Mr. Obama in Iraq Did he really find support for his withdrawal plan?

 

 

Wednesday, July 23, 2008; Page A14

THE INITIAL MEDIA coverage of Barack Obama's visit to Iraq suggested that the Democratic candidate found agreement with his plan to withdraw all U.S. combat forces on a 16-month timetable. So it seems worthwhile to point out that, by Mr. Obama's own account, neither U.S. commanders nor Iraq's principal political leaders actually support his strategy.

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the architect of the dramatic turnaround in U.S. fortunes, "does not want a timetable," Mr. Obama reported with welcome candor during a news conference yesterday. In an interview with ABC, he explained that "there are deep concerns about . . . a timetable that doesn't take into account what [American commanders] anticipate might be some sort of change in conditions."

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who has a history of tailoring his public statements for political purposes, made headlines by saying he would support a withdrawal of American forces by 2010. But an Iraqi government statement made clear that Mr. Maliki's timetable would extend at least seven months beyond Mr. Obama's. More significant, it would be "a timetable which Iraqis set" -- not the Washington-imposed schedule that Mr. Obama has in mind. It would also be conditioned on the readiness of Iraqi forces, the same linkage that Gen. Petraeus seeks. As Mr. Obama put it, Mr. Maliki "wants some flexibility in terms of how that's carried out."

Other Iraqi leaders were more directly critical. As Mr. Obama acknowledged, Sunni leaders in Anbar province told him that American troops are essential to maintaining the peace among Iraq's rival sects and said they were worried about a rapid drawdown.

Mr. Obama's response is that, as president, he would have to weigh Iraq's needs against those of Afghanistan and the U.S. economy. He says that because Iraq is "a distraction" from more important problems, U.S. resources devoted to it must be curtailed. Yet he also says his aim is to "succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future." What if Gen. Petraeus and Iraqi leaders are right that this goal is not consistent with a 16-month timetable? Will Iraq be written off because Mr. Obama does not consider it important enough -- or will the strategy be altered?

Arguably, Mr. Obama has given himself the flexibility to adopt either course. Yesterday he denied being "so rigid and stubborn that I ignore anything that happens during the course of the 16 months," though this would be more reassuring if Mr. Obama were not rigidly and stubbornly maintaining his opposition to the successful "surge" of the past 16 months. He also pointed out that he had "deliberately avoided providing a particular number" for the residual force of Americans he says would be left behind.

Yet Mr. Obama's account of his strategic vision remains eccentric. He insists that Afghanistan is "the central front" for the United States, along with the border areas of Pakistan. But there are no known al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, and any additional U.S. forces sent there would not be able to operate in the Pakistani territories where Osama bin Laden is headquartered. While the United States has an interest in preventing the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, the country's strategic importance pales beside that of Iraq, which lies at the geopolitical center of the Middle East and contains some of the world's largest oil reserves. If Mr. Obama's antiwar stance has blinded him to those realities, that could prove far more debilitating to him as president than any particular timetable.

 

What? The messiah is WRONG about something? Well my goodness, how can that be?
Btw PB & Casey, THIS is from one of YOUR favorite sources: The Washington Post! Imagine THAT!

Although national unemployment rates have soared to 5.5 percent, our home has suffered the economic equivalent of hurricane katrina.......recent june unemployment statistics state that the ranks of the jobless have reached 8.1 percent in the cleveland heartland......the republican policies of borrow and spend....while cutting the taxes of the ultra-rich have seen the rate steadily increase throughout the bush administration.....from 3.6 percent when he was elected...to the aforementioned 8.1 percent.....a middle class resident of our once fair county has to walk only out the door to see boarded up homes and uncut grass.....cuyahoga county is a working mans county....a place where people only ask for a chance to prosper....a place where people raise their families and pay their taxes.....but while those taxes continue to be poured into a bottomless pit in iraq, we sink into the economic doldrums of recession....this november think locally....and vote for cuyahoga county.....lets get a candidate that wont just promise more of the same...... because look where that took us....cuyahoga county needs a change

I now know why Obama is getting more media coverage going to Iraq then McCain.

McCain goes to Iraq and Afghanistan to see what  progress is being made and Obama is campaigning for world leader, at least thats the way it looks, but when confronted with a simple question and after seeing the progress in Iraq he is left stuttering words and dodging questions.

Terry Moran asks, If you had to do it over again, knowing what you know now, would you support the surge? Obama  first says no, then stutters and says hindsight is 20/20, this is a common answer when you are backed into a corner, Obama also said that at the time of the surge he didn't like President Bush and that they needed to take a political stand, this war and the choices that are made should be made by evaluating what is going on, on the ground and not because you don't like your leader.

ABC's George Stephanopoulos say's Obama is droping in the polls among young voters, maybe they are waking up from the dream world they were put in and are now seeing the true Obama and that he is still the same type of Democratic politician thay have always seen, I guess he should stick to the staged setting and written speeches and never come underfire.

OBAMA:........what I consider two false choices, which is either I have a rigid time line of such and such a date, come hell or high water, we've gotten our combat troops out, and I am blind to anything that happens in the intervening six months or 16 months. Or, alternatively, I am completely deferring to whatever the commanders on the ground says, which is what George Bush says he's doing, in which case I'm not doing my job as Commander-in-Chief.

   Who says there's no comedy in the obama campaign.  The poor guy has himself in a bind.  He either sticks with his long time stated position of "I will end this war and bring the troops home in 16 months" which is now shown to be a bad decision because we and the Iraqi's are winning or he has to do the same thing that George Bush is doing , let the military make military decisions on when to remove troops.  The reason he has a dilema is because he is no longer running as a far lefty and as he moves to the right he's finding George Bush and John McCain already working that street corner.

 This was Obama's first ever trip to Afghanistan and is Obama's second trip to Iraq. His first was in January 2006 when the country was plunged into horrific violence. But the surge of U.S. troops, combined with ordinary Iraqis' rejection of both al-Qaeda and Shiite extremists, has transformed the country. Attacks are down by more than 80 percent nationwide. U.S. combat casualties have plummeted -- five this month so far, compared with 78 last July. And Baghdad has a pulse again.

The way I see it If Obama wins the election we will have the same type of Government we have now, Democrats and Republicans fighting for power.

McCain would pull both parties together, he has crossed the line on some issues and voted with Dems.

As for Katie Courics interview, she may as well been changing diapers on babies, she didn't ask hard questions and it looked staged, like Obama knew what she was going to ask.

Terry stumped Obama and left him with the "Deer in the headlight" look

BTW, Obama did make enemies with the Palestinians, he made a comment that he now has to live with and can't back out of, but it doesn't really matter other Countries don't vote for the American President

imagine yourself over 70 years old trying to do what someone almost half your age is doing....without viagra.....and you ll feel for senator mccain.....after a triumphant tour of the war zones and europe, a confident and optimistic democratic candidate shone like a star in the night.....the mccain response......yelling "stop looking at him and look at me"....this campaign is looking more and more like the republican effort in 1996......bob dole vs the vibrant and able slayer of the first bush economy....mccain has served his country loyally and i think barracks first executive order should be to give him a ride on the space shuttle....he s earned it.....even the coldest heart in the democratic party has to feel abit of sympathy for a campaign burdened with a candidate lugging the failures we've seen for eight long years to the ballot box.....maybe a john kennedy could pull this out of the fire...unfortunately what they have is dan quayle's grandfather...democrats should begin to practice humility....it has to be a very painful experience for republicans...to come so close to controlling the supreme court......and then bet the house on a nag heading out to pasture

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

By Bill O'Reilly

All many of us want from our government is protection from people who might hurt us. We pay taxes. We obey the law. We try to be good citizens. But our government sometimes lets us down.

That's what happened on 9/11. Thousands of Americans woke up, went to work, and were murdered by terrorists who caught law enforcement by surprise. Now after that, many of us woke up for good, but not all.

For example, the city of San Francisco is completely out of control and now is directly responsible for the murders of three men. On June 22, Tony Bologna and his sons, Michael, 20, and Matt, 16, were shot to death after their car came close to another car driven by illegal alien felon Edwin Ramos.

Police say Ramos, a 21-year-old from El Salvador, simply pulled out a gun and killed the men. Not surprising since Ramos was arrested on a gun charge last March and had two other felony convictions. But San Franciscan authorities did not alert Homeland Security about Ramos because of the city's sanctuary policy, proudly proclaimed by Mayor Newsom.

GAVIN NEWSOM, SAN FRANCISCO MAYOR: We are standing up to say to all of our residents, we don't care what your status is in terms of its legal certification.

So three men are dead and Newsom has now rescinded part of the sanctuary policy. Far too late for widow and mother Danielle Bologna.

MEGYN KELLY, "AMERICA'S NEWSROOM" CO-HOST: Has there been any acknowledgment from Mayor Newsom or the city of San Francisco officials to you of the fact that had they simply reported this guy's deportation or illegal immigration status, your husband and sons might be alive today?

DANIELLE BOLOGNA, FAMILY KILLED BY ILLEGAL ALIEN: If they would have — I feel like they should have said something to me definitely. And also, I have not spoken to the mayor at all in this incident. And it was a senseless crime. And had they done something, this animal would not have taken my family.

I feel that the government should have stepped in. I feel that they allow these immigrants to come in, and how dare they strip our families like this. None of us should ever have to go through something like this. I never thought in a million years that I would be sitting here talking to you, nor having to bury three beautiful loved ones.

Now how many times do we have to go through this? How many times? Mayor Newsom is partly responsible for the deaths of those three men. So are the city's supervisors. So are the folks who continue to support Newsom and his far-left cadre.

But we the people are also responsible for not demanding that the government protect us from harm. There's no way on this earth that millions of people should enter this country illegally. That is insane.

Danielle Bologna is us. She's an American. Her life and the lives of her husband and sons were valuable and should have been protected. But they were not, and no one is taking responsibility.

 

Before the mainstream media joined the Obama for President Campaign, they used to report from Iraq while the situation in Iraq was in turmoil. This allowed them to give support for Liberals in Congress who wanted to surrender Iraq to “al Qaeda in Iraq”.

But once the surge began to work under General Petraeus, the media stopped reporting from Iraq. Why they didn’t want to report the success and many military and political victories appears now to be their bias against the Bush administration. With their election to throw off all pretense to the notion of being unbiased and joining Senator Obama’s campaign we can see why good news from Iraq wasn’t being reported to the people back home. 

Sadly, as they tour Iraq with their candidate, they try to fool the American people by assigning US victories resulting from the surge to Obama. It is like they have no conscience anymore in the media. I heard that NBC has now chosen to rename their station to MBC, the Messiah Barak Channel. Have they gone too far? Will American’s notice what they are doing to get their candidate elected? We will know in November. 

At least our Troops are getting some credit for the great job they have done, even if Obama trys to either steal their success for his own or give credit to the locals (knowing full well that without our Military creating an environmnet for success the locals would all be wearing “al Qaeda in Iraq freedom fighters for Obama” T-shirts. )

Soros: Congress Needs to Learn to Regulate
Wednesday, July 23, 2008 8:28 AM

Billionaire George Soros doesn't mince words.

"It's time to recognize that markets do need to be regulated, and that regulators have failed to fulfill their obligations over the past 25 years," he told National Public Radio.

Soros doesn't want to return to what he describes as the pre-1970s sovereign government regulation of finance — he wants authorities to regulate credit as well as the money supply.

"I think it ought to be part of (regulators) duties to prevent asset bubbles from growing too big. For that, they would have to acknowledge that markets tend to produce bubbles," Soros says.

"We've had a series of small financial crises since 1980," Soros observes.

"Each time, when the real economy was threatened, the Fed stepped in, lowered interest rates, provided monetary fiscal stimulus, so we got out of it."

That, Soros says, reinforced both the credit expansion and the misconception that markets are self-correcting.

Soros would like to see a more subtle brand of regulation, one in which the central bank would act more as an avuncular adviser than political police officer who uses tactics like writing a letter to banks suggesting they refrain from adding more mortgage loans to their portfolios for the time being.

"For more than the past 25 years, we've been in a period of credit expansion and wealth creation. Now, we're in a period of credit contraction and wealth destruction," Soros says.

Investment banks and hedge funds based their calculations of risks on the idea that deviations are random. "We should have learned better years ago," Soros says.

Soros points out that there are now more than $62 trillion in devalued financial products — an amount equal to more than half the entire household wealth of the U.S. and several times the size of the national debt.

"Those instruments were designed on the false conception that markets trend toward equilibrium, and deviations are random," Soros says.

That process became self-reinforcing. "When you have self-reinforcing processes, (deviations) are not random."

After hearing some troubling info about Barack Obama and his birth certificate I stumbled upon this site: http://www.conservablogs.com/velvethammer/2008/03/05/w
anted-barack-hussein-obamas-birth-certificate 

I read all of the posts and some of the links.  And I'm not naive, I realize that not everything one reads on the internet should be taken as gospel, but very much of the info supplied does hold water.

I have never voted for a republican for president and I’m not sure I will this time. But one thing I am sure of is the fact that there is definitely something “interesting” occurring with the Obama camp’s unwillingness to disclose such pertinent, yet readily available documents. It seems to me that this should really be a simple task to accomplish: supply us, the citizens and voters of The United States of America, with a CERTIFIED, unmodified certificate of birth!! How hard is that?

Perhaps if the tele-prompter told him how to furnish this info properly, this would be a non-discussion.  ;-)

Regardless, I just attempted to sign the petition to get Barry to release the official, unmodified certificate, but was met with a page that no longer exists. So I googled this…. “petition for obama birth certificate”……..and the very first hit from google points to this link…….

http://astuteblogger.blogspot.com/2008/07/birth-ce
rtificate-petition-shut-down-by.html

So I click on the link and I am astonished to find out that the original petitioner has had to remove the petition due to real threats that contained information specific to his address and family!! It is very unfortunate that a simple request for disclosure of info regarding a candidate running for PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES has been met with such animosity and contempt. Unless there is something being hidden, and at this point I suspect there is, one would think that the Obama camp would be more than willing to disclose any information that would back up and corroborate their position that Obama is constitutionally qualified to be the President.

As I stated when I began this comment, I have never voted for a republican for the office of President (in fact my motto for the last eight years has been: “Don’t blame me….I voted for the other guy!”), but if we cannot even get Barry to be honest and straight forward about something as simple as his birth certificate, then how can I trust anything he has said so far? How can I believe that his comdemnation and denouncing of Rev. Wright was not just a put-up job for the media? How can I believe that he is really not a Muslim? (And I’m not saying that if he is a muslim, he can’t be President–I’m saying: he has stated that he is a Christian and not a Muslim, but is he telling the truth?) See how this one simple document (birth certificate)-and all the secrecy behind it- has changed the whole outlook of this election for me? Simply supplying the document and answering the questions with honesty and truth would have made things easier for me……actually, the easiest thing for me would have been for Obama to concede to Hillary, but I digress as I’m sure I just made many people reading my blog sick to their stomach

At this point, however, even if Barry does supply a legitimate copy or original birth certificate, I think it may be too little too late for me. If he is willing to hide this info-and by going to these great lengths to do so-I am frightened by what he would be willing to hide, and what he would be willing to do to hide whatever he doesn’t want us to know!!!!!!

Of course, this is just my take on things, and I am by no means an authority on the subject.  I just thought I'd share something I found to be interesting!

It can't be true...

I HAD THE PRIVILEGE TO STAND IN FRONT OF THIS HONORABLE CHARACTER.
LET ME FIRST SAY THAT I THINK HE IS PREJUDICE AND HIS DEMEANOR RESEMBLES THE BODY PART WE ALL WIPE. THERE IS NO WAY THAT THE COMMENTS HE MADE TO THAT YOUNG MAN SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE.THE WERE HIS OWN PERSONAL , NEGATIVE OPINIONS. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW HE COULD COME TO THE CONCLUSION ABOUT SINGLE PARENTS AND HOW THEY RAISE THEIR KIDS. 90% OF SOCIETY ARE PEOPLE WHO WERE IN ONE PARENT HOUSEHOLDS. THIS JUDGE MAY AS WELL HAVE UNLOCKED THE KEY T