senseinobaka said:
superchunk said:
rocketpig said:
superchunk said:
Originally it was solely because I like nearly all of his views, a lot more than McCain's, now it has been cemented with the horrible VP choice of McCain. I really dislike ultra-conservative religious zealots. (Notice I didn't put any particular religion)
Funny how Obama's plan on getting out of Iraq is essentially what Bush and the Iraqi's are now agreeing on? |
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Let's not rewrite history here. McCain and Bush wanted the surge, which has put Iraq in the position to let our troops start phasing out.
Obama was steadfastly against the surge and wanted to pull out of Iraq no matter what shape the country was left in.
Which one makes more sense in the long run? Bailing out of Iraq and leaving an unstable hotbed in an already unstable region or pushing to make the country stable (well, as much as possible anyway) before leaving?
Just because the timelines end up the same doesn't mean the two strategies share much in common. One of them involved fucking the Iraqis and leaving them open to Iran and other influences, the other gives them a fair shot at self-government.
We started this mess, it's our obligation to finish it as best we can, not run back home like a bunch of chickenshits and cause even more strife in an already fucked up region of the world.
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I'm not talking about the surge. Even though I actually agree it was necessary. I'm talking about the shorter timetable to removing troops whereas previously Bush and McCain had no timetable at all.
Just a week or so ago Bush/US and the Iraqi government agreed US troops would be out in 18 months. Did you completely miss that news? That is basically the exact same thing Obama has been saying since he began his run for pres. To pull out in a predetermined time, less than 2 years. Our handover of the Ankbar district the other day was part of this gradual decline.
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It's not an 18 month timetable. The troop pull out will be based on security measures and if the measures are met on the proposed timetable then the 1st wave will happen in 18 months. But if the security measures are not made then the pull out will be postponed.
If anything this was done in reaction to the fact that Obama may win. Obama, with all his expereince, wanted to pull out troops immediately, which would leave the Iraqis to the mercy of sectarian violence. This atleast assures them that the troops will stay until they Iraqis can secure the civilians.
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Not true.
People tend to be procrastinators in all that we do. If we have 2 months to do an essay for a class we tend to wait until the last few days to push it out. Most people don't do the smart thing and start it early.
This is especially true with business and governments. If they are not forced to do something, they will never do it. We need to force Iraq to step up and take care of its own. That means we need to give them a specific timetable of when we are leaving, we need to set plans of continued training even after that time and continued military support. This could very well be accomplished within 2 years.
Bush's plan with no actual end date will only continue to create Iraqi's ideas that the US will never leave, thus continued support for attacking. It will also make the Iraqi government continue to slack at effectively governing. After all why should they spend their resources when US is already doing it?
Only a strict time table will actually get us out in any reasonable amount of time.
