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March 01, 2009
Obama's Phony Pullout
OBAMA'S PHONY PULLOUT
By RALPH PETERS
President Obama went to Camp Lejeune. He spoke in front of US Marines, but his real audience was his left-wing campaign supporters.
And his carefully worded speech - its parsing of language worthy of Bill Clinton - may go down in history as his "Mission Accomplished" moment. We'll see who leaves Iraq when.
During last year's presidential campaign, it was evident that Obama wouldn't keep his promises to his leftist base to pull our troops out rapidly.
While he benefited greatly from the troop surge he opposed - which handed him a convalescent Iraq - he's learning that reality trumps rhetoric.
Forcefully delivered, his speech to the Marines served up more waffles than the International House of Pancakes.
Consider his big sound bite: "Let me say this as plainly as I can: by August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end." What does that mean?
Will the 50,000 troops he intends to leave in Iraq, the trainers and maintainers, be forbidden to defend themselves? Are they just going to hang out? If terrorists or the Iranians skunk us, are we just going to ask for more?
The enemy gets a say, too. The situation on the ground will determine when combat operations end. Obama's just going to call them something else.
In the immortal phrasing of Ol' Bill, it depends on what the meaning of "is" is.
As for Obama's claim that "I have chosen a timeline that will remove our combat brigades over the next 18 months," just watch.
We're not going to leave 50,000 support troops in Iraq without combat units to protect them. We'll just ban the word "brigade" and call our shooters "task forces."
The reality all along has been that Obama can't cut and run.
He began campaigning for a second term on Inauguration Day and he's not going to let himself be blamed for "losing" Iraq.
Meanwhile, he's praying that progress continues in Baghdad.
As for yesterday's boilerplate nonsense that "The end of the war in Iraq will enable a new era of American leadership and engagement in the Middle East," hey, if it does, thank George W. Bush. History has a wicked sense of humor.
Of course, the rhetoric's necessary. Obama had to lecture the Marines to placate the angry extremists who put him in office.
The fundamental purpose of the speech was to hide the 50,000 residual troops in plain sight: "It's OK, see? They're not combat troops." Obama's scared as a naked sheriff at a moonshiners' convention.
He piggybacked on the left's hatred of "Bush's war" in Iraq, but had to show his tough-on-security bones during the campaign.
A strategic novice, he declared Afghanistan the good war. Now it's his. And while Iraq looks increasingly like a success story, Afghanistan's going south. Iraq's the prize, Afghanistan's the booby prize.
Success in Afghanistan's a one-off, while even a half-baked democracy in Iraq changes the Middle East. And Pakistan's the monster under the White House bed. In artilleryman's parlance, Obama's speech to the Marines was all flash, no bang.
He's struggling to appear decisive while carving out maximum wiggle room. And in the modern tradition of Democratic presidents, he just wishes these foreign conflicts would go away. But they won't.
Welcome to reality, Mr. President.
Wild Thing's comment..........
In Obama's speech he never once, NOT ONCE mentioned Victory.
....Thank you Darth for writing this.
Darth
U.S. Airforce
C-5 loadmaster
84-97
Posted by Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 04:40 AM
Comments
Don't ya just love how he gives away the "exact" date to the enemy? When we began to pull out of Vietnam,that's when the real killings began. I look for more deaths and destruction of young lives when the summer of 2010 arrives. The enemy listens in on our plans and they will just sit tight and wait and then pull out all the stops. They are telling falsehoods that Al Qaeda is crippled and the Taliban is on the run and broken. They would love to strike us over and over again to kill the Great Satan. But since Obamanation is one of them, he won't shed one bloody tear for one dead or injured soldier. Has he visited the sick and injured yet at the Vet Hospitals? Has he held a crying child in his arms and cried with them when their parents flag draped coffin is returned to America?
One thing you have to love about Bush is that he had a heart, a soul and a love of this nation's people like no other. He held crying children, ran with soldiers who lost limbs and prayed for guidance. He may have been a good time party boy once, but Thank God for Laura. She saved him in so many ways. I have yet to see an ounce of compassion from Obama or Biden or their families. They act like a bunch of stuck up snobs who don't want to be associated with losers, you know what I mean?
Posted by: Lynn at March 1, 2009 08:08 AM
Our troops blood is on their hands - again.
Obama isn't fit to clean the soles of their boots.
How dare he give them a lecture and a history lesson!! They are the ones that have MADE history!!
How many families of the Fallen will he sit with in the Oval Office? Well, first of all, he'd have to BE there, wouldn't he?
Peters nails it!!
Posted by: yankeemom at March 1, 2009 10:40 AM
Lynn, that really ticked me off. Telling the enemy when we will leave, giving them a date, so they can prepare to do more harm to our troops. GRRRRRRRRRR
GREAT comment Lynn, thank you.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 01:45 PM
Yankeemom, it sure is, I will hold Obama accountable for every injury, every death of any of our troops.
Posted by: Wild Thing at March 1, 2009 01:47 PM
Obama obviously learned his art of warfare from Jimmy Carter.
Obama and the media are going to set up a victory in Iraq as Obama's victory. Bush paid the price of early screw ups. He finally got rid of Rumsfeld, allowed Gen Petraeus to have his surge and Al-Queda was disembowled. The entire time Obama was voting against Bush and the war. Any victory in Iraq comes despite Barak Obama, not because of him.
Posted by: TomR at March 1, 2009 01:58 PM
King Hussein has zero respect for the troops, as noted, it shows in his bearing and actions around the troops. They are acutely aware too. My heart and soul go out to the troops.
Yes, please look at that Vietnam Memorial wall and at all those names inscribed there. 1967, 1968, 1969 and 1970, the trends of treason are written there. Every B52 strike out of Anderson AFB Guam. Every airstrike into Hanoi from land or sea was telegraphed to the enemy via our media as were troop movements into and from sensitive areas. Just sitting on the northern border after being secretly deployed and hearing the NVA on a bullhorn announce your own unit number and where you are from into the night, with the admonisions, "tonight you die GI" or the "build it well GI we are going to blow it up". Indeed they did, because of loose lips and an earlier generation of Democrats collaborating with the enemy. This was an almost daily occurrence along QL9 from little places called Khe Sanh, Vandergrift at Ca Lu, Camp Carroll, Cam Lo, Gio Linh, Con Thien and Dong Ha. Next I'm supposed to believe it was our own counter intel doing it and not some politician yapping to the Russians in a DC clubhouse or some 'news' correspondent spilling their guts in some Saigon bar.
Hell no, now we have our own president taking the lead, with select Senators outing CIA teams in Pakistan, imagine the American death toll once Obama sends troops to Afghanistan then put's their coordinates on the Blackberry for Al Qaeda and Iran to use.
The immortal words of Roger Miller.
One dying and a buryin'
One dying and a buryin'
Some crying
Six carrying me
I wanna be free
Posted by: Jack at March 1, 2009 09:53 PM
