But Obama could really make hay out of the fact that the Iraqi people and it’s allegedly sovereign government endorse HIS plan and not Bushcain’s. McCain can’t try to argue that Iraq itself has never been to Iraq.
When Iraq’s sovereign government endorses his plan, he can. They haven’t yet done so. And, like I said, we’ll see how happy they are to see us go when we tell them we’re taking all our stuff with us. The ISF is pretty well manned at this point, but all the reports I read say they can’t do much without US logistical support. I can’t see us leaving all that stuff behind with a shaky government that might very well come under the sway of Iran.
Why would we leave them without any equipment? That’s not going to happen. We’d have no moral justification for it. And Mccain is already on record saying we would have no choice but to fuck off out of Iraq if the government asked us to, and the government is now asking us to. The whole debate has been resolved. There is now going to be a timetable, and I’ll say right now there’s no way we’re going to take our ball with us just out of childish spite.
In a way both candidates are right here.
McCain arguing that he would exit when conditions on the ground warrant it, that is why he basically had said no timeline, maybe 100 years, whatever.
Obama arguing 16 months was not necessarily because he thought it would be the time when wehn we have success, but just that it was necessary to put a time out there, because this cannot go on forever.
What has happened is that the two positions are coinciding in that 16 months is probably also the time that conditions on the ground dictate they can end the occupation.
Now, while their two polsitions seem to be coinciding, they are arrived at from very different places and IMO opinion Obama’s position has always been the right one, we cannot stay there until we “win”. We needed to leave at some time and it needed to be sooner rather than later.
Exactly what we leave will be part of the negotiations.
Of course we would. It belongs to us.
Maliki making a statement to the press is not “the government… asking us to” leave.
Ha! You’re wanting it to be so doesn’t make it so.
There will be some sort of general agreement, but my guess is the “timetable” wil be very squishy. And it would not be “childish” for us to not want to leave billions of dollars worth of military equipment in the hands of the Iraqi government. I don’t know if they are capable of maintaining it, and I’m sure we don’t want it getting into unfriendly hands.
There’s nothing to negotiate. We have no say in the matter. If you;re a guest at someone’s house and they ask you to leave, you don’t “negotiate” conditions. You just fuck off.
That’s not a moral justification, and I guarantee, it’s not going to happen.
The hell it isn’t.
The wriring’s on the wall. Bush and McCain are both backpedalling on timelines now.
It would be childishly spiteful to leave them with no protection after we put them in that situation. There’s also the question of oil. Oil is far more important to the US than mere human lives, and the oil will be protected if nothing else.
And:
ETA: Yep, that’s the same spokesman who said Maliki was misinterpreted.
Meanwhile, McCain’s very concerned about the situation on the Iraq-Pakistan border, as should we all. If you think global climate change is a threat, that’s nothing compared to the sort of abrupt tectonic shifts it takes to create such a border.
We’re not a guest at someone’s dinner. We’re there, currently, under a UN mandate. We can do whatever we want with our military equipment. Remember, some of the troops leaving Iraq are going to Afghanistan. They will need that equipment over there.
Guarantee what? I’m sure we’ll be leaving some stuff, but exactly what we leave, exactly what we take, and exactly what we sell to them is yet to be determined.
Well, that’s just a ridiculous statement, so I have no other comment.
Your one-dimensional view of the situation is fascinating. The only reason we could possibly want to take our stuff is out of spite. Absurd.
Since McCain clearly knows the geography of the area, having been there many times, it’s clear that this was just a slip of the tongue, and no big deal. You know, like Obama saying there are 57 states.
Of course, Obama has the advantage of a friendly press that’s willing to bury his gaffes. In this video, Obama calls for the creation of a ‘civilian national security force’ that is funded as well as the U.S. military is. An amazingly stupid thing to say. You can see him say it at about 16:45 in that video clip.
This is not a ‘gaffe’, because he explains it in some detail. I don’t know if he just had this idea on the spot, or whether it was thought up on the plane or what, but the notion of a civilian defense corps with a 500 billion dollar budget and ‘just as strong’ as the U.S. military, is completely daft.
Luckily for him, all you have to do is send out an ‘official’ transcript in which the whole paragraph is completely airbrushed out, and the media will happily print that one without question.
A mandate that ends in December. And a mandate is not a requirement to stay.
Give me one single moral justification. You seem to think we should use that kind of threat as leverage to prevent them from kicking us out. Are the Iraqis our allies or our enemies? Why would we want to leave our ostensible allies unprotected? And like I said, do you really think we’re not going to protect the oil?
He’s had an awful lot of slips of the tongue in his alleged area of expertise. At some point, you’ve got to simply admit he’s one dumb bunny.
Please, please start a thread to compare the relative willingness of the press to bury McCain’s v. Obama’s gaffes, flip-flops, and the like. I’m too busy today to join in, but you ain’t seen an avalanche like you’d see then.
Beyond that, I won’t hijack this thread over that absurd bit of nonsense.
This part has me scratching my head and wondering. Is there something “unofficial”, and hence, insubstantial about talking to the press? Maliki is the head of government there, no? Is there a special Offical Talking Place that he has to go and stand when he’s saying something substantial, but if he’s not standing there, its like King’s-X, or something?
Over here, we do a lot of that sort of thing, they’re called “press conferences”, and are frequently, if not usually, the occasion for the announcement of official, honest-to-goodness policy. They don’t do that in Iraq?
What would qualify, in your estimation? Do they have to draft a manfesto, and nail it to Gen Petreaus’ door?
Robbing a bank is wrong for reasons other than the difficulty or unliklihood of executing said heist.
A mandate that will by up for renewal in Dec.
Ah, but it’s permission to stay even if the Iraqi government asks us to leave.
At any rate, Diogenes’ dinner party comparison is what we in the business call a bad analogy.
So, when Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid say to the press they want us out of Iraq now, is that the US’s official government policy? Of course not.
If Bush says to the press that he wants illegal immigrants to have a path to citizenship, is that official US policy? No.
It’ll be the Iraqi government’s official policy when the parliament passes such a resolution. I don’t know why that’s so hard to understand.
I already did. We own the stuff. And Iraq may not be capable of keeping it out of the hands of our enemies.
Well, keep in mind that the timeframe we’re talking about will most likely be in Obama’s administration. Is it your contention that Obama values oil more than human life, as you posted earlier?
But we (meaning Bush, McCain, or Obama) may have a different assessment of the Iraqis’ ability to effectively use and control our more sensitive military equipment. The Iraqis’ position is not necessarily the right one. And so we may need to put some conditions on what we give or sell them, who is in charge of maintaining and using it, and how we make sure it doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.
And even Obama has said he’s going to reserve the right to use our military to go after al Qaeda in Iraq if necessary. We need to negotiate with them under what conditions we will do that. Ending this war is not going to be like flipping a switch. I wish it were that simple, but it just isn’t. No president is going to want to have pictures of helicopters evacuating people off the roof of the US embassy in Iraq.
Why is the distinction that it be official policy so important?
The important context here is the US Presidential election. Given that, I think it’s pretty fucking obvious that Mccain’s campaign has been kicked in the teeth. How can he argue to stay in Iraq when even the Iraqi PM is endorsing Obama’s plan? And if he has the Iraq debate taken away from him, what does he have left to argue to the American electorate?
Shirley, you’re not saying that you imagine, in your most fevered dreams, that we will stay in Iraq if officially asked to depart? And, if not, why do you even mention it as though it were significant?
Perhaps we lack your encyclopedic grasp of Iraqi politics. In our simplicity, we imagine that if the President of Iraq says something very much like “We’d like you to leave soon” he means “We’d like you to leave soon.”
And we further wildly conjecture that he is saying so because he is under some political pressure. That is, he is reflecting the popular opinion of his countrymen.
You’re like the guy who fell out the window, and on his way down says “Well, so far, so good, I’m not officially dead until I’m spattered all over the sidewalk.” The trajectory is clear here, John. “Here’s your hat, there’s the door, hello, you must be going.”
Depends. My guess is that Bush would try to. McCain might. Obama wouldn’t.
But here’s the thing. It’s one thing for the Iraqi government to ask us to leave, but quite another to dictate the timetable. That is something we will have to negotiate with them, for the safety of our troops. And the idea that we will pull all of our combat troops out in 16 months is absurd. It’s not going to happen. Imagine what it would be like to be the last brigade to leave…
Apparently. But it’s the way every democratic government works, so I think the problem lies elsewhere.
Well, yes it is a very simplistic view you hold. It ignores the fact that politicians often say one thing and do another. It ignores the fact that Iraq and the US are currently in negotiations on this matter, and it helps Maliki to have this idea out there. You never tell the car salesman what price you are actually wiling to pay.
Where does the US get any right to dictate a timetable? Whose country is it?