Posted on 12/14/2011 9:39:05 PM PST by americanophile
The US flag is to be lowered in Baghdad, formally marking the end of US military operations in Iraq after nearly nine years of war.
Most of the 5,500 remaining soldiers have now left Iraq, with security in the hands of the Iraqi authorities.
President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging to bring troops home, said the US left behind a "sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq".
Some 4,500 US soldiers and more than 100,000 Iraqis have died in the war.
It has cost the US some $1tr.
Republicans have criticised the pullout citing concerns over Iraq's stability, but most Americans support the move.
In a speech to troops just returned from Iraq in North Carolina on Wednesday, Mr Obama hailed the "extraordinary achievement" of the military and said they were leaving with "heads held high".
"Everything that American troops have done in Iraq, all the fighting and dying, bleeding and building, training and partnering, has led us to this moment of success," he said.
"The war in Iraq will soon belong to history, and your service belongs to the ages."
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.co.uk ...
Thank you to all the brave men and women who answered their country’s call. A job well done.
Yes indeed and SALUTE to them on and all.
What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.
That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.
Sen. Barack Obama, October 2002
Thank you to all the brave men and women who answered their country’s call. A job well done.
Yes!
But, you see, during good photo ops he’ll make it sound like he was the one who turned everything around (the soldiers helped, too, and G-d bless them one and all, but I did all the hard work). During bad photo ops, when things start exploding, he’ll blame it all on Bush and say he was against it from the get-go.
Safe trip home, guys.
It was an honor, a pleasure and an adventure working with you all those years on this.
Godspeed.
I wish there was a chance for the coalition to assassinate Muqtada Al Sadr, and have permanent bases to avoid Iranian agents willing to cross over to Syria for its logistic network against Israel, but at least this war is a victory for US. The job is done.
The Iranians will appreciate all of the changes and improvements we made. I am sure they will want to change the window treatments.
When do think they will move in?
O waved his magic wand and there will be peace in Iraq. Yeah....I don’t buy it either.
President Barack Obama, who came to office pledging to bring troops home, said the US left behind a “sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq”.
.........................................................
He is kidding ——right??
He isn’t really that stupid.
Wll: Maybe he is.
May be the first time I've ever seen Obama get something right.
And this pullout beats the pullout from Vietnam by miles along with the surrender of Eastern Europe and ultimately China to the communists after WW2.
I lost a friend there,on my first tour,and found out after my second tour that another “friend”(well the guy was out there but he wasn’t a bad guy)blew his brains out after having served on my first tour.
Either way whatever happens,I hope the Iraqis make the best out of their situation.Hopefully those who served over there get home safe and get a chance to find something else to put their experience to good use.
“The war in Iraq will soon belong to [a revisionist] history, and your service belongs to the ages.”
Gag me with a pitchfork...
Obama’s statement really meant, “Thank Allah, we can start forgetting about this and those that fought there, and rewrite all the history books...
That way I can get another executive apology on the books...
There were plenty of them. Why they never did it was beyond me. He could have been a casualty of the Sunni uprising or had an unfortunate plane/car crash with ease.
...then he launched a war in Libya, which is the one Arab dictatorship which had voluntarily given up its WMD.
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