Politics Before Country (The Obama Doctrine?)

OBAMA TRIED TO STALL GIS’ IRAQ WITHDRAWAL
by Amir Taheri
Last updated: 4:10 am
September 15, 2008
Posted: 4:02 am
September 15, 2008

WHILE campaigning in public for a speedy withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Sen. Barack Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a draw-down of the American military presence.

According to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, Obama made his demand for delay a key theme of his discussions with Iraqi leaders in Baghdad in July.

“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.

Obama insisted that Congress should be involved in negotiations on the status of US troops – and that it was in the interests of both sides not to have an agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in its “state of weakness and political confusion.”

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

Though Obama claims the US presence is “illegal,” he suddenly remembered that Americans troops were in Iraq within the legal framework of a UN mandate. His advice was that, rather than reach an accord with the “weakened Bush administration,” Iraq should seek an extension of the UN mandate.

While in Iraq, Obama also tried to persuade the US commanders, including Gen. David Petraeus, to suggest a “realistic withdrawal date.” They declined.

Obama has made many contradictory statements with regard to Iraq. His latest position is that US combat troops should be out by 2010. Yet his effort to delay an agreement would make that withdrawal deadline impossible to meet.

Supposing he wins, Obama’s administration wouldn’t be fully operational before February – and naming a new ambassador to Baghdad and forming a new negotiation team might take longer still.

By then, Iraq will be in the throes of its own campaign season. Judging by the past two elections, forming a new coalition government may then take three months. So the Iraqi negotiating team might not be in place until next June.

Then, judging by how long the current talks have taken, restarting the process from scratch would leave the two sides needing at least six months to come up with a draft accord. That puts us at May 2010 for when the draft might be submitted to the Iraqi parliament – which might well need another six months to pass it into law.

Thus, the 2010 deadline fixed by Obama is a meaningless concept, thrown in as a sop to his anti-war base.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the Bush administration have a more flexible timetable in mind.

According to Zebari, the envisaged time span is two or three years – departure in 2011 or 2012. That would let Iraq hold its next general election, the third since liberation, and resolve a number of domestic political issues.

Even then, the dates mentioned are only “notional,” making the timing and the cadence of withdrawal conditional on realities on the ground as appreciated by both sides.

Iraqi leaders are divided over the US election. Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (whose party is a member of the Socialist International) sees Obama as “a man of the Left” – who, once elected, might change his opposition to Iraq’s liberation. Indeed, say Talabani’s advisers, a President Obama might be tempted to appropriate the victory that America has already won in Iraq by claiming that his intervention transformed failure into success.

Maliki’s advisers have persuaded him that Obama will win – but the prime minister worries about the senator’s “political debt to the anti-war lobby” – which is determined to transform Iraq into a disaster to prove that toppling Saddam Hussein was “the biggest strategic blunder in US history.”

Other prominent Iraqi leaders, such as Vice President Adel Abdul-Mahdi and Kurdish regional President Massoud Barzani, believe that Sen. John McCain would show “a more realistic approach to Iraqi issues.”

Obama has given Iraqis the impression that he doesn’t want Iraq to appear anything like a success, let alone a victory, for America. The reason? He fears that the perception of US victory there might revive the Bush Doctrine of “pre-emptive” war – that is, removing a threat before it strikes at America.

Despite some usual equivocations on the subject, Obama rejects pre-emption as a legitimate form of self -defense. To be credible, his foreign-policy philosophy requires Iraq to be seen as a failure, a disaster, a quagmire, a pig with lipstick or any of the other apocalyptic adjectives used by the American defeat industry in the past five years.

Yet Iraq is doing much better than its friends hoped and its enemies feared. The UN mandate will be extended in December, and we may yet get an agreement on the status of forces before President Bush leaves the White House in January.

Listen up America, because this is serious stuff for a change: First of all there is a huge difference in the degree of honesty between Barack Obama (high) and John McCain (low) and also between Sarah Palin (liar) and Joe Biden (honest, hence poor Senator).

Honesty…like Joe Biden and Barack Obama plagiarizing speeches?

Second, and this is crucial, this Presidential Election is NOT American Idol!!! You are not supposed to vote on the popularity or the character of the Presidential candidate like McCain and his crones would like you to do,

You have this all backward. Obama is the media rock star, the celeb fatale, the ayatollah of rock-and-rollah….the messiah, the savior, the 2nd coming of JFK + MLK all rolled up into one empty suit-load of BS. He’s “THE ONE”, running for office like a Beauty Queen. He’s all about superficial appearances and the semblance of substance through seductive snake-oil rhetoric.

and it’s NOT between Obama and Palin, either.

The media’s shaped it to be about this, because both Obama and Palin have successfully excited their base.

It’s between McCain and Obama, remember? You are supposed to vote on the issues, NOT on personalities.

You’re right. But this isn’t a “conservative voter” thing. All voters of all political persuasions throughout all elections have factored in character and personality when casting their votes. People will vote for the strangest and most superficial of reasoning. Obama will get a lot of those this November.

MSNBC Rachel Maddox had an interview with Bill Maher yesterday, and finally, to my greatest relief, I heard the very words coming out of Bill’s mouth that I had wanted to shout from the rooftops for years. It was like this: Rachel asked Bill why, in the light of all that is transpiring these days is the race between the two Presidential candidates still so close. And Bill answered: “Because Americans are stupid, they are dumb. They only understand single words like “maverick” and “I’ll fix it.”

Yes, those bitter Americans clinging to their guns and religion are so stupid….celebrity elites like Maher, Joy Behar, Whoopi, Lohan, Pamela Anderson, Streisand, Matt Damon, etc. know so much better about what is good for the country and what ordinary Americans are going through.

My PERSONAL stand has always been that most Americans suffer from Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), otherwise why would they be so superficial, so easily distracted. They sway with the wind in whichever direction it’s being blown by the Press even if it’s absolute cretinism such as lipstick on a pig. The Press picks a topic and feeds it to the crowds of listeners and as long as they keep getting a feedback, their ratings go up, and that’s all the Press cares about. You’ve heard the old saying: “Money makes the world go ‘round” Well, it’s true. The Press is the sum of all hypocrisy at its best when they beat their chest complaining that the they are fueling material that does absolutely nothing to help debate the tragic and very real issues in which we find ourselves today.

Hey, we agree! The press is horrible.

By the way, in case you haven’t noticed, Barack Obama is the only serious candidate who has always desperately attempted to stick to the issues.

Baloney! Just like claiming he’s been above racial identity politics and is a new kind of politician that isn’t at all like the Washington establishment.

So anyway, the press is principally responsible for turning people into mental retards. Instead of feeding our brains by provoking intelligent debates, they chase stupid, useless, even damaging trivia and feed it to the pigs, (we) because they know we are so stupid that we want nothing better than gobble it all up like candy.

And yet I bet you believe it’s done a great job digging into Palin’s past, huh?

If anybody is intelligent enough to want to sift over the real issues, seeing that we are 48 days away from Election Day (Rain, fog, ice or snow, Election Day is ONLY Nov2, so register NOW!).
Here goes, then:

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Alright! Now you’re talking: Let’s get to the nitty-gritty good stuff:

With Barack Obama you are going to have health care and social security. With McCain all you will get is a $5,000 tax cut which will exonerate your employer from providing health care for you. That means YOU will be on your own to buy health insurance for your family. And health insurance costs $14,000 a year per family, so you will still be $9,000 short!!!
McCain, on the other hand, wants to continue Bush’s’ policy of privatizing social security. Really? Look at the stock market. Is this what you want for your kids’ future? Jack squat when they retire? Is it all really worth it just for the hoopla of putting “Mr. Grumps” and “Ms Congeniality” into the Oval Office? Later about “Grumps”, let’s talk about “Ms. Congeniality” for now. Hello!!! Wake up America!! We are ALL working women with kids. There is nothing special about Sarah Palin, except that the Media is making you believe she is sensational, even though she is not. Hey, even her own Party’s level of confidence in her is so low that they don’t allow her to appear in “Meet The Press” or to get interviewed by the Media at large as any other candidate to see what, if anything, she actually knows. The ABC Charles Gibson interview certainly showed that when it comes to the Bush’s doctrine or foreign affairs, she doesn’t know jack! The FOX Hannity interview was stupid and superficial, as expected.
Have you seen the TV clip where she is actually asking the question “What does a VP do every day?” McCain, on the other hand seems to think that the duties of a VP are merely to attend funerals, and inquire daily about the health of the President (his), unless of course he is dead in which case she is suddenly catapulted into the Oval Office as our Commander In Chief!
I say if McCain wants to gamble it’s his business. But it becomes my business when he wants to gamble with my life, my future, my personal resources, my freedom of choice and the lives, future and resources of my children and grandchildren.
What McCain did by appointing Sarah Palin as his Vice President is irresponsible, and it makes me angry. Yes, angry that too many Americans are so blind and so dumb that they are willing to follow a peter piper tune all the way down to the ravine of self-destruction without giving it a second thought.
Can’t you see that with McCain it’s all about “Me and my lobbyist buddies First,” and “Country eventually”, although he doesn’t have a clue how to integrate the Country with his personal interests? In fact in the Presidential Forum interview he specifically said that, as the President of the United States he will be, and I quote “somewhat divorced from the day-to-day challenges people have,” McCain said.
If you don’t want to listen to me because I am not a professional political analyst, at least listen to MSNBC Keith Olbermann; listen to Rachel Maddox, or CNN John Cafferty. They tell it like it is. Look at the facts. Just what do we know about Sarah Palin? We don’t really know anything about this woman’s working ethics, except that most of the people who used to work for her in Alaska were afraid of her, afraid to express an opinion that differs from hers because they have families and need their jobs. With Palin it’s either her way or the highway. Can we afford to have her in the White House? Wake up!
She had a little more than a handful of people to govern as a Mayor and not much more than that as the Governor of Alaska (Alaska is not especially known for being overpopulated, except perhaps by polar bears), but even that tiny bit of power was enough to inflate her head to the point where she dares challenge Barack Obama, who has ran a 20-month long brilliant campaign, virtually error-free, showing all Americans that we can finally be proud of having a smart President, a President that would run this Country with the same consistent discipline and hard work with which he has ran his campaign.
Just who does Sarah Palin think she is? What are her qualifications to be our Leader? Is she better than any other working Mom in America? I don’t think so. I have four children, I am educated, and I worked hard all my life. If I had known the VP job was open to a working Mom, I would have applied. After enduring the bankrupted leadership of George Bush, it seems that anybody can be the President of the United States nowadays! I totally agree with Nancy Pelosi on that quotation.
Come on people, get real! Let’s look at her experience: Her resume’ is so pumped-up it could take flight like a kite in the great Alaskan sky. She knows nothing about the Economy, just like McCain, and she lied about her position on the bridge to nowhere, later flipping her position, 180 degrees, but keeping all the tax-payer dollars that had been allocated by the Federal Government specifically for that project. Her earmark requests or the State of Alaska far exceed Barack Osama’s 2007 $25 per capita for the State of Illinois last year. Hers was $350 per capita! Barack Obama hasn’t taken any earmarks this year. Palin half-lied about her E-bay jet story, she half-lied about getting rid of her chef at home story, she was definitely deceiving and cunning about her TDY money (getting paid for travel she didn’t do, while living at home) etc. Do you see the contradictions here? How can one be such a consummated liar, such an opportunist, and call herself a Christian? Only a couple of weeks in the public eye and already we see a bunch of stinking lies! And she hasn’t even been vetted by the Press, yet! I wonder why?…
Palin is also under investigation for abuse of power for having fired the Chief National Guard who refused to fire her ex brother-in-law, another National Guard, back in Alaska, and while at first she was enthusiastic about cooperating with the investigation, she is now refusing to cooperate, fearing that her own Alaskan Justice system which is presided by three Republicans and two Democrats, will somehow fail her. That’s sheer paranoia. So much for Justice is Equal for All. Why don’t I hear an ongoing outcry by the press on this matter? Is the Press being lobbied, as well? But of course. Who are you kidding? We the People dance at the beat of their drums, and that’s a fact.
Sarah Palin, president of the United States in a heart-beat! It’s a very real possibility. Never mind that we are talking about serious issues here like National Security and International Relations in a turbulent global environment. We also have a couple of wars going on and oh, yeah! McCain is 72 years old and he has had 3 bouts with melanoma, a malignant form of skin cancer. My husband died of cancer at age 68. What I mean to convey here is the idea that either McCain must think he is immortal, or he had a senior moment when he picked Sarah Palin to run as his VP!
I say people, grow up! Look at the issues. Look at the situation we are in right now compliments of President George W. Bush with whom McCain voted 90% of the times!! Go beyond the GOP’s cleverly fabricated glitz and glamour with which they have surrounded Sarah Palin to make their failed policies taste more palatable to you.
The GOP is offering the same dinner in a different plate. They have nothing new, no change. Zilch, Nada to offer. That’s why they are desperately resorting to blows below the belt to get rid of Obama. If they had so much as a shred worthy of issues to talk about they wouldn’t need to resort to those dirty tactics.
The GOP is using you, kicking and beating you even while you are down, and then they have the gull to ask for your to vote! They should hide in shame!
Obama is right: They must think you are stupid. You want to know what the GOP present strategy is? It’s this: Put a pretty woman, let’s say the cheerleading kind, in front of a bunch of drooling dummies overrun by testosterone, and they’ll pay attention to anything you or she says! Yeah! That’s exactly what they are doing. They are back there hiding in the shadows and laughing at you for taking the bait! And the bias press of FOX News as well as people like Rush Limbaugh and Tucker are helping them plenty. Are you really that gullible, America?
Do me a favor: Close your eyes and truly take a listen to what’s really being said by McCain the next time he is on TV with Sarah Palin at his side. That is if she ever lets him talk. I have observed that McCain, or should I say “McPalin” seems perfectly content to just stand there next to her and let her do all the talking for him! He just takes bows and waves his arms. Must be that it takes too much energy to do all that talking, especially if you are a grumpy old man. Just remind me, if you please: Who is running for President? Palin or McCain? And if it’s McCain, why should we listen to Palin?
McCain couldn’t even draw so much as a couple hundred people to his town home meetings, much less hold your attention for 10 minutes without your falling asleep when Palin wasn’t by his side, because his policies were the same old, tired, failed policies that you already knew so well, and which hurt you in every possible way, and still do.
Just remember this: The GOP policies hurt us all, and got us where we are now. Their policies hurt you in your heart of hearts, by killing your sons and daughters in a dumb and unnecessary war, they hurt you in your wallet at the gas pump and in grocery stores, they took your house away while McCain’s main concern is which of his 9 houses is he going to occupy today, they said “tough luck Charlie” when it came to your health care, and so on. The same dismal policies that brought the economy to its knees will continue to rule our lives if we elect the McCain/Palin ticket. Do you really want more of the same kicking and beatings? I say ENOUGH!
Obama promises REAL change. He has proven over 20 months of superhuman grilling (because, yes, he is of color so he was grilled 5 times as hard as any other Caucasian candidate would have been) by the Press that he has the intelligence, the knowledge, the guts, the temperament, the wisdom and the good judgment to lead this Nation out of the jam the Bush/Chaney/McCain Administration put us in during the past 8 years.
Obama is a born leader with years ahead of him, and the promise of tax cuts for 95% of American families, with the promise of pay raise for qualified teachers and Education accessibility for all, with the promise of health care for all who want it, the promise of energy independence and innovative sources of energy within the next 10 years, and the promise of social security for our children when they retire. He wants to bring your kids back home from Iraq, and he wants to keep his eye on the ball when it comes to fighting terrorism and National security.
Up until now Americans have always given a chance to the young to seize an opportunity. So here we have a choice: Obama, 47 years old and healthy, and McCain, 72 years old, shaky health, hot-tempered, and too old to take that 3 o’clock call when it comes in the middle of the night. Who knows, he might even get mad for being awakened at such an inconvenient time and accidentally push with his shaky finger that infamous red button next to his night-table ring tone shut-off. Oooops!
I say that McCain’s time is past, it’s gone. Yes, he had an impressive and honorable past, we all heard that ad nauseam, but that was then, this is now. We need a President for the challenges of the 21st Century, and that President is Barack Obama!
McCain had his chances, now it’s “Move Over, Darling” time. It’s time for young blood in the White House. And that young blood is called BARACK OBAMA. Not Sarah Palin, mind you. Frankly, as a woman, I feel offended that McCain used our gender purely to advance his own political agenda (and by piggy-backing, that of his running mate). By using Sarah Palin he has treated us women like a piece of meat tossed to a bunch of hungry dogs. He is manipulating the women in this Country and they are totally falling for it either out of bigotry or partisanship (the bra-burning feminist movement of the 60’s has resurged.) or who knows what else it is that they see in Palin.
I will tell you what I see in Sarah Palin. I see a con-artist, and a liar. I see a stupid distraction aimed at trumping what this Election should really be all about. It’s about the economy stupid, not about “celebrities”. Obama should re-play that “celebrity” commercial McCain aired against him when he went to Berlin. Only he should put Sarah Palin in it.
Paulin has cleverly shown that she wants to be treated as a person and not as a woman when she started throwing punches at Obama on her acceptance night in St. Paul. That gives Obama and Biden the right to hit her back, and hit her hard! I mean as a person, not as a woman. She wants to be the VP? Well then, with equal rights come equal responsibilities. Remember that this person (Sarah Palin) is someone who will kill a poor moose in cold blood, and relentlessly hunt and kill a defenseless wolf from a helicopter! She is a blood-thirsty barracuda. Trust me, she can definitely take a punch or two or three.
I’m confident that Barack Obama will win the Presidency of the United States by a landslide, because this is a good year for Democrats, and he is clearly the smartest, most honest politician, and best advocate of the poor and downtrodden. He is the most honest, cavalier and straightforward candidate we have ever had. McCain is not worthy of our trust. He is NOT a reformer, and he is NOT a maverick. He is just a lunatic who wants to do things his way. Furthermore, he, like Palin, lies constantly about everything! Is that what they taught him at the Naval Academy? No way! But then maybe that’s why he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class. If his Dad had not been an Admiral, he would be running an employment agency today. In my book a liar is no honorable man, and McCain is not running an honorable campaign.
America, this is what Barack Obama will do for us:
OBAMA = REDUCE TAX FOR 95% OF THE PEOPLE AND ELIMINATE TAX FOR SENIORS.
OBAMA = INCREASE TAXES ONLY FOR CITIZENS MAKING OVER $250 A YEAR (5% of our whole population).
OBAMA = REINSTATE SOCIAL SECURITY SO OUR CHILDREN WILL BE ABLE TO RETIRE WITH SOME DIGNITY
OBAMA = MAKE HEALTH CARE AFFORDABLE TO ALL WHO WANT IT SO YOU DON’T GET KICKED OUT OF THE HOSPITAL THE DAY AFTER YOU HAD YOUR OPEN-HEART SURGERY!
OBAMA = STOP A STUPID AND BLOODY WAR, BRING OUR BOYS AND GIRLS HOME, AND KEEP THE EYE ON THE BALL, THAT IS AL QUAEDA AND BIN LADEN.

OBAMA = CREATE NEW JOBS BY REALLOCATING FINANCIAL RESOURCES BY LOCATING NEW SOURCES OF ENERGY AND REBUILDING OUR DOMESTIC INFRA-STRUCTURE.

OBAMA = MAKE HIGHER EDUCATION AFFORDABLE TO ALL WHO WANT IT BY INSTATING A COMMUNITY SERVICE REQUIREMENT IN EXCHANGE FOR SCHOLARSHIPS.

OBAMA = HIRE AN ARMY OF QUALIFIED AND WELL-PAID TEACHERS TO ENSURE THAT OUR CHILDREN GET THE QUALITY EDUCATION THEY DESERVE.

And the substance is……where?