Expectations For The New Obama Democrat Government

Ah yes, your source is an extreme right-wing blog. From october 2008. From before he was even elected. From before he decided to send 17,000 more troops to afghanistan. From what I read, fox news reported a 10% cut in the defense budget, or about 55 billion dollars. This was in february I believe (that or late january).Perhaps you should find a more current source? And a more objective source would be nice, but I doubt you can find one.In other words, you don't have a substantive response other than to point me to other outdated crazies.And we didn't lose Vietnam because Johnson undercut the military. Not that I would expect you to understand that it was our failed strategy against the vietcong that did us in. But that's a different topic for a different day.

As to the Iraq War, this is the latest I've found:

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Mr. Obama, who triumphed in November, did not oppose the new agreements, because they left him considerable flexibility to carry out his campaign pledges. What was unclear was how quickly his administration would move to withdraw American forces, particularly in light of advice from General Petraeus’s successor, Gen. Ray Odierno, who had developed a plan for a slower withdrawal — two brigades over six months, compared with one brigade a month. The American military presence in Baghdad and elsewhere was already markedly diminished. General Odierno and other military commanders argued that political developments in Iraq would be crucial to the pace of security changes, from the provincial elections scheduled for the weekend of Feb. 1 and 2 to national elections for the end of the year.

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If people were really naive enough to believe that Obama would actually pull out in 16 months, pity on them. There is a specific reality on the ground that is removed from any interest we have in pulling out quickly, and there are political realities back here that will slow it down. What's interesting to note is how our mission in Iraq is slowly changing.Obama is a politician. He will naturally promise more than he can actually accomplish, and make grandiose promises that will be difficult to implement. He is also more conservative than people give him credit for being. The key is whether or not he totally abandons promises and how he reacts to reality. So far, so good. But it's still early, and there's plenty of time to either royally screw things over or right the ship.I think I'll be opening up a vietnam topic soon, since it seems no one really has a rational head when it comes to the subject.

I'd dispute this. Next time, can you actually link to your post, or even give the right number? I think you meant message 219, as 217 is from Rahvin.1) Yes, he did vote for phone company immunity. Whether this displays contempt for the constitution is contestable. First, is the bill unconstitutional? Second, what else has he done or voted for that is unconstitutional?2) While he did vote to fund the war, he also sponsored legislation to end it. Of course, its now 2009, and we won't see the troops pulled out until 2011 most likely (hooray for the SOFA).3) I know Clinton rubs a lot of people the wrong way. But your thing against voting to fund the troops is a little immature. We broke Iraq. We have to pay to fix it. As to her performance as SoS, what's been bad so far? She's even got a point person for trying to re-establish diplomatic contacts with Iran (sorry, can't find the article right now).4) Obama supports Israel's oppression of palestinians? Well, how does 900 million in aid to the gaza strip palestinians jive with that picture? And I'm not sure where the evidence is for his supposed opposition to a two-state solution, or even to peace in the region. In fact, in the first televised interview he gave he had this to say:

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Look at the proposal that was put forth by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. I might not agree with every aspect of the proposal, but it took great courage to put forward something that is as significant as that. I think that there are ideas across the region of how we might pursue peace.

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In november of 2008, the Sunday Times reported that Obama told Abbas that the Israelis would be crazy not to accept the Initiative's proposals. The question is, what is the DoS doing to advance the initiative? Or peace? Of course, Bush also supported the initiative.Anyhow, your contention that Hamas supports the Arab Peace Initiative is false. Abbas supports the initiative, whereas Hamas is divided on it but has opted to officially remain ambivalent, waiting for Israel to accept it. According to Haaretz they wanted to oppose it outright, but didn't to keep saudi arabian support. Apparently Time magazine reported last january that only Hamas and Hezbollah reject it.5) Sovereignty violation is not simply a Bush policy. Virtually every administration has been guilty of this (and those are the violations we know of, so once you assume successful secret ops all administrations are guilty). Sovereignty violation is not necessarily a bad thing. Sovereignty is not sacrosanct, though it is to be respected if possible.6) Karzai can demand a withdrawal all he wants. If we were to continue the Bush strategy of muddling through afghanistan, I'd say Karzai would be right. But given Obama's demand for a better endgame than what the pentagon gave him, we will certainly see a new strategy. At any rate, Afghanistan has to be stabilized, so how do you propose to do that? Bush was never interested in stabilizing afghanistan, simply in getting revenge.7) I'm not sure what the beef with Holbrooke is. Remember, he oversaw the enlargement of NATO as well as brokered the Dayton Peace Accords, along with other impressive work as US ambassador to the UN. He's also been around a long time in the foreign policy world, and certainly knows his stuff. We all have something in our past, and you simply won't find the right people for the job if you limit yourself to squeaky clean and perfect. Aside from that, I can't find anything regarding him and east timor.But seriously, how is Obama continuing specific Bush foreign policy? If that's your list, it's not really all that impressive.

Some more information has been leaked about the Iraq war pullout.http://news.yahoo.com/...0224/ap_on_go_pr_wh/iraq_withdrawalSeems like the plan is to be out by august 2010. Or 3 months later than Obama's campaign promise.Current number of forces: 142,000
by Aug 2010: 30-50,000
by Dec 2011 (when the SOFA expires): practically allThe troops left behind will focus on training the Iraqi army and security forces, intelligence, and surveillance.The announcement is supposed to come some time this week.

Perhaps I misunderstood you. Just what is the bill that gave Bush immunity? I understand that Obama is not fond of ideas being floated around congress of investigating Bush crimes, but I'm unfamiliar with any such vote. What's the bill?As to the constitutionality of the phone company immunity, I brought that up simply because the issue has not been settled. There is certainly a strong argument for the unconstitutionality of warrantless wiretapping. I never said that warrantless wiretapping was constitutional. But is it constitutional to give the phone companies immunity if they participated?Interestingly, the FISA amendment act of 2008 requires FISA court approval in order to wiretap overseas americans (such as me), prohibits targeting foreigners in order to eavesdrop on americans without court approval, and prohibits the government from invoking war powers or such in order to supersede surveillance rules.Interestingly, Obama voted against the Protect America Act of 2007.So, does Obama deplore the constitution? On one hand, he votes against doing away with warrants for wiretapping (the PAA), but does vote for an amendment to FISA, which adds some prohibitions to what the government can do leaves in place its powers in other areas.The picture, naturally, is far more complex than you make it out to be. This is relatively easy to answer. You're familiar with the SOFA that was just agreed to between the Bush administration and Iraq? Unless we renegotiate this, we have to leave Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009. Renegotiation is possible in the middle of the year, when Iraqis get to vote on it. That could kick us out by the middle of 2010. On the other hand, its very possible we could still have 10-20 thousand troops left after december 2011, if not more. What you will not see, unless the situation worsens considerably, is 140,000 plus troops stationed in Iraq by december 2011.Just so you know, we still have troops in Germany (~56,000 out of ~84,500 in Europe), South Korea (~26,000), and Japan (~33,500). Leaving troops in Iraq for a long time would certainly not be unusual or without precedent. You may be against these deployments (and the host countries occasionally are), but overall these agreements have worked out. Woah. Where did I say this? As I recall, I said harping about voting to fund the troops is immature. You harp on it with Obama, with Hillary, probably with every democrat. There are more serious issues to concern yourself over.What I did not say was that harping over her vote for a false war was immature. This is twice now (at least) that you've put words into my mouth.Now then, were those million killed by the US with illegal weapon? No. Those million you mention might not even be dead, as the figure ranges depending on which survey you use. But if we stick to the figure given by the ORB poll, we find that 48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, and 6% from other blasts, leaving us with 17% dead from "other". It might be helpful to remember that there was a massive civil war that we sparked that killed the majority of these people. We're responsible, but our weapons are responsible for less than half the deaths estimated by the ORB poll. And she's not the SoD or SoVA, is she? On the other hand, she certainly can't be worse than Bush, can she? You know, I can't actually find any resolution sponsored by Clinton to call the IRGC a terrorist organization. All I can find is the Bush administration labeling the IRGC a terrorist organization under Executive Order 13382.Now then, threatening nuclear annihilation is not a war crime. Actually carrying out, if its disproportionate, could be. Since I can't dig up the quote of her threatening Iran with annihilation (though I do recall something to that effect being said during the campaign), mind pointing me to the source? Are you sure? You've ignored what he apparently told Abbas. On another note, the two-state solution is right now potentially not even possible. I refer you to Thomas Friedman. The place is a mess, quite frankly. Obama is smarter than people give him credit for. You're too quick to jump on supposed omissions, too quick to read into his statements or lack thereof (you carry on that pattern with me as well). Obama simply could have reservations about how you could implement the Arab Peace Initiative. We simply don't know what he's thinking aside from a few statements in support of peace, and nothing has been heard from George Mitchell for some time (at least, I haven't). Did I say they were? This is three times you've putt words into my mouth. I simply contended your argument that sovereignty violation is a specifically Bush policy. You said

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Continues Bush Policy of sovereignty violation. 1/22/09, US spy plane kills 15 in Pakastan despite government's repeated objections.

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in http://EvC Forum: On this day, let us all be proud of America -->EvC Forum: On this day, let us all be proud of America, which implies that sovereignty violation is unique to Bush. Your example of sovereignty violation is/was unique to Bush, but the general act of violation isn't. That was the Bush policy. Now tell me, what did Obama tell the Joint Chiefs? As I recall: you guys need to come up with something better. We knew this was going to happen. Obama has been arguing for this for a long time. Further, this is a clear break from Bush policy, which has been to consistently treat the Afghanistan war as a secondary theater of operations instead of the central campaign against Islamic terrorism (whether it should be is another question, but it is certainly a more valid central campaign than Iraq ever was).Further, more troops can actually accomplish the mission if the mission is properly understood. What we are failing to provide in Afghanistan is security (which is what did us in in Vietnam, btw). You'll note that in the source you link to, Gen. Westmoreland argued for actively seeking out the enemy instead of protecting the civilian population. That has been our strategy in Afghanistan. You'll note how far that got us in Vietnam, and how well it's worked so far in Afghanistan. Of course, Westmoreland was in general just completely incompetent. He did not understand how to fight an insurgency. Hopefully we've learned a little from Iraq.SoD Gates is well aware of the historical parallels and the pitfalls. We know that we have to make the afghanis feel more secure, that they need to have an effective, less corrupt government. These people, quite frankly, are keenly aware of not repeating Vietnam (or the USSR's afghanistan). Another thing to keep in mind: Obama has been in office a grand total of one month. It takes time to review policies and change course. And to absorb all sorts of information that he did not have access to before. You'll probably say that I'm just punting his responsibility down the line, but the fact is that it takes a while to change course in our government. Case in point, the Afghanistan-Pakistan policy review. Due out in bookstores this March. That policy review will also probably answer any questions you have about whether we will keep on lobbing missiles into Pakistan. And your paragraph says nothing about Holbrooke. In fact, in mentions Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Where was Holbrooke during the East Timor atrocities? Well, inn 75-76 he was editor of Foreign Poicy. In 1974-75 he was a consultant to the President’s Commission on the Organization of the Government for the Conduct of Foreign Policy. In 1976, he was Carter's national security affairs campaign coordinator. From 1977-81 he was the assisstant secratary of state for east asian and pacific affairs. He helped work to normalize US-chinese relations and bring in hundreds of thousands of indochinese refugees. I can't find anything he did or said as regards East Timor, although it certainly would have fallen under his purview. Moynihan, of course, is now dead. Last I checked, the DoD does not decide foreign policy. Last I checked, that is decided by Obama and carried out by mainly the DoS and the SoS.It's also worth noting that Gates himself represented a change from earlier bush military policy.It's also worth reminding you that the secretaries carry out Obama's plans (which is why Gregg pulled out). I'm not interested in giving Obama a pass. I'm interested in getting to the bottom of the picture in as objectively a manner possible. And claiming that Obama is continuing Bush policies to the t is absurd on the face of it. Major changes are underway in Iraq and Afghanistan that would never have occurred with Bush. An attempt to have dialogue with Iran would never have been possible (though Bush was warming to some talking by the end).This time, try actually reading what I wrote instead of putting words in my mouth. And try actually substantively supporting your argument.

Neither Buz nor Dronestar are up on their facts. Nor, does it seem, are they fully capable of explaining the data in any way but their preconceived notions. So Obama's vote against the Protect America Act of 2007 doesn't count for him, but his vote for the FISA amendment of 2008 counts against him. Obama's father being a muslim counts against him, but his personal belief in christianity doesn't count.

I see you're still overreacting. And you're no longer even making the slightest sense. First, pulling out of Iraq is the opposite of what Bush continuously wanted--an open ended presence in the country. Do you know why the SOFA actually has a pullout date? Because the politics of Iraq and the US finally woke him up. What you've said is basically that if Bush said red, and Obama said blue, that Obama is actually saying red.Second, this is not moving the goal posts. Moving the goal post is an informal logical fallacy where the demand for evidence is raised once the initial demand has been met. I ask you to show evidence of speciation, you show it, and then I claim you need to show me evidence of new taxonomical families (I'm sorry, but the creationists are much better at giving examples of moving the goal-post). Moving back the pull-out is not moving the goal-post. From the person who claims that every (or at least most) US action in the world has been about resource exploitation, this is quite funny. Do you know why we have bases in Germany and Japan? Are you seriously arguing that we did not bully or bribe Germany, Japan, or South Korea? Did you forget the unconditional surrenders of Germany and Japan? Did you forget WWII? In this sense, keeping bases and troops in Iraq is certainly not without precedent, as they are not the first country which we have fought only to later keep troops. So the argument is neither straw-man or false comparison. Further, the stationing of troops overseas always requires a pay-off. In fact, we got bases from Britain in exchange for destroyers. True, it's not a SOFA, but it's the establishment of a US armed presence on British possessions, and while it's not a bribe, it circumvented the American Neutrality Act, so the legality of the exchange is questionable.On the other hand, I guess you think we could not rightfully keep troops in Germany and Japan after WWII because we bullied them. Same goes for Korea, since we installed our own favored dictator.Kyrgyzstan's actions regarding our base there is readily explained: Russia is a more effective bully over Kyrgyzstan that we are. Russia demanded that Kyrgyzstan shut down the base or else they wouldn't get any money. That certainly had more persuasive power over the Kyrgyzstan government than any wish of the people there.If Germany invades Poland, they certainly do have the choice to keep troops there. I think you meant the right to keep troops. Jesus Christ, do you not read? I already said that we would most likely be in Iraq after the current SOFA expires. I said that we wouldn't be there with 140,000 troops is all. Is a Gulf of Tonkin situation allowed for in the SOFA? Since the white house link is broken, here's an unofficial transcript. Article 27 may have some helpful information. Basically, if escalation is to happen, Iraq has to request it and we have to agree. It's fair to say that unless the situation gets drastically worse, escalation is not going to happen because it would be political suicide for Iraqi politicians. And so long as we're looking at escalating in Afghanistan, we cannot re-escalate in Iraq.Finally, as to the legality of the war. UNSC resolutions 1483, 1546, 1637, 1723, and 1790 affirm the legality of the war. Note that most of the resolution were passed after the lies were exposed, and most were requested by Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al-Maliki. The current SOFA also legalizes the current occupation until. So the war is certainly not illegal.Anyhow, you still haven't shown how pulling out of Iraq is the same thing as continuing Bush policies, other than to claim that it is. Especially since we know Bush did not want to leave.Since these posts are beginning to get a little long, I think I'll continue in another post with the next subject.

Backpeddling? Hardly. You put words into my mouth. I was specifically referring to whether the FISA Amendment Act of 2008 was unconstitutional. That's because you claimed that Obama threw out the constitution by voting to give phone companies immunity for having participated in warrantless wiretapping. You, of course, completely ignore his vote against the Protect America Act of 2007, which legalized warrantless wiretapping. I never once argued that warrantless wiretapping was constitutional. Actually, I think you should read the FISA amendment act of 2008. Notice what investigations it prohibits. The individual states are prohibited from investigating, sanctioning of, or requiring disclosure by complicit telecoms or other persons. It also protects the telecom companies from lawsuits regarding their participation. But guess who can investigate? Ta-dah! Congress. The Federal Government. Independent commissions created by the federal government. Just not California or Virginia or Texas on its own. Bush was not given immunity from prosecution by the FISA amendment act of 2008.Also, you still do not acknowledge the limitations placed on warrantless wiretapping by the FISA AA 2008. I'll remind you. Must keep records for 10 years, court-permission in order to wiretap overseas americans, prohibits wiretapping foreigners in order to wiretap by proxy americans without court approval, and prohibits the use of war powers and like in order to supersede restrictions. It did expand certain powers (warrantless surveillance was extended from 3 to 7 days, detailed descriptions of the target are no longer required, for example).Further, it was the Protect America Act of 2007 which legalized warrantless wiretapping, not the FISA AA of 2008. And as you have yet to acknowledge, Obama voted against the PAA 2007.I know people wanted the phone companies' blood over participation in warrantless wiretapping, but given what the FAA 2008 did, I don't see the big problem with Obama voting for it, especially when he voted against the PAA 2007.I think it would be fair to argue that you have misinterpreted the FISA AA 2008 as well as confusing parts of it with the PAA 2007. Overall, the core of your argument is quite wrong.

You're not reading what I'm writing. I did not say that US is not responsible for the 400,000-1,000,000 deaths. I even said we sparked the war that caused the majority those deaths (that is, most of the deaths have come from the civil war we unleashed, not our direct actions against civilians and enemy militaries)! You're contention was that we killed those million with illegal weapons. What, exactly, is an illegal weapon? Weapons that were obtained illicitly? Weapons used in an illegal war? Weapons of mass destruction? This is not an attempt to weasel out of responsibility, but to measure the validity of your claim. As far as I am aware, no chemical weapons, nor biological, nor nuclear weapons have been used. It is a stretch at best to say they died from illegal weapons in war.Let me repeat this: I am not trying to minimize the culpability of the US in causing these deaths. I'm just calling BS on your claim. I see that your specialty is in making vacuous arguments. You have not seriously attempted to deal with how to implement a two-state solution, or whether it really is even possible any more. You also ignore the history of the two-state solution. There's a reason this place is as messed up and as diplomatically difficult as the balkans have been, and insisting that its entirely Israel's and the US's fault that it hasn't happened is silly. Did you not even read the Friedman article?Obama has come out in favor of the Arab Peace Initiative. Obama is in favor of peace in the region. I'm sorry you can't accept that this is what he thinks. Can you be any sillier? You say Obama continues Bush policy of sovereignty violation. I say sovereignty violation is not unique to Bush, and in times the responsible action (and launching airborn missiles into Pakistan might very well be such). You then claim that I am suggesting that Iraq and Afghanistan are similar to Rwanda and Sudan (two places where we should have violated sovereignty). Which, of course, was not my argument. I tell you this, and the quoted statement is your response? I can see you're not interested in actually building a cohesive, persuasive argument. In other words, you're pulling a limbaugh.

Let's walk you through this. You haven't actually proven a thing so far. Okay, so first things first. Obama demands an end-game scenario. This is something that Bush never figured out for either Afghanistan or Iraq. So here he breaks with Bush immediately.You contend that Afghanistan is going to be a Vietnam. I showed you how it will not be so long as our strategy changes. You have nothing substantive to say on this. In fact, you have nothing to show that Obama is going to keep the same strategy of muddling through, other than relying on quotes from the JCOS (and ignoring his response to them). You have nothing to say about the Afghanistan Policy review he's ordered.Do you even know what those 17,000 troops are to be used for? Do you realize how long it will take to deploy those troops? Let me remind you: the surge in Iraq took five months. 28,000 troops in the course of five months. Or, one combat brigade per month. The afghanistan surge will take roughly the same amount of time. 8,000 marines should be in afghanistan by late spring. 9,000 army soldiers (4,000 combat, 5,000 support) will arrive sometime in the summer. In other words, the first troops won't show up until after the policy review, and we know that the strategy is going to change.Your link, nor any of your counter-arguments have actually substantively dealt with how Obama and his team are tackling Afghanistan. Your only recourse is to shout "war crime! war crime! Bush!"The key thing to remember here is that your claim is that Obama is going to continue Bush policies in Afghanistan. First, Bush muddled through, and Obama is not going to accept that. Second, Bush never put the manpower and resources even necessary into play (he did the same thing in Iraq). By actually allocating the necessary resources to achieve the mission, Obama is breaking with Bush policy.

I'm sorry, do you not understand the difference between military policy and foreign policy? There is no contradiction. Gates affects change in military policy, and carries out the changes Obama has ordered (read: Afghanistan review, Helicopter program review, etc). Military policy does affect foreign policy (or perhaps better put, foreign policy affects military policy), but foreign policy is created and orchestrated by the President and the SoS and DoS. Yes, I've been doing homework on East Timor. And the only thing I'm finding is that Holbrooke was the undersecretary of east asia and the pacific at the time that Indonesia under Suharto was occupying East Timor. That your paragraph that was supposed to link Holbrooke to East Timor actually mentioned the UN ambassador under Ford is telling.You also ignore Holbrooke's impressive contributions later on in life. You like to condemn people for eternity for actions you do not agree with no matter what else they had done that is good. I suppose you're the proverbial sinless man who can thus cast the stone? Thanks for digging up the quote. Now then, who deliberately mistranslated the Iranian president?Anyhow, since she's been SoS, she hasn't said anything quite so caustic, which is a good sign. So far though, I haven't seen anything about her performance as SoS that raises any flags. That simply could be because she hasn't really done anything yet. Yes, a person who says one thing, does another. Since I never said that I did or would not put words into your mouth (by accident or on purpose), I'm certainly no hypocrite. Although I could suggest looking up hyperbole.Sorry if I mistook your question for a rhetorical statement. Still, given that I wasn't even talking about the validity of violating Sudan's or Rwanda's sovereignty to begin with . . .

Okay, so SoD Gates looked into the policy forbidding the photography of dead soldiers' caskets at Dover as they entered the country. This was Bush policy even before the war started (to be fair, it was started by Bush Sr., inconsistently applied by Clinton, and re-enacted by Bush Jr.).Gates has lifted the blanket ban: family members now decide if they want press coverage.I am unsure if Obama specifically asked for this review after he was inaugurated (I want to say yes, but I can't recall it, nor can I find any articles supporting this). However, Gates first looked into it a year ago.Small potatoes perhaps, but preventing photographs from being taken helps hide the human cost of the war and is just one more piece of Bush secrecy.Given time, you will see substantive change in policy direction away from Bush. This is just a start. AP ArticleEdited by Admin, : Shorten long link.

It's not my fault you're unfamiliar with US involvement in WWII. Let's see, deception to get us into the war? Check. Bullying civilians of enemy nations? Check. Bribing allies? Check.The majority of the US did not want to fight WWII before we were attacked by Pearl Harbor. Even then, it was to fight the japanese, not the germans. FDR maneuvered since 1937 (especially during and after 1939), deceiving the public along the way to get us to fight Germany. As to being aggressors in the war, just who was it who shut down japanese access to oil and steel, practically ensuring an attack against us? Just who was it who dropped potentially unnecessary nuclear bombs? Whose actions led to Germany declaring war on us? Those questions are rhetorical, because the answer is the US. Go read up on WWII.Bullying. Firebombing Dresden, Tokyo, and countless other cities. Dropping nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki when the japanese may have been ready to surrender anyhow. Killing hundreds of thousands of relatively innocent civilians. How many american civilians, exactly, did Germany and Japan kill? Don't forget the unconditional surrender, which is nothing more than saying: do this or we'll continue to beat the crap out of you. After WWII, we have our favored dictator in South Korea silencing any political dissent.In other words, the situations are analogous to Iraq as to how we have bases there.The reason the bases are there are also very well similar. 1)project american power in the region 2) as a staging ground for military actions, enabling faster action and reaction (although the US-Iraq SOFA prohibits using american bases as launching grounds for offensive action against other nations) 3)especially early on, to control the country and establish rules favorable to us.No, the bases in Germany, Japan, and South Korea are very much so analogous to Iraq. If you keep on ignoring or distorting the historical record (with this, or say, Obama's vote against the PAA 2007, or any other historical inaccuracy you have), I don't think I'll be able to keep on debating, because it's simply not worth my time to correct your ignorance (willful or otherwise) for you.