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Surprise: Obama Tried to Delay Iraq Withdrawal Until After Election

September 17, 2008 |

Yet another example of how Barack Obama is nothing more than a politician, and in no way represents anything close to "change from politics as usual." Amir Taheri, an Iranian born journalist and author, first brought this story in an editorial in Monday's New York Post.

The article detailed how, even as he campaigned on the platform of a speedy withdrawal from the war that "should have never been authorized and should have never been waged," Obama met in private with Iraqi leaders and attempted to "persuade [them] to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence."

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari can vouch for Taheri's claims. He says:

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari said in an interview.

"However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open."

Then, the American Spectator confirmed the allegations, and described the Obama campaigns headaches after Taheri's column:
The three problems, according to campaign sources: The report was true, there were at least three other people in the room with Obama and Zebari to confirm the conversation, and there was concern that there were enough aggressive reporters based in Baghdad with the sources to confirm the conversation that to deny the comments would create a bigger problem.
Today, Taheri has written another column rebuking Obama's defense, with even more damning statements from Iraqi Foreign Minister Zebari:
In a long interview with the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Zebari says: "Obama asked me why, in view of the closeness of a change of administration, we were hurrying the signing of this special agreement, and why we did not wait until the coming of the new administration next year and agree on some issues and matters."

Zebari continues: "I told Obama that, as an Iraqi, I believe that even if there is a Democratic administration in the White House it had better continue the present policy instead of wasting a lot of time thinking what to do."

In other words, Obama was trying to derail current US policy, while Zebari was urging him not to "waste time."
If McCain has a pair, he'll be attending the debates with this card up his sleeve. As much as you and I loathe Bush, please recognize that if this is true, Barack Obama undermined the current administration to further his political ambitions. Anyone in reality knows Barry simply cares about being the one who history will say stood up and stopped the most unpopular war in American history. If Bush and the Iraqis draw up a withdrawal agreement before Obama takes office, all he'd be doing is carrying out the previously-agreed-upon-plan, and would hardly be credited with stopping the war.

I'll sum up with a quote from Harry Truman. Obama might want to take this to heart if he still thinks "change we can believe in" is more than just a campaign slogan:

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." -Harry S. Truman

Update: The McCain campaign has released a statement in response to this story. From Senior McCain/Palin Adviser Randy Scheunemann:
"At this point, it is not yet clear what official American negotiations Senator Obama tried to undermine with Iraqi leaders, but the possibility of such actions is unprecedented. It should be concerning to all that he reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the US administration in power.

"If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas. Senator Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq’s Foreign Minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Senator Obama’s judgment and it demands an explanation."
Update: More evidence emerging, this time from July 2008, that the freshman senator from Illinois was indeed interfering in an attempt to stall the Iraqi government until after the presidential election:
[Foreign Minister Zebari] said that Mr. Obama had asked him: "Why is the Iraqi government in a rush, in a hurry? This administration has only a few more months in office."

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Iraq Now Safer than Chicago

September 4, 2008 |

According to a report coming out of the windy city today, an estimated 123 people were shot and killed in Chicago this summer (Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day). The article then goes on to state that this figure is nearly double the amount of U.S. deaths in Iraq over the same period.

Illinois state law entirely forbids carrying a concealed weapon. According to the law "It is unlawful to carry or possess any firearm on any public street or other public lands within the corporate limits of a city, village, or incorporated town." So if we just ban guns in public, no one will have them and no one will get shot, right?

I'm not sure if the families of those 123 victims would agree.

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Cheney in 1994: Invasion Would Be a "Quagmire"

June 18, 2008 |

Take a look at Dick Cheney's (then Secretary of Defense) thoughts on invading Baghdad after the end of the Gulf War. You'll find the tune he sings quite dissonant. Watch.



This man has had the same glasses for two decades, but it seems his views on Iraq have changed along the way. After Iraq's infrastructure was decimated by the long and bloody Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s, followed by a relatively swift defeat of Saddam after Operation Desert Storm, George H. W. Bush shared many of Dick's ideas. Even though the elder Bush had referred to Hussein as "Hitler revisited," he chose to leave the tyrant in charge of a crumbling nation of 21.5 million war-weary citizens.

While this seems illogical, Bush sensibly explained:
Trying to eliminate Hussein would have incurred human and political costs. Apprehending him was probably impossible. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. There was no viable "exit strategy" we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been self-consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War.

Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish.

Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.
A few comments that also deserve some attention (besides W's bumbling speech at the end) come from Democratic leaders in the years and months leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Watch.



You must understand something. The issue wasn't whether George W. Bush "lied" to "get us into" a war, and he must have been a damn good liar to be able to "hoodwink" all those Democrats, huh? The reasons for overthrowing Saddam were numerous, and I don't know anyone who would still want him in power. But that wasn't the issue either.

The real issue, as the first Bush noted over 15 years ago, was whether a plan for invasion and occupation with no exit strategy in a decaying country in the most volatile region on the planet would result in a very long and very costly conflict.

In 1994, Bush was absolutely correct about the dangers posed by an invasion of Baghdad. He apparently forgot to forward that memo to his son. By 2003, while Hussein's troubling activity was increasing, so were the conditions for making an occupation unlikely to succeed. But as much of a mistake as it might have been, and whatever the motivations of today's Democratic leaders, withdrawal (read: defeat) is not an "exit strategy."

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30,000 Troops to Return Home Next Month

June 17, 2008 |

Since any good news from Iraq is apparently not newsworthy in this country, I have to read an article from the Iraqi news organization Aswat al-Iraq to find out that President Bush is withdrawing 30,000 troops from Iraq by July of this year:
U.S. President George Bush on Monday announced the withdrawal of 30,000 troops by July, highlighting that any further withdrawal of the troops will depend on the security conditions in the country.

“This strategy aims at handing Iraqis more responsibilities,” Bush said. For his part, Brown denied any impact of the political argument on his government’s stance.

“There is a work to do in Iraq and we will continue our work,” Brown added, stressing that he would not outline any time table for British forces withdrawal. He highlighted that his forces realized more progress in Iraq as well as the Iraqi forces.
Will this be uncomfortable for Democrats? With the media clamoring for the return of troops from Iraq, why is this not a major news story? This isn't 30,000 Americans home by the end of the year, this is by the end of next month. I guess they think most Americans will be too wrapped up in deciding how to spend their stimulus checks to be bothered reading an Arab paper.

As for Nero (ahem...Bush), will he even have the stones to hold a press conference announcing this?

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Democrat Admits Lofty Iraq Promises

June 16, 2008 |

Congressman Paul Kanjorski may be getting some interesting mail in the coming days. Footage from a town hall meeting has surfaced showing the Pennsylvania representative admitting that the Democrats "stretched the facts" in regard to their ability to end the Iraq war if elected in 2006. Watch.



Here's the quote:
"We didn't say it, but we implied it, that if we [Democrats] won the Congressional elections, we could stop the war. Now anybody who was a good student of government would know that wasn't true. But you know, the temptation to want to win back the Congress, we sort of stretched the facts, and people ate it up."
In other words, we knew we couldn't stop the war just by winning back the Congress, but we realized that the biggest issue to voters was "Bush Lied, People Died." Hence, we ran on a phony "end-the-war" platform, because after all, you people were just dumb enough to believe us. Amazing.

What did we learn today, boys and girls? Politicians will lie in order to attain power! Face it - as much as you love the wrinkly shoe salesman or the eloquent dreamboat from Chicago, they're cut from the same cloth.

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Obama in 2004: No Deadline for Troop Withdrawl

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I've unearthed a video from 2004 in which, remarkably, Obama says he "never said that troops should be withdrawn." He goes on to say "I don't think that we should have an artificial deadline when to do that." Watch.



Given that the situation in Iraq is better now than it was in 2004, it's amazing to note how a Presidential campaign can work transformative wonders on a politician. This can only mean that in 2004, withdrawing was a bad idea, but now that the war has already been lost (his only possible conjecture), it is now the only option. I thought this war should end because "it should have never been authorized and should have never been waged?" He is a hollow man, drifting in the breeze of public opinion.

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Because Iraq Doesn't Take American Express

February 29, 2008 |

We are constantly hearing about the cost of the Iraq war, as President Bush asks for more and more money to get the troops what they need. This has been the most expensive war in history, mostly due to the use of private contractors, hired to do jobs the American military used to.

Above: The Iraq War has been the most privatized
war in our nation's history.

But the American military isn't what it used to be. As the Clintons tried to convince us we were cashing in a 90s "peace dividend," they gutted our armed forces and virtually halved our military resources. This also led to a slew of early retirements, as military men and women refused to serve under the Clinton administration.

The cost of contractor billings has gotten completely out of control, having gone up 50% a year between 2004 and 2006. This is mostly due to lack of oversight, which is almost impossible to achieve in hostile areas. Right now, KBR (an engineering and construction company and former Halliburton subsidiary) is reportedly billing $500 million per month. Most of this money goes to salaries and benefits, which have to be taxed.

The use of private companies is absolutely incompatible with the nature of warfare, and will only escalate the cost of a war that is bankrupting our nation.

Contracted employees can just say no. A soldier can't say no; he follows orders or he goes to jail. Private employees are not bound by the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and can simply go home. The only recourse the military has is claiming a "breach of contract," which can never reverse the damage done by such a breach.

Above: Nisour Square. Eight Iraqis were killed here in a
shooting involving Blackwater private security officers.

Early in the war, a KBR truck driver named Tommy Hamill was kidnapped. After the incident, numerous KBR employees left their jobs to return to the United States. This was partly the reason for over 1,000 trucks being stuck on the Kuwaiti border, forcing the Army to ration food. Why would you want to place control of a vital trucking supply line in the hands of a private contractor?

Or have your laundry done by Halliburton for $99 dollars per load?

These companies have simultaneous obligations to the military and their stockholders, and what's good for Wall Street often isn't good for America. Maximizing profits doesn't do much for our boys. And with KBR, Halliburton, and Blackwater on the scene, why even join the military at all? After all, if you can make 6 figures working for a for-profit security corporation (taxpayer money stolen and given to you), what's so great about the army?

In war, you do anything possible against your own interests to crush your enemy. In business, the real war is to protect those interests (which means profits).

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McCain Inherits Bush Ideology

February 25, 2008 |

We all know John McCain is hardly a Conservative. Republican voters are trying to convince themselves that at least with McCain, they're getting about 50 to 60 percent for their vote. With Hillary and Obama, it's less than zero.

If Republicans and Independents demand their representatives hold McCain's feet to the small-government-fire (is that considered torture?), he could be forced to bring true conservative reform. But on foreign policy matters, McCain has been passed the torch of ideology.

At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, McCain said the following:



Yes, John. We have been in Japan, Korea, and Germany. Let's not forget 13,000 troops in Italy, 12,000 in England, 11,000 in Afghanistan, 5,000 in Kosovo, 3,000 in Bosnia, 1,600 in Qatar, 1,000 in the Philippines, and the rest of the United States military inventory consisting of 702 bases in about 130 countries.

And this is a conservative estimate; many believe the real number of American bases is closer to 1,000, including installations in North Africa, Central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf, and the Balkans.

Casualties are not the largest problem -- just the one a nation feels the most. The problem is sustaining the entangling alliances and imperialist global troop presence necessary to carry out an impossible ideological mission: to democratize the most unstable region in the world at the point of a gun.

If the Iraq War had been presented as a mission in nation-building, the American people would have never supported it. Do you think Pakistan is ready for a democracy? The Palestinians showed they were more than ready by voting in Hamas' murderers. And why is Saudi Arabia, one of the most repressive theocracies in the world, somehow exempt from the expectations Bush has for the world?

In a speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, in 2003, Bush said the following:

"The establishment of a free Iraq at the heart of the Middle East will be a watershed event in the global democratic revolution."

Global democratic revolution? Why is this America's most important mission? We have trade deficits, we borrow from our grandchildren, and Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid spending makes up over 40% of our federal budget. These are not the rosy times of the great American century. We are losing our country, yet we are still spending fortunes on the future of Third World nations as we sink into ever-increasing dependency and ever-mounting debt.

John McCain doesn't seem to get it. Here's his response:



We need a president to get us out of this ideological disaster with honor. We need not be defeatists, but we need to dissolve the notions carried forward by Bush's ideology and hubris.

Pat Buchanan, senior adviser to three American presidents, put it bluntly in an MSNBC interview:

"If we're in Iraq 100 years...we will be fighting 100 years of war just as the British, if they stayed in our country 100 years, would be fighting the Americans for a century. What John McCain is telling you is what he is promising you."

American casualties are not the only problem with positioning troops in the heart of the Arab world, but they will always be a problem. The slogan "democratize or I'll shoot" does not resonate well in the Middle East, yet is never scarce in Arab media.

There will always be evil people in the world, and we need to build our military might back up to the level it was in the mid 20th century, so that when confrontation comes, we can end it swiftly and powerfully. We don't need to perpetuate the imperial overstretch currently straining our fighting forces, putting more of our boys in harm's way, and ignoring the real culprits and nerve centers of radical Islam.

You can bankrupt your country with four more years of wars or you can do it with universal health care and endless entitlement spending. Make a choice, America.

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