[Peace-discuss] Foreign press slightly more honest

[John Fettig]

He certainly sold the "I was against the Iraq war from the beginning" line, and continues to use it (he even mentioned it last night).  But I thought he was pretty clear about Af/Pak.  From the first presidential debate:

> We have seen Afghanistan worsen, deteriorate. We need more troops there. We need more resources there. Senator McCain, in the rush to go into Iraq, said, you know what? We've been successful in Afghanistan. There is nobody who can pose a threat to us there.
> 
> This is a time when bin Laden was still out, and now they've reconstituted themselves. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates himself acknowledges the war on terrorism started in Afghanistan and it needs to end there.
> 
> But we can't do it if we are not willing to give Iraq back its country. Now, what I've said is we should end this war responsibly. We should do it in phases. But in 16 months we should be able to reduce our combat troops, put -- provide some relief to military families and our troops and bolster our efforts in Afghanistan so that we can capture and kill bin Laden and crush al Qaeda.
> 
> And right now, the commanders in Afghanistan, as well as Admiral Mullen, have acknowledged that we don't have enough troops to deal with Afghanistan because we still have more troops in Iraq than we did before the surge.
> 

The second debate:

> As Secretary Gates, the defense secretary, said, the war against terrorism began in that region and that's where it will end. So part of the reason I think it's so important for us to end the war in Iraq is to be able to get more troops into Afghanistan, put more pressure on the Afghan government to do what it needs to do, eliminate some of the drug trafficking that's funding terrorism.  


How is this bullshit?

John

On Dec 2, 2009, at 2:59 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:

> Bullshit. He dined out as the "peace candidate," against that madman McCain, who would've expanded the war in the Middle East.  Obama's was a particularly devious and unprincipled bit of deception, as some pointed out at the time.
> 
> 
> John Fettig wrote:
>> Except there was no deception involved;  this is precisely what Obama promised during his campaign.  See for example http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/07/06/obama_mccain_split_over_afghan_strategy/
>>> If elected, Obama says, he would immediately withdraw thousands of ground troops from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan to help undermanned US forces defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
>>> 
>>> "It's time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan," Obama said in a speech last week. "It is time to go after the Al Qaeda leadership where it actually exists."
>>> 
>>> The Illinois senator, whose opposition to the Iraq war is a campaign centerpiece, has concluded that the US presence there has fanned Islamic terrorism and diverted scarce military resources from taking on new terrorist camps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Al Qaeda operatives trained for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
>>> 
>>> Obama believes that the United States has relied too heavily on forces from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a Europe-based military alliance which has little experience in guerrilla warfare.
>>> 
>>> "Afghanistan should have been our fight," said retired Air Force General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, national cochairman of Obama's campaign. McPeak blamed the Iraq war, where the United States has about 140,000 troops, for diverting the Pentagon's focus on Afghanistan, where only 32,000 American troops are stationed.
>>> 
>> On Dec 2, 2009, at 1:50 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>>> "Ah, ha!" he says. "Fooled you! I had my fingers crossed: I meant Iraq, not AfPak! Now I get to kill as many people as I want there!"
>>> 
>>> 
>>> E. Wayne Johnson wrote:
>>>> The NYT writers surely must have a bad taste in their mouths.
>>>> *
>>>> Was anyone supposed to believe this--?
>>>> /"I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. " - Barack Obama Campaign Promise - October 27, 2007/
>>>> ...
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