McCain on Obama?s position on Iraq

W

WINEX_IHB

New member
From a speech in Denver:



Senator Obama and I also faced a decision, which amounted to a real-time test for a future commander-in-chief. America passed that test. I believe my judgment passed that test. And I believe Senator Obama's failed.

We both knew the politically safe choice was to support some form of retreat. All the polls said the "surge" was unpopular. Many pundits, experts and policymakers opposed it and advocated withdrawing our troops and accepting the consequences. I chose to support the new counterinsurgency strategy backed by additional troops -- which I had advocated since 2003, after my first trip to Iraq. Many observers said my position would end my hopes of becoming president. I said I would rather lose a campaign than see America lose a war. My choice was not smart politics. It didn't test well in focus groups. It ignored all the polls. It also didn't matter. The country I love had one final chance to succeed in Iraq. The new strategy was it. So I supported it. Today, the effects of the new strategy are obvious. The surge has succeeded, and we are, at long last, finally winning this war.



Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn't just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops. As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and Anbari villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse, not better.



And as our troops took the fight to the enemy, Senator Obama tried to cut off funding for them. He was one of only 14 senators to vote against the emergency funding in May 2007 that supported our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. ...



Three weeks after Senator Obama voted to deny funding for our troops in the field, General Ray Odierno launched the first major combat operations of the surge. Senator Obama declared defeat one month later: "My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now." His assessment was popular at the time. But it couldn't have been more wrong.



By November 2007, the success of the surge was becoming apparent. Attacks on Coalition forces had dropped almost 60 percent from pre-surge levels. American casualties had fallen by more than half. Iraqi civilian deaths had fallen by more than two-thirds. But Senator Obama ignored the new and encouraging reality. "Not only have we not seen improvements," he said, "but we're actually worsening, potentially, a situation there."



If Senator Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi Army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically. Al Qaeda would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the "Sunni Awakening" would have been strangled at birth. Al Qaeda fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners, and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely.



Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened. Our military, strained by years of sacrifice, would have suffered a demoralizing defeat. Our enemies around the globe would have been emboldened. ...



Senator Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to hear. I told you the truth.



Fortunately, Senator Obama failed, not our military. We rejected the audacity of hopelessness, and we were right. Violence in Iraq fell to such low levels for such a long time that Senator Obama, detecting the success he never believed possible, falsely claimed that he had always predicted it. ... In Iraq, we are no longer on the doorstep of defeat, but on the road to victory.



Senator Obama said this week that even knowing what he knows today that he still would have opposed the surge. In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chooses failure. I cannot conceive of a Commander in Chief making that choice.
 
McCain is grasping at straws, trying to go back to the old playbook of "look, look! He's not qualified! SCARY."



Too bad it won't work, because just about everbody has made up thier minds on how we should proceed in Iraq. Colin Powell and Barry McCafferty both say that we're going to start bringing troops home in January no matter who wins the election, because "we'rel out of Schlitz" so to speek.



Before somebody gets the wrong idea, you'll be hard pressed to find somebody more hawkish on the war from either party.
 
Can you tell me which statements aren't true? Though I agree that the prospect of having a dangerous person like Obambi leading the country is scary, this is an accurate accounint of Obama's views from the beginning. Even with the retrospect of hindsight, Obambi says that he would of done the politically popular thing instead of the right thing.
 
The lie is that we will stay any longer with McCain than with Obama. Weither or not McCain is factually correct is immaterial. People have made up thier mind long ago on the direction they want the country to go. This election will go out with a whimper rather than fireworks.



The fix is in, and we're coming home. We are out of availible, ready, otherwise unobligated and thus deployable troops to continue the mision.
 
I lived in Arizona most of my life and am certainly no fan of McCain. (In fact, I will be voting Libertarian at the top of the ticket in November)



That having been said, I do believe that McCain understands what happened when we pulled out of Vietnam too early. Not only was there an impact on the US, but Vietnam suffered as well. (How many people currently living in Orange County are here as a result of the need to flee Vietnam after we pulled the rug from under their feet?)



Obambi has demonstrated as recently as this week that he simply doesn't get it.



Oh, as far as troop strength is concerned, without counting the reserves, the US Military has 1.45 million active members ( sourcehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_of_the_United_States#Personnel_in_each_service) There are approximately 140,000 US troops currently in Iraq. As stability grows, that number can be drawn down. But with less than 10% of active members of the military currently deployed, we can do this properly (based on conditions on the ground, not artificial timelines)
 
Hey Awgee, right now I'm sitting in Reagan National Airport waiting for a flight back home. But I've been kind of busy lately, so have cut down on forum activity. It's good to see you again.
 
We have spent 4000 lives, over a trillion dollars, our opportunity to fix Afghanistan, and our international reputation propping up an Iranian puppet regime in Iraq (check the history of Dawa and SCIRI!). We can't possibly leave fast enough. Staying in Iraq is like cutting off our nose to spite our *enemy's* face.
 
This coming from the guy who claims that "Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that?s just a matter of history." His understanding of the chronology of events in Iraq is completely wrong. I'm just saying, that I can't take his evaluation of the surge seriously if he makes blatant factual error such as that one. Moreover, it is not possible to asses the "success" of the surge without also contemplating the myriad of other factors going on at the same time. I wish it was as easy as just dumping a few extra troops for a couple of months.



Regarding the state of the American troop strength. First of, due to training and limited deployment time only about 1/3 of the active forces can be deployed at a given time. Secondly, military strategist (on McCain and Obama's camps) are both arguing that it would be difficult to deploy even just 4 brigades to Afghanistan without reducing troop levels in Iraq. A guy from the Brookings Institute was discussing this on NPR just the other day (too lazy too look up the reference now).
 
It is pretty tough for me to believe that there is anything we can do to avoid a civil war in Iraq. This civil war reminds me of the Spain in the 30's, they just keep on fighting until there is nobody left who wants to fight. So far no politician has been able to tell me what winning the war in Iraq will look like. At best, we will be able to prevent a Sunni-Shiite genocide like the situation in former Yugoslavia which has a lot of interesting parallels to Iraq. IMHO if we pull out of Iraq "to soon" how is that going to be different than pulling out ten years from now when we "win" the war?



There is also a question of public trust in the current administration. Who believes what George and Fox news tells us anymore? What is the situation with the warring factions in Iraq? The bunch of talking heads on TV have pretty much been 100% wrong so far, I don't see that changing soon. Interviews with actual grunts in the military say there is no hope that training the Iraqi military will accomplish anything because they are still split into their various factions Sunni, Shiite, etc. yet this is the "plan" that McCain is counting on to get us out of the war.



I will support this war when McCain can tell me what winning is going to look like, and the GI's doing the dirty work tell me that plan seems realistic. Until then...
 
Actually Green Cactus, it is possible to assess the success of the surge. al Qaeda in Iraq is far less influential than they were prior to the surge. Attacks on US troops and Iraqis are down. The Iraqi military is becoming competent. Oil exports are going up. Things are so dramatically improved that even Obambi is finding it necessary to change his story about his opinion on the surge.



Of course that won't change people like Failedagent from hoping for civil war. (Those damn Iraqis just won't cooperate!) Their hatred of President Bush is so strong that they would rather have al Qaeda in control of the country with the second largest known oil reserves in the world rather than have the US be successful in engaging the enemy.



It's interesting to see that no one seems to be able to defend Obambi's position that his own personal political ambitions are more important than what happens to the country that he wants to lead.
 
The US military did things that really helped in Iraq, but the surge wasn't it. The one thing that really helped was that Petraeus stopped attacking the Sunni insurgents, gave them control of the Sunni-majority areas, paid them off and gave them weapons. This is more properly termed "surrendering and paying tribute" and it didn't require increasing troop levels. Once Petreaus gave them what they wanted, they thumped out the tiny group of real nuts who referred to themselves as "Al Qaeda in Iraq" even though they had no connection to the real Al Qaeda (which is in Afghanistan and Pakistan). Obviously they stopped shooting at us too - why shoot at guys giving you money?



Surrendering and paying tribute is not a new strategy for the Bush administration. That's what they did with SCIRI and Dawa, the pro-Iranian Shiite factions currently running the government. And it worked, kinda (unlike the shooting approach). Although they remain fundamentally hostile to us (Dawa bombed one of our embassies in the '80s), they aren't shooting at us and they're willing to sell us oil. Currently. Kinda like the Iranians, actually.



Some other things are also improving though not due to the surge. The sectarian civil war is basically over since the country has now been sectarianly cleansed. Al-Sadr is such a thug that everybody has turned against him, even the other anti-Iranian groups like Fadilla and the Sunni fundamentalists, because after 5 years of being shot at by him they're willing to accede to Iranian dominance to stop him. His last trump card is that he wants us to leave immediately, like the vast majority of Iraqis but unlike the government and so ironically our staying is becoming the last reason for conflict. Once we're out his support will collapse.
 
[quote author="WINEX" date=1217229179]Actually Green Cactus, it is possible to assess the success of the surge. al Qaeda in Iraq is far less influential than they were prior to the surge. Attacks on US troops and Iraqis are down. The Iraqi military is becoming competent. Oil exports are going up. Things are so dramatically improved that even Obambi is finding it necessary to change his story about his opinion on the surge.



Of course that won't change people like Failedagent from hoping for civil war. (Those damn Iraqis just won't cooperate!) Their hatred of President Bush is so strong that they would rather have al Qaeda in control of the country with the second largest known oil reserves in the world rather than have the US be successful in engaging the enemy.



It's interesting to see that no one seems to be able to defend Obambi's position that his own personal political ambitions are more important than what happens to the country that he wants to lead.</blockquote>


I'm a little skeptical about this. I would need to read the verdict on its success and impact from an objective source. So far, it just sound like you are repeating the latest talking point that the McCain camp is repeating ad nauseum ... "the surge worked". How can one deconstruct all the progress in Iraq and isolate the surge as its one and only reason. It just can't be done. It's a very nice soundbite but alas not a verifiable claim. You mention all the achievements that happened but not how the surge correlates to them (other than they happened somewhat around the same timeline). What measure do you use to find the direct correlation between elevated troop levels and the achievements you listed?
 
FairEconomist, that's a pretty amusing tale that you are telling there. But the Sunni insurgents were defeated when native Iraqis started cooperating with US and Iraqi forces and identified insurgents. The insurgents haven't taken control, we have. I also find your denial of the existence of al Qaeda being in Iraq to be amusing (in a delusional way) too.
 
Green Cactus, please stop dodging the issue about O-Bambi's political ambitions being more important that the interests of the United States.
 
McCain has a position? I couldn't tell with the 168 hours of pro-Obama network coverage.



I still can't help but feel I'm watching the cult of personality with him.
 
[quote author="WINEX" date=1217236282]Green Cactus, please stop dodging the issue about O-Bambi's political ambitions being more important that the interests of the United States.</blockquote>


What is the point of even arguing this with a person who doesn't even refer to a presidential candidate by his name. Your anti-Obama agenda is clear as water and I'm not going to change your perception. Obama's position is well articulated and you chose to interpret it as some sort of selfish anti-American crusade. I get it. You don't like Obama. But also don't expect people to follow you along as you parrot McCain's talking points and present them as facts.
 
[quote author="green_cactus" date=1217253299][quote author="WINEX" date=1217236282]Green Cactus, please stop dodging the issue about O-Bambi's political ambitions being more important that the interests of the United States.</blockquote>


What is the point of even arguing this with a person who doesn't even refer to a presidential candidate by his name. Your anti-Obama agenda is clear as water and I'm not going to change your perception. Obama's position is well articulated and you chose to interpret it as some sort of selfish anti-American crusade. I get it. You don't like Obama. But also don't expect people to follow you along as you parrot McCain's talking points and present them as facts.</blockquote>
g_c, really, you would have to be a moron not to see that the increase in troops with a specific mission was successful in both the reduction of suicide attacks and internal clashes. On the one hand you slap Winex for refusing to abandon his agenda, yet stubbornly refuse to admit that the sky is blue on a sunny day because it doesn't strengthen your own agenda. Quit being a tool.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top