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

The argument in defense for continuing the war is that it's impossible for American troops to just leave, despite the fact that American soldiers simply walked into Iraq and Afghanistan. Our troops will remain there until those nations are stable enough to govern themselves.

However, if the war becomes impossible to maintain, troops will be forced to simply walk out anyway. After the Vietnam War, American soldiers were forced to simply leave. All talk of an exit strategy was ended with a complete withdrawal.

Since World War II, the United States government has been in a constant state of war with no real end in sight. Early after taking office, Obama called for a troop withdrawal from Iraq. I smiled and eagerly sought more information.

I soon learned that an occupation force of over 50,000 soldiers would be left behind. Also, more troops were to begin moving into Afghanistan immediately.

This wasn't the withdrawal I had hoped for. This also wasn't the end to the war that America voted for.

What happened? How did the administration move on to other topics with a war going on overseas? How did the news media forget about the war when so many have died? The war should be the single most important issue. It should be the central focus of the Obama administration, and it should be ended immediately.

How this administration can talk about the economic crisis without mentioning the war is absolutely beyond me.

I assume it's because they don't want the public reminded that the war continues to be waged with no end in sight. I'm sure they also don't want the public reminded that - once upon a time - Obama and the Democratic members of Congress promised to end the war. Instead, it's best if we all simply forget about it. With so much bad news about swine flue, healthcare and a possible dollar crisis, maybe the war just isn't sexy enough anymore. Perhaps the threat of terrorism is no longer as scary as the threat of an economic downfall.

The Obama administration cares so deeply about the American people that it forgot about the foreign people being killed in the Middle East.

Maybe Obama and Congress care so deeply about American lives that they simply stopped caring about the lives being lost. Remember that war? Bombs are still falling.

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Leave a comment 13 Comments Write a letter to the editor

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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