[Peace-discuss] Re: [Peace] De-escalate, investigate, troops out now!

[Morton K. Brussel]

And read Paul Street's article deconstructing Obama in Z Magazine  
this month (Does our Urbana library stock it?), or at the ZNet website.
--mkb


On Feb 1, 2007, at 3:56 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> It's definitely an advance over his earlier position(s) and an  
> indication that the pressure on him from elections, demonstrations,  
> and constituents' demands is having an effect.  And a great reason  
> to increase the pressure on him and others for a real end to the war.
>
> OTOH, as usual with Obama, what you see is not what you get.
>
> 	[1] He's not proposing an American withdrawal but (as his bill  
> says) a "de-escalation."  It proposes the removal of *combat  
> brigades*. Garrison troops for the four main bases on oil lines and  
> the billion-dollar embassy in Baghdad -- particularly in units of  
> less than brigade size (ca. 3,000)-- would not be covered. Neither  
> would our army of some 100,000 mercenaries, the US Ambassador's  
> Praetorian Guard, as Jeremy Scahill calls them.
>
> 	[2] The arbitrary date of 3/31/08 is comfortably far off.  If the  
> US were to announce that it's actually leaving and negotiate a  
> cease-fire to facilitate withdrawal, that could be accomplished  
> much faster.  But it will be easy to say, more that a year from  
> now, that conditions have changed, and this date disappears like  
> the snows of yesteryear.  An attack on Iran (which Obama proposed  
> in 2004), of course, would make all earlier statements inoperative...
>
> The WP article notes the bill's huge loopholes.  It points out that  
> Obama's bill "would leave a limited number of troops in place [As  
> if we have an unlimited number there now?] to conduct  
> counterterrorism activities [What are they doing now?] and train  
> Iraqi forces [That's Petraeus' mantra, isn't it?]. And the  
> withdrawal could be temporarily suspended [Ah, "temporarily"...] if  
> the Iraqi government meets a series of benchmarks laid out by the  
> Bush administration [That's the current policy!]."
>
> I frankly think that, with very few exceptions, all mainline US  
> politicians know that the US has to continue to control Iraqi oil  
> ("We cannot leave Iraq" --H. Kissinger), and that means some  
> continuous American presence in Iraq.  What they're doing now is  
> trying to find what modality of that presence can be sold to an  
> increasingly anti-war public.  Obama -- who we know has had no  
> moral objection to the war but only a prudential one ("It's  
> stupid") -- has just got his snake-oil to the market first.  --CGE
>
>
> Stuart Levy wrote:
>> ...
>> Hey, what do you all think of Obama's recent announcement that he's
>> actually calling for a pullout of combat troops from Iraq,
>> with specific completion date (of early next year), in line with the
>> ISG's proposal?  Commentary, and link to Obama's announcement at
>>     http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0201-25.htm
>> If (cynically) he's doing this because that's the way the
>> political winds are blowing, then I say more power to him.
>> If the people of this country have better sense than most of
>> their representatives, then why complain if the representatives
>> simply start listening to the population?
>>    Stuart
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