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Obama Tried To Stall Gis' Iraq Withdrawal (pg. 4)
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| LatinLover |
Opus,
You have been the one that has been putting a setback for a constructive debate, you and your bad manners have procluded that from happening. Ive always been ready, the question is if your ready? |
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| Lebezniatnikov |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
Opus,
You have been the one that has been putting a setback for a constructive debate, you and your bad manners have procluded that from happening. Ive always been ready, the question is if your ready? |
He's ready. Man up. |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by Lebezniatnikov
He's ready. Man up. |
This is someone who preaches about patriotism and the virtues of going to war, but yet, does not contribute to that which he radically supports. We're talking about possibly the #1 hypocrite ever to troll these forums, with of course, CHRles coming in a close 2nd..:o
At least Q has done something to actively participate in something he so strongly believes in, even if its contrary to what I believe the country is doing right. |
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| LatinLover |
| quote: | Originally posted by Krypton
This is someone who preaches about patriotism and the virtues of going to war, but yet, does not contribute to that which he radically supports. We're talking about possibly the #1 hypocrite ever to troll these forums, with of course, CHRles coming in a close 2nd..:o
At least Q has done something to actively participate in something he so strongly believes in, even if its contrary to what I believe the country is doing right. |
This is the "wanna be soldier" that wants to get into the army but coward away because he wanted our military to give him the luxury to chose which wars he wants to fight and which one he does not |
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| Capitalizt |
Latin, respond to the points made by Opus please.
Stop dancing around them. You only look like a bigger idiot. |
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| Krypton |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
This is the "wanna be soldier" that wants to get into the army but coward away because he wanted our military to give him the luxury to chose which wars he wants to fight and which one he does not |
LOL, a "wanna be soldier"? I don't want to join the military at all you IDIOT! Coming from the #1 hypocrite, you make me laugh with your attempted insults...:haha: :haha: :haha: |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
Opus,
You have been the one that has been putting a setback for a constructive debate, you and your bad manners have procluded that from happening. Ive always been ready, the question is if your ready? |
Yes.
I agree to your conditions. Start a debating thread with a topic of your choosing that will involve me and me only. If you do not start one by the end of the day today, I will start one for you.
I also would appreciate a reply from you to specifically address the counterpoints I originally made to you and your article. I do hope we will see that soon as well. |
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| The17sss |
Amir Taheri in his own words today:
| quote: | On Monday, in an opinion piece published in the New York Post, I suggested that Senator Barack Obama had urged Iraqi leaders to postpone making an agreement with the United States until there was a new administration in Washington.
I said this because Obama himself had said it.
In an interview broadcast by NBC on June 16, 2008, Obama said that he had told Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari that “the Congress should be involved in any negotiations regarding the Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq” and “suggested it may be better to wait until the next administration to negotiate such an agreement.”
I said it because Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari said it.
In an interview published by the pan-Arab daily Asharq Alawast on September 11, 2008, Zebari raised the issue at length. This is part of what he said: “Obama asked me why, in view of a change of administration, we were hurrying the signing of this special agreement, and why we did not wait until the coming of a new administration next year to agree on some issues and matters.”
I said it because my Iraqi sources, who asked not to be identified because they do not wish to pick a quarrel with someone who could be the President of the United States next year, said it.
A day after my op-ed was published, Obama’s campaign issued a statement, in effect confirming what I had said.
It said, in part, “Senator Obama has consistently said that any security arrangements that outlast this administration should have the backing of the US Congress — especially given the fact that the Iraqi parliament will have the opportunity to vote on it.”
On Wednesday, the senator issued another statement — also in response to my op-ed — denying that he had ever opposed “a redeployment and responsible drawdown” of U.S. forces in Iraq. But I never said he did. I also never said that he opposed motherhood and apple pie; In any case, no one would oppose “redeployment and responsible drawdown,” something that is happening all the time. Redeployment means moving some units from one location to another. Drawdown means reducing the size of the expeditionary force in accordance with the task at hand. Right now troops are being redeployed from Anbar province to Salahuddin. There is also drawdown: The number of U.S. troops has been drawn down to 136,000, the lowest since a peak of 170,000 in 2003.
What Obama hopes his more radical followers will not notice is that he is no longer speaking of “withdrawal.”
He also hopes to hide the fact that by telling the Iraqi leaders that a putative Obama administration might scrap agreements reached with the Bush team, he might have delayed the start of a process that should lead to a withdrawal of U.S. forces within a mutually agreed timeframe. The later you start the negotiating process, the later you get an agreement. And the later you have an agreement, the later you can withdraw your troops based on the agreed necessary security arrangements to ensure their safe departure.
By trying to second-guess the present administration in its negotiations with Iraq, Obama ignored a golden rule of American politics. I first learned about that rule from Senator Edward Kennedy more than 30 years ago. During a visit to Tehran, Kennedy received a few Iranian reporters for a poolside chat. The big question at the time was negotiations between Washington and Tehran about massive arms contracts. When we asked Kennedy what he thought of those negotiations, his answer was simple: He would not comment on negotiations between his government and a foreign power, especially when abroad. That, he said, was one of the golden rules of American politics.
A few years later, I spent a day with Ronald Reagan during his visit to Iran. I asked what he thought of the strategic arms limitation talks between the U.S. and the USSR. He echoed Kennedy’s golden rule: He would not comment on his government’s negotiations with a foreign power, especially when abroad.
A couple of years ago, I ran into that golden rule again. At a meeting with Senator Hillary Clinton in Washington, I asked what she thought of the Bush administration’s negotiations with the Iraqis concerning security cooperation. She said she would not second-guess the president and would wait for the outcome of the negotiations. In a statesmanlike manner, Senator Clinton reminded me of the golden rule—one that is common to all mature democracies where the opposition is loyal and constitutional.
Today, Senator Obama is the leader of a loyal opposition in the United States, not the chief of an insurrection or a revolutionary uprising. What we are witnessing in the U.S. is an election, not an insurrection or a coronation, even less a regime change.
Obama should not have discussed the government-to-government negotiations with the Iraqis. That he did, surprised the Iraqis no end. Raising the issue with them, especially the way he did, meant that he was telling them that he did not trust his own government. The Iraqis could not be blamed for wondering why they should trust a government that is not trusted by the leader of its own loyal opposition. (There was also no point in raising the matter, because Obama did not know the content of the negotiations.)
An opposition leader’s foreign trips are useful as fact-finding missions. This means that the opposition leader listens to the locals, asks questions, and tries to get the political feel of the place. He is not there to lecture the natives or bad-mouth his own government back home.
Obama might have attended a session of the new Iraqi parliament and congratulated the people of Iraq for defying death to go through one referendum and two general elections to build a new democracy.
He might have visited some of the good work done by over 1.2 million Americans, both military and civilian, who have heroically served in Iraq since its liberation. He might have visited some of the wounded victims of terrorism, both U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians, to comfort them, and assure them of continued U.S. determination to fight the forces of evil.
He did none of those things during his eight-hour photo-op visit.
In the American system, the administration can conclude agreements with foreign powers on a range of issues backed by an executive order from the president. I am no expert, but the U.S. has signed scores, maybe hundreds of such agreements with many countries across the globe. To be sure, the U.S. legislature always has the power to seek the abrogation of any of these agreements. When it comes to treaties, however, they cannot come into effect without full Senate approval.
However, Iraq and the U.S. are not negotiating a treaty, and, if they were, Obama could have waited until the draft text was submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by his vice-presidential running mate Joseph Biden.
In any case, every agreement and every treaty contains mechanisms for its suspension or abrogation. Therefore, even supposing Bush was negotiating an absolutely terrible agreement with the Iraqis in which he would be selling the family silver, Obama should have waited until he saw the text, and then demanded the cancellation of the accord through the constitutional channels.
One key feature of all mature powers, at least since the Congress of Vienna, is the reliability of their international commitments. Even putschists who seize power in a military coup make sure that their first pronunciamento includes this key sentence: We shall honor all of our country’s international obligations and commitments. Even regime change does not absolve states from their international obligations. The new Iraqi government, for example, has not rejected the estimated $100 billion in foreign debt left by Saddam Hussein.
Instances of a state reneging on all its obligations as a result of change are rare in history. One instance came in 1918 when Trotsky, appointed Commissar for Foreign Affairs by Lenin, announced that he had abrogated all of Tsarist Russia’s treaties with foreign nations and ordered the texts burned to heat the rooms of an empty foreign ministry.
What Obama was attempting, however, was more original. It amounted to preemptive diplomacy used against one’s own government: opposing an agreement not yet negotiated and of the content of which he knew nothing. A neophyte in matters of politics and diplomacy, the young senator is certainly not wanting for originality.
Since I do not wish to become involved in an Alphonse-and-Gaston number with Obama, I suggest that we focus our attention on the fact that the nominee is left without anything resembling a policy on Iraq. So, rather than coming out with another denial of something I never said that he had done, the esteemed senator should ponder these questions:
Does he still believe that toppling Saddam Hussein was illegal and “the biggest strategic blunder in U.S. history”? If yes, we might wonder why he is prepared to deal with the new Iraqi leaders who, by definition, have usurped Hussein’s power in Baghdad with American support.
Does he still want to withdraw from Iraq or does he want to stay, doing a bit of “drawdown” and “redeployment” every now and then? And, if he wants to stay, on what basis, for what purpose, and for how long?
Is Senator Biden’s plan to carve Iraq into three separate states still a live option or has it been thrown into the dustbin where it should have been from the start?
Would Obama now support the conclusion of a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) and a Strategic Framework Agreement (SFA) through negotiations between the Bush administration and the Iraqi administration of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, also a “lame duck,” as it faces elections early next year? |
http://article.nationalreview.com/?...YTQzZTg=&w=MA== |
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| LatinLover |
| quote: | Originally posted by MisterOpus1
Yes.
I agree to your conditions. Start a debating thread with a topic of your choosing that will involve me and me only. If you do not start one by the end of the day today, I will start one for you.
I also would appreciate a reply from you to specifically address the counterpoints I originally made to you and your article. I do hope we will see that soon as well. |
No problem! I will start the thread but please understand I will do so sometime mid or end of next week as I got take care of somethings that will prevent me from being online that often. Anyways, you will see the thread.
Have a great weekend! :cool: |
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| MisterOpus1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
No problem! I will start the thread but please understand I will do so sometime mid or end of next week as I got take care of somethings that will prevent me from being online that often. Anyways, you will see the thread.
Have a great weekend! :cool: |
Likewise.
See you then. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
Oh dear, it looks like folks who were actually there just blew yet another teensy little hole into the story of this lair Taheri:
| quote: | Undermining McCain Campaign Attack, Republicans Back Obama‘s Version of Meeting With Iraqi Leaders
September 19, 2008 1:06 PM
.....The charge -- that Obama asked the Iraqis to delay signing off on a "Status of Forces Agreement," thus delaying U.S. troop withdrawal and interfering in U.S. foreign policy -- has been picked up on the Internet, talk radio and by Republicans, including the McCain campaign, which seized on the story as possible evidence of duplicity.
The Obama campaign said that the Post report consisted of "outright distortions."
Lending significant credence to Obama's response is the fact that -- though it's absent from the Post story and other retellings -- in addition to Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, this July meeting was also attended by Bush administration officials, such as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the Baghdad embassy's legislative affairs advisor Rich Haughton, as well as a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.
Attendees of the meeting back Obama's account, including not just Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., but Hagel, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers from both parties. Officials of the Bush administration who were briefed on the meeting by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad also support Obama's account and dispute the Post story and McCain attack.
The Post story is "absolutely not true," Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry told ABC News. |
Be sure to read that part above again, just to be certain.
| quote: | "Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations," said Obama campaign national security spokesperson Wendy Morigi, "nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades."
Buttry said that Hagel agrees with Obama's account of the meeting: Obama began the meeting with al-Maliki by asserting that the United States speaks with one foreign policy voice, and that voice belongs to the Bush administration.
A Bush administration official with knowledge of the meeting says that, during the meeting, Obama stressed to al-Maliki that he would not interfere with President Bush's negotiations concerning the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and that he supports the Bush administration's position on the need to negotiate, as soon as possible, the Status of Forces Agreement, which deals with, among other matters, U.S. troops having immunity from local prosecution.
Obama did assert at the meeting with the Iraqis that he agrees with those -– including Hagel and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- who advocate congressional review of the Strategic Framework Agreement being worked out between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, including the Iraqi parliament.
The Strategic Framework Agreement is a document that generally describes what the relationship between the two countries should look like over time.
According to one person present at the meeting, Obama told al-Maliki that the American people wouldn't understand why the Iraqi parliament would get to have a say on the Strategic Framework Agreement, but the U.S. Congress would not, especially since Bush is only months from leaving the White House, regardless of whether Obama or McCain succeeds him.
Morigi said in a statement that "Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi parliament."
It’s possible, Obama advisers believe, that either Zebari or Taheri confused the Strategic Framework Agreement -- which Obama feels should be reviewed by Congress -- with the Status of Forces Agreement, which Obama says the Bush administration should negotiate with the Iraqis as soon as possible.
Two officials of the Bush administration say that if Obama had done what the Post story asserted –- which they believe to be untrue -– Crocker and embassy officials attending the meeting would have ensured that the Bush administration heard about it immediately. If such an incident occurred in front of officials of the Bush administration, it would have constituted a foreign policy breach and would have been front-page huge news; it would not have leaked out two months later in an op-ed column.
Nonetheless, based on nothing more than the Post report, McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann issued a statement earlier this week, expressing outrage.
“It should be concerning to all that (Obama) reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the U.S. administration in power,” Scheunemann said, apparently not having talked to anyone with knowledge about the meeting in the Bush administration, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Hagel, or any Republican staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas,” Scheunemann continued. “Sen. Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's foreign minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Sen. Obama's judgment, and it demands an explanation.”
What actually demands an explanation is why the McCain campaign was so willing to give credence to such a questionable story with such tremendous international implications without first talking to Republicans present at Obama’s meeting with al-Maliki, who back Obama’s version of the meeting and completely dismiss the Post column as untrue.
-- Jake Tapper and Kirit Radia
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalp...mining-mcc.html |
So you now have eye-witness Republicans and Bush Administration officials backing Obama's version of events, and not that liar Taheri.
Guess the fact that NO ONE from the Administration jumped all over this one the way the Right Wing Noise Machine did might have tipped someone off in the Wingnut camp?
And who woulda thunk the Bush Administration being Obamacans? Incredible, huh?
Oh, when do you think we will be receiving an apology from the McCain camp for jumping on this bologna so quickly without checking the facts for themselves? Again, it wreaks of desperation by McCain to leach onto this so quickly. A retraction will be coming, right? |
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| Groundhog Boy |
| quote: | Originally posted by LatinLover
This is the "wanna be soldier" that wants to get into the army but coward away because he wanted our military to give him the luxury to chose which wars he wants to fight and which one he does not |
Please do us all a favor and sign up since you have such contempt for those who don't serve. Maybe we'll all get lucky and you can be a landmine detector for our troops. |
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