May 29 2008
Obama Is About To Get A Hard Wake-Up Call
Obama is thinking about visiting Iraq this summer, the most important place on planet Earth when it comes to America’s recent past, present and future with regards to our national security. Â If he goes he is in for a serious wake-up call that will test him as a human being like nothing else has before. Â I doubt seriously if Obama is going simply because John McCain challenged him to face up to the realities of Iraq. Â Obama’s not one to do something risky unless he absolutely is forced into the corner (e.g., Reverend Wright).
No, what I think nailed Obama was this truly powerful ad – and what it shows Obama will need to face when he goes to Iraq:
What will Obama do when faced with tens of thousands of young, brave American heros like this young lady who will challenge Obama to finish up our victory in Iraq? What will Obama do to honor those who sacrificed all to get us to where we are, on the verge of complete victory?
This is such a risky act on Obama’s part I think the politician in him will, in the end, decline to go and face Iraq and our armed forces. But if he does go, then he will be forced to make a decision. Will he play to his anti-war base (which he needs to keep his poll numbers afloat) and diss our armed forces and those who died and were wounded to get us here? We he throw away the most valued sacrifices any person can give a country to hold onto votes? Is a pol or man of principle?
Or conversely, will he acknowledge the sacrifices of our armed forces, of our Iraqi allies and realize the only benefit to a withdrawal now is to our enemies? Will he succumb to John McCain’s wisdom and defend our gains, show he is able to be commander-in-chief and stand up to idiotic forces here in America who conceive of suicidal policies and promote them as solutions to non-problems. Will Obama be the statesman, open a new dialogue with the American people, bridge the partisan divide?
You can quickly see why this is a very dangerous action for Obama. If he is serious about going I would suspect the calls for Clinton to step aside would abruptly stop because everyone knows this is a big gambit. Either way he loses something – that is what hard choices are all about. If there was one good and one bad choice they are easy. It is these kinds of choices that have led President Bush to burn up his political capitol as he fought the war in Iraq to win. He made a series of hard choices which always had a negative impact on him.
But Bush is a leader. We don’t know what Obama is, but what little we know doesn’t show leadership. Which is why, in the end, I think he will dodge the challenge all together.
My guess is that he’s far too arrogant to even realize he’s walking into a hornet’s nest. This is a guy who truly believes he can gladhand his way out of anything, and is completely befuddled when things don’t turn out the way he thinks they should.
The Republican National Committee
has on their web page an Obama Clock showing the days since Obama’s ONLY visit to Iraq which currently shows 872 days ago.
The RNC has a Obama clock that shows the 872 days since his ONLY visit to Iraq.
You seem to misunderstand the fact that there’s really no such thing as a “visit” to Iraq except for PR purposes. American visitors don’t get to see the real Iraq, the Iraq where civil war violence is still at horrendous 2005 levels and it’s not safe for foreigners without a lot of armed backup. American politicians, left or right, see what Senator Webb has called the “dog and pony show”: a show put on by government officials like General Petraeus (why do conservatives worship government officials so much?). McCain has never seen the real Iraq, nor has Obama. The real Iraq is simply too dangerous to visit.
It’s like people who go to Cuba are always taken on a dog-and-pony tour of Castro’s socialist paradise, but are never allowed to go to the parts of Cuba that show the disaster and suffering wrought by Castro. Conservatives like McCain are very similar to pro-Castro lefty idiots: they praise Iraq, or Cuba, based on the very limited things they’re allowed to see.
I know you’re in denial about Iraq, and have been for a long time – after all, you didn’t notice that the surge caused more Iraqis and Americans to die and violence only fell due to things that had nothing to do with the surge (Anbaris turning against Al-Qaeda; Sadr’s cease-fired). And you support Maliki’s slaughter of his political enemies to prevent them from doing well in an election, and fail to notice that political reconciliation is getting less and less likely:http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080528/wl_nm/iraq_dc_1 . But you would believe all that whether or not you went on a dog-and-pony tour of Iraq, because you are committed to handing Al-Qaeda a victory by keeping America in Iraq forever.
And Obama, whether he goes to Iraq or not, will be committed to what is right for American national security: leaving Iraq and going after Al-Qaeda. Just as McCain, after a trip to Iraq, saw nothing of the horror that has ensued. He’s a useful idiot for the Maliki regime, just as lefties used to be useful idiots for the equally bad regime of Castro.
just what this world needs…another politician using the troops for a photo-op. like bush and the staged turkey. or mccain walking thru the “safe” market with snipers and black-hawks covering his arse. the garbage that aj willingly buys into is simply amazing. makes me think he (or she) is the worlds largest consumer of ronco products. i mean…how many food dehyydrators does one person really need?
I still need to know why BHO deserves to be president. He has accomplished absolutely nothing other than pandering to those who “need to feel good” and college students (who by definition are the least intelligent among us—-that’s why they are in school).
War hero versus demigod? An easy test to see if you have functioning grey matter.
But I’ll bet the Clintonistas have a plane fueled up and ready to go for him.
Wow, we know that “Worm” is an Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Democratic Traitor Nutbag, but what Fantasy-la-la-land-Universe to YOU exist in?:
gonzolgorgon 29 May 2008 at 12:45 pm ……… the Iraq where civil war violence is still at horrendous 2005 levels ………
Hey Gorgonzola: Put the Crack Pipe down, and back away s…l….o…..w……l………y man, you’ve had one “hit” too many!
Congrats AJ, you’ve managed to scare-up two Anti-American/Pro-Jihadi Leftist Nutbags with one post!
Like shooting fish in a barrel, man…
They said it was impossible ..
Iran in Secret Talks With al Qaeda, U.S. Officials Say
maybe while obama is over there he will witness one or two of the record number of suicides among the troops that mcbush so willingly uses for political purposes.
Really sick norm – pathetic like a true liberal ghoul.
hey neo…is that the same white house that sold wmd’s and links between al queda and iraq and mushroom clouds over our cities? ooooh so scary…it must be true…cheney told dubya, and we all know dubya can’t say no to dick.
no aj…sick is sending troops on their fifth 15 month tour…and then going out for a bike ride.
Norm,
Your such a putz it is actually sad.
norm:
That whole suicide thing was debunked, just like most of the crap you people throw around. What group of people have the highest suicide rate? Young men. What group of people serve in Iraq by and large. Young men. See where I am going with this?
This is a volunteer military and we are having record re-enlistments. I do not doubt that our soldiers have seen some terrible things in Iraq, but if they do not want to be there, they don’t have to join up.
And you know something norm, back in the 90s when you were still in diapers I heard Richard Clarke say that it was inevitable that an American city would be attacked by terrorists. He also said his greatest fear was the use of wmd in the attack. Maybe you think it was this administration who first raised these concerns, but that has more to do with your own ignorance than reality.
Did you see this outrage??
Pelois says the Surge has worked because IRAN helped us….NOT because of our soldiers.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/8571
I think norm thinks that soldiers are either babies or baby killers.
norm, they have 15 months of active deployment time. Thats “one” tour. That can be broken up into several smaller deployments…but they can’t do multiple 15 month tours back to back without having volunteered for it (re-upping). You “do” know/understand this is an all volunteer service don’t you? (ie…that we do not have a draft). They can extend any given deployment by a few weeks if they have to. Normally, that comes out of your available time left. But, if you are on your last deployment within your 15 months, you can end up staying an extra few weeks. After your 15 months, you are no longer part of any combat deployment. They put you somewhere else to serve out the rest of your 4 years commitment. UNLESS…you reup and volunteer for a 2nd combat tour.
And you also know that anybody who’s joined the armed services after the initial invasion of Iraq…has done so with the full knowledge that they could be sent there?
Congratulations….as common with leftards…you have yet again managed to insult everyone of those brave men and women who have volunteered to serve our nation in the military.
And then of course there was the bombing of the aspirin factory in Africa by the Clinton administration. Why? Because they believed that Saddam was using the place to help terrorists make chemicals for chemical weapons. And what was it that Clinton thought they were going to do with those weapons? Kill Americans.
The other day a soldier on leave from Iraq was killed in Chicago by a hit and run driver. They put him on the list of active duty soldiers killed this month.
Imagine that, come home from a war zone and get killed by a hit and run driver.