The Iraq Stategy

What we learned today from the New York Sun:

A key adviser to Senator Obama’s campaign is recommending in a confidential paper that America keep between 60,000 and 80,000 troops in Iraq as of late 2010, a plan at odds with the public pledge of the Illinois senator to withdraw combat forces from Iraq within 16 months of taking office.

According to the Sun, Colin Kahl, the author of the confidential paper, is the day-to-day coordinator of the Obama campaign's working group on Iraq.

Keeping between 60,000 and 80,000 American troops means that we will be keeping half of our current troop levels in Iraq under Kahl's plan.

To be fair, Mr. Kahl stated that the paper did not express the campaign's position. But, what is the Obama campaign's actual position on Iraq. If his main adviser on Iraq advocates keeping up to 80,000 American troops in Iraq until the end 2010, then what will Obama do if he is elected? Throw out his adviser, change stated policies, or more likely, keep his current policy which does seem to allow for what Kahl advocates. The Sun article also reminds us that during the Iowa campaign. Obama stated that he was not opposed to having American troops remain in Iraq to train Iraqi military forces, and that he would remove combat troops but would keep a residual force of American troops in Iraq.

His campaign web site under "Bringing our Troops Home" indicates that he does intend on keeping what might be called residual troops in Iraq.

Obama will immediately begin to remove our troops from Iraq. He will remove one to two combat brigades each month, and have all of our combat brigades out of Iraq within 16 months. Obama will make it clear that we will not build any permanent bases in Iraq. He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.

But, it doesn't say how many or for how long. Does Kahl's confidential paper reveal some unstated specifics of the Obama strategy for Iraq? If it does, is it a good plan? If residual American troops remain in Iraq, what will happen if the insurgency attempts to draw them into the Iraqi civil war? How will we keep them from remaining targets for insurgent attacks?

Why Deny This Man Resident Status In U.S

After having given four years of military service to our country during the U.S. Iraq occupation, Samam Kareem Ahmad sought to become a permanent resident of the United States. Despite “put[ting] his life on the line with, for, Coalition Forces on a daily basis,” the Bush administration said , “No.”

The Department of Homeland Security apparently chose to ignore his patriotic and selfless service in war, and chose instead to consider only his past membership in the Kurdish Democratic Party, a group DHS has now labels an “undesignated terrorist organization,” whatever that means. And, why you wonder would that group warrant that label? Because it sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein!!

So, Samam once belonged to an organization that sought to overthrow Sadam Hussein. Then he joined the Coalition and American Forces that actually overthrew Sadam Hussein, and that's reason enough for the Bush Administrations to label him a terrorist. Is that a bad joke or what.

Sometimes it's almost impossible to understand where our government is at. Seems as though our Fatherland Security Department has lost all common sense, relying instead solely on inflexible rules - that our government repeatedly violates - that serve to hassle, discriminate against, and deny basic rights or humane treatment, to those of us who are born U.S. Citizens, and those who seek to become U.S. Citizens.

Something basic is wrong here. What has happened to our country?

Five Years in Iraq

Five years ago today US and coalition forces began operations to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, thus beginning one of the most controversial wars in American history. Across the mainstream media and the blogosphere, people will no doubt be painting starkly contrasting assessments of this endeavor, from hysterical cynicism to blind optimism. There will be those that broadcast the casualties while muting any successes. And there will be those like Dick Cheney that continue to wear blinders, and refuse to acknowledge the glaring errors made by this administration and pay only lip service to the terrible sacrifices this country has had to make in the name of this war. We invite all opinions on this blog for sure, but in looking back on these past five years and on into the future, I feel a candid and reasoned assessment, avoiding useless hyperbole, is needed.

In critiquing the early stages of the war, there is little to write positive. I, for one, was initially against the war, feeling that the Bush administration had not given enough solid evidence that Hussein possessed WMD, and that we were rushing throwing our troops into Iraq with no legitimate 'smoking gun.' History will write that the administration's grounds for the war was at best unauthentic, and at worst sinister deception. Iraq had no WMD and Saddam was seemingly not an 'immediate threat.' He did have relations with Al Qaeda and other terrorist agencies, but did not coordinate 9/11 nor any other US terror attacks. No one can deny the world is a better place without the likes of Saddam Hussein running nations, but on the same token no one can deny that the Bush administration cataclysmically blundered the initial occupation after toppling Hussein. You can't quell insurgency and occupy without troops, and Donald Rumsfeld should be vilified in history for his appallingly stubborn decisions to not increase ground troop levels throughout his abysmal leadership at the DoD. His actions were indefensible, it should have been obvious that more troops were needed to reduce violence, and should not have taken until 2007's surge tactic to realize this point.

We are a nation divided because of this war. I believe this is in large part due to the way we discuss this war. This should not be a partisan war, this should not be a war dominated by both poles throwing flames at each other. There needs to be practical and useful discourse. So on a day like this, we should talk about the Iraq War's past, but we should focus on the future. I am sick and tired of talk about 'who supported the invasion' and who 'from day one did not.' We are in Iraq. That is the bottom line. Yes it may have been blind arrogance and unfettered hubris that got us there, yes the post-invasion agenda should have been managed better, and yes American lives are being lost everyday. But let's focus on what our next step will be without taking cheap shots at other parties. A stable Iraq is a positive for the entire world, especially an America fighting the cult of terrorism. So while I did not initially support the invasion, I do advocate remaining in Iraq until stability is secured and Al Qaeda is drastically weakened or eliminated from Iraq altogether. I have seen positives from the recent surge, and I rack my brain thinking that maybe so much violence could have been avoided had Bush listened to Powell and utilized more troops from the start. What happens to Iraq if we fully withdraw? For those that desire either a quick or sustained withdrawal, if our next President implements such a strategy, I only hope that he or she fully sees the reality of such a decision, where Iraq is embroiled in chaos. I only hope that such a decision does not mean that the US is right back in Iraq in 5 or so years. Let's hope such a decision is made with extensive contingency planning, and a much better sense of reality than the Bush administration had post-invasion.

Iraq, McCain and the Dems

Check this article: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/02/foreman.raw.politics/index.html

The Iraq War has been touted as McCain's achilles' heel, but as the numbers come out of Iraq there is some hope that something can be salvaged from this painstaking and draining war. Now, that is not to say that things aren't still grim, but I am interested in seeing these exchanges as we head into the general election season between McCain and Obama/Clinton. As the article notes, if McCain can even slightly alter the opinion of the 2/3 of the country that disapprove of the war, then it may be a tight race. If he can underscore the significant strides made since the surge last year, then perhaps the general public will not completely vilify him when it comes to Iraq. Remember, this is the man that has always supported the war, but the man that has also consistently stated that it was mismanaged and executed poorly by the Bush administration. This is not a slam dunk issue for the Democrats as was previously thought (at least by me). They will have to explain what their course of action is after we withdraw all troops, as they have both stated they want to do very quickly into their first term. We know what McCain's course of action is, he has clearly told the American people from the start.