Troops pulling out of Iraq by end of year

[Bad^Hat]

President Barack Obama vowed on Friday to pull all U.S. troops from Iraq this year, symbolically ending the war but dashing U.S. hopes of leaving a few thousand troops to buttress a still shaky Iraq and offset neighboring Iran's influence.

After months of negotiations with officials in Baghdad failed to reach an agreement to keep possibly thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq as trainers, Obama announced he would stick to plans to pull out the remaining force of 40,000 by year's end.

"After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," Obama told reporters.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/22/us-iraq-usa-obama-idUSTRE79K4LR20111022

Three cheers for wants-to-get-reelected-Obama!

 

[morgs]

Hey didn't he vow to do that within a year or something before he became president?

 

[Bad^Hat]

He vowed a lot of things.

 

[Vegeta897]

Except this time, I'm going to write it down in ink and tack it my wall. I'm watching you, Obama.

 

[Raziaar]

Except this time, I'm going to write it down in ink and tack it my wall. I'm watching you, Obama.

You don't even know what Iraq is fool! You'd give some It's Always Sunny Israel-Palestine answer.

 

[Krynn72]

Except this time, I'm going to write it down in ink and tack it my wall.

You should get a corkboard for that sort of stuff.

As for the news, its obviously good. I don't really care that its so late, because lets be honest, he said he'd do a lot of stuff in a really short amount of time. If anyone expected him to come through on all of it when he said, then they were just kidding themselves. As long as he gets the big ones done in a reasonable amount of time, then thats okay with me. Three years to position the military in a way that he remove our forces, with some measure of safety, sounds reasonable to me.

You don't even know what Iraq is fool! You'd give some It's Always Sunny Israel-Palestine answer.

Nah, I'm sure he knows about the tsunami, or... well the superdome thing.

 

[Bad^Hat]

They should hold elections every year, then maybe presidents would feel pressured to actually get some of the shit they promise done.

I may or may not have stolen and modified this suggestion from the Daily Show.

 

[Acepilotf14]

They should hold elections every year, then maybe presidents would feel pressured to actually get some of the shit they promise done.

I may or may not have stolen and modified this suggestion from the Daily Show.

You mean like the house of reps where they are more concerned with re-election than actually doing things?

 

[Krynn72]

Yeah, campaign-mode-24/7 sounds like shit-doesn't-get-done-mode to me.

 

[repiV]

If anything, it should be the other way around.

I read a very good article some time ago...can't for the life of me remember where or by who, but the gist of it was that the reason our political systems consistently produce such shit governments is because we give them long-term problems to solve, but reward them on a short-term basis. Therefore, nothing ever gets done that isn't going to make them look good and get re-elected in the next few years.

Just as the typical employment model of paying a flat salary to turn up to work is broken to an extent because it encourages employees to do the least work for the most money, and employers to get the most work for the least money, but on a far larger scale.

If you had the same government for 20 years, I suspect things would happen in a very different way. How that would work in a democratic way is another question entirely.

Speaking of democracy, I hope we manage to get that referendum on leaving the EU. If so, it's goodbye EUSSR.

 

[Dandan]

Isn't there a dollar amount on the Iraq War? How much did we spend there and why? These are the questions everyone should be asking. We went to War with a country we were not at War with. We were at war with a group of people and ended up killing hundreds of thousands of people. Whats really sad is that we didn't get punished for it yet and probably won't be

 

[Suff]

Ah.. If I remember correctly, he promised to have U.S forces removed from the middle-east before his campaign, he has since "re-structured" the "pulling out of Iraq" plan. It's political-speak, your President wishes to be reelected and of course campaign season has arrived. Barrack Obama seems to have made many promises, yet hardly any of them have been kept.

"The fact that we are standing here discussing the debt-ceiling crisis is a sign of failed leadership." Barack Obama

I seem to remember this quote; it was stated a few years ago.

I doubt the U.S will remove itself from the middle-east, think of the thousands of Haliburton & Fuel contractors becoming rich off of the middle-east, think of the money entering your politician's wallet's to continue this war on "terrorism". What will happen to Haliburton after U.S forces are removed from the region? We know what would happen. That is why the U.S forces will /not/ be removed from the middle-east, it is just another "promise" from your leaders. Where have these "promises" lead you? Into a cesspool of debt, uncertainty and bad relations with every nation ever.

 

[Krynn72]

Like a Ukrainian would know anything about anything.

:arms:

But seriously, I'm betting that you're wrong, and our forces will indeed be out of Iraq in short order. You make a point of saying "campaign season started" and then ignore the fact that it'd be a major hit to his credibility (and thus, to his chances of being re-elected) if he were just lying about removing our forces from there. Don't forget that elections aren't for another 12 months, and we'll see the result of this promise within three. So its not like he can say this, get re-elected, and then do nothing.

 

[The Monkey]

Speaking of democracy, I hope we manage to get that referendum on leaving the EU. If so, it's goodbye EUSSR.

The law codes and political institutions of Britain are heavily integrated with those of the EU. The costs to leave would be unfathomable. Sorry, you're here to stay!

 

[No Limit]

As for the news, its obviously good. I don't really care that its so late, because lets be honest, he said he'd do a lot of stuff in a really short amount of time. If anyone expected him to come through on all of it when he said, then they were just kidding themselves. As long as he gets the big ones done in a reasonable amount of time, then thats okay with me. Three years to position the military in a way that he remove our forces, with some measure of safety, sounds reasonable to me.

I never liked the argument that in a way it's our fault for believing him. If he had fought for the things he said he believed in then maybe that would be a valid argument. But the problem is he never tried. From day one he came in trying to be nice to the Republicans, even with Republicans on the verge of being history. Instead of crushing them when he had the chance he did all he could to make them relevant watering down bill after bill to try and get support from people that were never going to support anything he did.

Obama had the type of majority most presidents don't even get to dream of, and he totally wasted the opportunity. I don't trust him as a result, and probably never will. He is there to protect the current system, he is not there to provide any kind of change.

 

[Bad^Hat]

You're welcome to feel that way, but keep in mind that the republicans have a very strong motivation to stimy and filibuster anything Obama tries to put through congress - to make him appear weak and ineffectual (e: intellectualism? chrome spellcheck you terrible) to voters. And it's working. Granted, I'm not really certain how much of the blame for that can be justifiably laid at his feet, but it's pretty obvious that his playing nice with the GOP hasn't paid off in the slightest. The debt ceiling bullshit should have been proof enough of that - and might have been, if his recent actions are any indication. Honestly a little bit curious if he'll be more assertive now, given a second term, if not optimistic.

 

[No Limit]

Although it's easy to blame republicans this is hardly their fault. No matter what example you take you can point to things Obama could have done which he simply chose not to. The best example of this is the public option. He came in to office saying he believed that universal care would be the best system, but since he couldn't get that he would push for a public option because that was the next best thing. Yet for months they kept telling us that reconciliation to pass the healthcare bill was unacceptable because it would shut down the senate. So they kept watering the bill down until the public option was completely removed because they said it would never pass the 60 vote requirement.

While they were doing this they didn't pay any attention in Massachusetts and they let a Republican take the seat. So they were now never going to get the 60 votes needed and suddenly reconciliation became perfectly acceptable. Yet they didn't strengthen the bill, they kept the watered down one. All Obama had to do to get the public option was call Nancy Pelosi and ask her to add it to the reconciliation bill, something the house was more than willing to do. Yet he refused to do that, instead he actively told Pelosi not to add the public option nor any other amendment.

So in this case Obama was directly responsible eventhough blaming the republicans or the blue dogs was convenient. And you can go through the list of any of his promises and find something similar in each case.

 

[lord_raken]

Apparently in the same speech where Bush got a shoe thrown at him, he mentioned that he had signed an agreement with the Iraq government to have all troops removed by december 31st 2011...

So technically Obama is only following though on an agreement made by a previous president. (Information brought to you by the Daily Show)

 

[Sulkdodds]

The board index only displayed this thread as "troops pulling out of Iraq by..." and I had the strangest sense it would end with the word "bus".

Still, you have to make a distinction between "oh, I'm so disappointed in Obama that he didn't x y and z I really thought he'd pull through" (potentially naive) and "it is wrong that Obama has not done the stuff he said he'd do". That said, pulling out of this war was one thing that was never going to be a quick or easy project, so I'd say he's about on par this time.