The US will maintain a military presence and support bases in the country after 2011 but would hand over responsibility for day to day security to the Iraqi Army.

After talks with the Iraqi prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, Miss Rice said there were “still issues concerning exactly how our forces will operate” that have to be finalised.

And BTW, Congress is in a snip that *they* don’t get to approve this withdrawal plan… LOL!

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