I will be very disappointed if I don’t see substantial numbers of our troops coming home from Iraq SOON!

4. June 2009 by admin.

It has finally sunk in to me that President Obama may have a “backdoor” strategy designed to “usher in” self-destruction for the “Limbaugh wing” of the Republican party. I really wasn’t intending to write about this tonight, in fact, I wasn’t intending to write at all, so hopefully I can REALLY keep this one short. I did notice as I logged in tonight, that this will be my 140th post. So, I will either have a bunch of “I told you so’s” down the road, or - more likely - like the “real” journalists do, I’ll have a bunch of inconsequential comments that mean nothing and nobody cares about. The main thing for me is that I have a place to “vent” as I suffer through 21st century politics in the United States of America. And, believe me, I’m thankful to be a citizen of this great nation - it’s just hard for me to handle the reality of where we have “gone” despite our high ideals, in basically my adult lifetime.

I think the reason MANY of the “Baby Boom” babies such as myself feel so indignant that our country chose the route of torture in the so-called “War against Terror” (which seems to be a misnomer in itself) is that we feel if our government tortures that means we condoned it. I have voted in every possible election I’ve been eligilble for since I turned 21 (the voter age in “my day”) in 1968. My first campaign ended in tragedy and disaster when Robert F Kennedy was assasinated by Sirhan Sirhan after the Californian primary of 1968. I WAS DEVASTATED! This, of course, came on the “heels” of his brother’s assassination and the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. And, I think what has riled me the most about what’s taking place in today’s world - not investigating reminds me of what happened after all those assassinations. The idea, for example, that Sirhan Sirhan (with 4 $100 bills on his person - a lot of money in 1968) acted alone was absurd. But, to this day, I have no idea who he was in concert with (well, actually, I have my suspicians - but the federal government evidently didn’t waterboard Sirhan enough times to get the truth out of him). And the same goes for the assassinations of JFK and Dr. King. We just seem to let some of this stuff go.

When Ronald Reagan was President, members of his administration (many of the same people who are involved in the Bush transgressions) embarked on an illegal war of their own down in Nicaraugua. This led to the Iran/Contra scandal which was never fully investigated and those who were found guilty of crimes were all pardoned - a horrible precedent on the heals of the Watergate scandal and the pardons there as well. And, now we have the multi-scandals of the GW Bush administration and it looks like Deja Vu all over again - no investigations - or if any happen they will be toothless. And, President Obama is probably doing enough - including the aforementioned very subtle dressing down of the Republican “Right” to get re-elected. I can’t imagine enough Democrats Jumping ship based on the things I find repulsive to turn Obama into a one-term President. But, of course, the jury’s still out on that - polls can change overnight.

As I’ve said on many occasions on this site, I gave money to Obama during his campaign (I’m not giving anymore to him or the Democratic party until I see some guts regarding holding Bush and company accountable for their lawbreaking), and I like much of what he’s trying to accomplish. As I’m writing this he’s in the Middle East and I REALLY HOPE he makes a breakthrough on the Palestinian issue with the Israeli’s. I believe the combination of Obama/Clinton has the best chance for this to happen since the days of Jimmy Carter - the President I consider the best of my lifetime and, at the same time, the one who seems to be the popular one to “hate on” by most in the political realms - of course, most of these people continue to talk about Ronald Reagan as if he was some kind of saint - and, to me, Reagan was the beginning of the end as far as our economy was concerned and the cavalier attitude of many in his administration still prevails among members of the executive branch today.

The part I am very concerned about Obama, besides his reluctance to adhere to his oath to defend the constitution (that, of course, is a biggie!) is the fact I believe he has no intention, at this point, of getting our troops out of Iraq. He mentioned a few months ago that he had “changed” his timetable from 16 months to 19 months with the caveat that he’s leaving 50,000 “non-combat” troops there for another 13 months. Well, so far no one’s come home - we still have “pre-surge” levels of troops in Iraq with all the “Contractors” as well. According to Thomas Ricks who wrote both “Fiasco” and “The Gamble” - both insightful books on the Iraq occupation - our military leaders are intending for our troops to be in Iraq for the next 10 to 20 years. And, I believe that David Patreaus, no matter what you think of him, is a very persuasive man. And, it’s true that he did “change” the circumstances in Iraq during the “Surge.” But, to say the “Surge” worked requires one to totally dismiss the original objectives which were getting the Iraqi’s to work out their differences so that Sunni and Shia could govern together (did I forget to mention the Kurds?). None of that has happened. In fact, in my view, it’s just a matter of time until the violence starts to pick up again in Iraq.

In about a year Moqtada al Sadr will return from Iran as the Grand Ayatollah of Iraq with a following of millions. I expect something on the lines of what happened in Iran during the Carter years. Additionally, the so-called “Awakening” is essentially about 100,000 Sunni’s who have been armed to the “teeth” by Patreaus and the Americans, in an attempt (which proved very successful) to have Iraqi’s defeat the Al Qaeda in Iraq faction. The oil problem hasn’t been “solved.” Of course, at this point, it will never be solved according to the original wishes of GW and Dick Cheney - who, I’m sure will never admit that they went to war for oil, but even my sixth grade students, in research papers with no prompting, can figure this out. The point, the Iraq “conflict” is not over. They still have a lot of grievances to work through and, according to our military the only way to keep the country “calm” is to continue our presence until at least 2015 to maybe 2020. There may be a lot of Democrats who will be OK with that, but I’m not one of them.

Furthermore, you now have Patreaus as the head of “Centcommand” which I believe means the entire military operations in Iraq and Afganistan. Look for a continued presence of the US military in Afganistan for the forseeable future. President Obama has already authorized an additional 21,000 troops since he took office and I believe that number will increase. Patreaus recently went before Congress pleading for large increases to the budget for Afganistan and, while our own nation is reeling from the world-wide economic crisis, it looks to me as if we will continue spending hundreds of Billions each year in these two quagmires. It would be great if we could turn them into flourishing democracies - I guess - but, I really am worried about our own democracy. The people voted to get out of Iraq in 2006 and even more strongly in 2008. I will be very disappointed if I don’t see substantial numbers of our troops coming home from Iraq SOON! People say, “It’s the economy stupid” when it comes to politics - I just hope that Obama’s “base” doesn’t allow him to renig on his promise to bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq - and, I really hope he doesn’t get “sucked in” to an endless exercise in nation building in Afganistan.

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