Column: Obama's promise on War in Iraq remains unfulfilled

Thursday, August, 27, 2009; 10:32 PM | 13 | | Print

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TOPICS: iraq war barack obama afghanistan

Remember that war? Whatever happened to that? I heard a lot of people died. I also heard that there was no end in sight. I don't seem to hear about that war at all anymore. I remember promises of it coming to an end, even talk of a troop withdrawal. But I don't think the war ended. Still, I can't seem to find anything about it anymore.

Occasionally on the news I see stories about more deaths, more bombings, and even another hostage or two. However, there's no talk about the war itself, and certainly no talk about when it's going to end.

The news media has been fixated on stories of a healthcare crisis and swine flu. This sexy tale is full of controversy, fear of imminent death by an invisible invader, and even contains all the stimulus of high spending and corporatism

Remind you of that War on Terror? The war that President Barack Obama promised to end. The war that the Democratic party promised to stop - even going so far as to swear to take congressional action to end it as soon as possible. Instead, Obama and the Democrats have decided to continue occupying foreign soil.

There's no need to call this war a necessary step for national security, nor is it appropriate to refer to human lives lost as "collateral damage." Instead, the media needs to be bold and describe this war as exactly what it is: special interest groups committing the murder-for-hire of people very far away from us.

We're so distant from the lives being lost that I suppose it was a matter of time before we forgot about the war entirely. After all, America is having problems at home with its own economic crisis and mounting debt. The millions being spent to maintain this war overseas would surely anger the public. How can a government that is so greatly in debt afford to maintain the occupation of two foreign countries? How can an administration that wants to ease pressure on the middle class continue fighting a war with money taxed from that very middle class? It doesn't make any sense to me.

If the government is serious about saving the economy, they can begin by pulling out of all foreign countries immediately. Taking this action would save the public billions of dollars - now that's a stimulus plan I could get behind.

However, the war will not end until it's forced to end. It will end when the economic situation at home deteriorates further and the war is no longer possible to financially maintain. It will end when a dollar crisis forces the war back onto American TV screens.

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Lem | # August 27, 2009 @ 11:20 PM — Flag Comment

Continuing the same failed policies of the last 8 years. If I wanted that I would have voted for McCain. And Obama cares about the American people, just not the ones he is sending to die overseas in meaningless, illegal wars.

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Alum | # August 28, 2009 @ 9:31 AM — Flag Comment

But we occupy far more than 2 countries, I believe the total is in the 120's. We could decrease gov't spending by billions on military alone, that would help our economy by reducing that burdern on the taxpayers and misallocation of resources. Obama's true colors are starting to show, he is Bush III with a healthcare agenda.

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Adam | # August 28, 2009 @ 9:56 AM — Flag Comment

Or we could be logical and realize that when Obama got into office and learned all of the real facts (the facts none of you have because you have no security clearance) that he realized the war actually is doing something for good. The only thing that can help our economy is for the government to stop pumping money into the economy. It's like putting air in a tire with a hole in it. Let the tire run flat and then we'll build a new one.

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Lem | # August 28, 2009 @ 12:08 PM — Flag Comment

Can't believe the media is so silent about this now. Been doing a decent job since 2001 and now don't mention a damn thing about the war. What happened to "fight the power" and standing for something? Why wait to run out of money before ending the war? Such a disgrace

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Zen | # August 28, 2009 @ 2:25 PM — Flag Comment

Young minds are easy polluted by political marketing. They got drunk off the campaign message and now the complexities of war are far too sobering. Promises made without a clear strategy are nothing more than wishes.

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Anonymous | # August 28, 2009 @ 10:27 PM — Flag Comment

Another liberal anti-war article by an uninformed CT writer. Pull all of our foreign money out? You must not even begin to understand foreign political and economic policy. Wake up, the world is a dangerous place and there are many "true believers" out there who want nothing more than to cleanse this world with US blood. We will always be at war with extremists, this the new reality. If we lose sight of this and simply pull out and keep to ourselves they will bring the fight back to U.S. soil. That is something that no one wants to see again. Poster Adam was right, "could be logical and realize that when Obama got into office and learned all of the real facts"

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Anonymous | # August 29, 2009 @ 9:18 PM — Flag Comment

Not pull all of our foreign money out, just the troops and the money paying for the troops and diesel fuel for all their trucks used to tote around weapons of murder and mayhem.

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Phocion | # August 30, 2009 @ 1:47 PM — Flag Comment

Its called a residual force. No one was more opposed to war in the first place than I was, but pulling out of a country as chaotic as Iraq has become is something that you cannot do without an exit plan. Obama was upfront from the beginning about the fact that there would be a relatively lengthy timeframe to work out all the logistics of exiting the country without leaving it in more of a mess than it otherwise would be. As more troops shift to Afghanistan, the troop count will continue to decrease in Iraq. Asking a president to instantaneously pull out an entire military operation in a country whose instability was greatly excerbated by our involvement there, is quite an unreasonable thing to do.

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Anonymous | # August 30, 2009 @ 4:37 PM — Flag Comment

So if Iraq is never deemed stable enough to withdrawal the troops then we just keep em there forever. Great exit plan. We moved into there pretty damn quick, we could redeploy just as quickly. Obama lied and now Americans are still dying in Iraq every day he is on vacation

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Alum | # August 31, 2009 @ 11:24 PM — Flag Comment

More typical tripe from the Chadster.

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John Doe | # September 3, 2009 @ 12:04 AM — Flag Comment

We don't hear anything about the war because the democrats don't care about us leaving Iraq or Afghanistan. The liberal media just made a huge deal about the wars as a political rallying point before the election. Remember the daily death totals that were coming out from MSNBC while Bush was in office? Now with record numbers of US soldiers dieing in Afghanistan we hear nothing. It's because they don't care about us ending the wars, they just cared about getting Obama elected. Everyone with a brain knew we wouldn't leave right away with Obama elected because the consequences of immediate withdrawal were too significant. His 16 month time table won't even be realized. The whole thing was a farce.

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John Doe | # September 3, 2009 @ 12:04 AM — Flag Comment

I'm sure many of you will not believe this, even next July when 16 months have passed with Obama at the helm. You will convince yourself that things on the ground changed. Things that only Obama and his infinite wisdom could determine. The fact of the matter is that we will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan as long as it takes to win. There is no way that Obama will saddle the blame for losing either of the wars, particularly the one in Iraq, which saw US death totals decrease and security increase to war time lows as a result of the surge. Predictably there is more instability and deaths in Iraq as a result of our decreasing troop presence. Unfortunately the increased troop presence in Afghanistan isn't helping the situation there, as US deaths reached a monthly war time high in August. Looks like Obama failed America with another one of his promises (quickly implement the stimulus so unemployment won't go above 8%).

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John Doe | # September 3, 2009 @ 12:05 AM — Flag Comment

I'm sure many of you will not believe this, even next July when 16 months have passed with Obama at the helm. You will convince yourself that things on the ground changed. Things that only Obama and his infinite wisdom could determine. The fact of the matter is that we will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan as long as it takes to win. There is no way that Obama will saddle the blame for losing either of the wars, particularly the one in Iraq, which saw US death totals decrease and security increase to war time lows as a result of the surge. Predictably there is more instability and deaths in Iraq as a result of our decreasing troop presence. Unfortunately the increased troop presence in Afghanistan isn't helping the situation there, as US deaths reached a monthly war time high in August. Looks like Obama failed America with another one of his promises (quickly implement the stimulus so unemployment won't go above 8%).

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