Posted on 01/21/2009 4:19:35 PM PST by MindBender26
Maj just got the word, on Shep Smith show, scheduled to be announced tomorrow. All combat brigades to be out in 16 months.
Real effect is immediate surrender of purpose. No commander is going to undertake any major mission knowing that, at the very longest, no US offensive military power will be in-country after next Spring, so why waste lives to gain something we soon will give away.
Offensive operations will stop. Brigades will go into a useless, purely defensive mode. It's over. Our POTUS surrendered.
About 3000 Americans volunteered to pay the ultimate price in Iraq so we could be free. Obama just ensured those sacrifices will have no lasting meaning.
Bush prayed for every one of them and their souls. Obama just pissed on every one of their graves.
The bastard.
I know who they are, but Shia is far more dangerous with their alliance to Iran.
Message to terrorists in Iraq: Go quiet and wait until the US pulls out. Then destroy everything the troops worked for.
Obama is trying to get these issues addressed and over with now and early so that he can always go back and say that he at least tried. Once he finds out that he can't do certain things and didn't know beans about what he promised in the campaign, he will certainly be painted into a corner.
Were the words “peace with honor” uttered?
EXACTLY!!! This will be Iraq! Remember, the Democrat congress sold out the Vietnamese! History is about to repeat itself! Never, ever trust a Democrat.
Below is Article 24 from the Status of Forces Agreement, which gives a timeline close to what he is to announce. By ignoring the Status of Forces Agreement as a clear validation of victory, and instead making a pronouncement on troop withdrawls, Obama and his cohorts are able to deny they were wrong. The article also says combat brigades, and a lot of forces are not part of combat brigades.
My take on this was the letter following the agreement article, which never saw the light of day, because only the shoe incident was part of the news cycle.
Here is a link to the entire agreement when you click on the PDF file: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=status+forces+agreement+text&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq
Article 24
Withdrawal of the United States Forces from Iraq
Recognizing the performance and increasing capacity of the Iraqi Security Forces, the
assumption of full security responsibility by those Forces, and based upon the strong
relationship between the Parties, an agreement on the following has been reached:
1. All the United States Forces shall withdraw from all Iraqi territory no later than
December 31, 2011.
2. All United States combat forces shall withdraw from Iraqi cities, villages, and
localities no later than the time at which Iraqi Security Forces assume full responsibility
for security in an Iraqi province, provided that such withdrawal is completed no later than
June 30, 2009.
3. United States combat forces withdrawn pursuant to paragraph 2 above shall be
stationed in the agreed facilities and areas outside cities, villages, and localities to be
designated by the JMOCC before the date established in paragraph 2 above.
The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) portends victory. Iraq and U.S. as two sovereign, and coequal countries agreed on ways forward implementing U.N. principles and purposes. Iraqi pragmatic evaluations of conditions lead talks for disengagement: not U.S. election cycle driven timelines.
General Petraeus testified the surge would execute proven counterinsurgency tactics to improve the security for the people of Iraq in order to give Iraqi leaders the time and space they need to come to grips with tough political issues. Throughout 2008 Iraqi people and leaders experienced deliverance from lives dominated by assassins stalking them and their families. They witnessed national institution ascendance in providing personal and material security.
Persistence for Iraq representative government thwarted al Qaeda determination that Babylon becomes the Caliphate rallying point. In Iraq, U.S. earned credibility as a counter force to all horrid factions applying murderous coercion when striving to dominate African, Oriental, and Asian politics.
Invigorating new allies confrontational initiatives brings Global War on Terror victory by frustrating plans, breaking alliances, and fracturing jihadist organizations into ever less effective units. Without cities, countries or armies bin Laden, successor sociopath prophets, and tyrants they empower only dream of conquest as they suffer unnaturally shortened lives as pariahs.
Yet administration leaders Obama, Biden and Clinton voted for removing most troops by April 2008, and preventing this victory. Their behavior portends traditional ally abandonment. Their actions portend escaping commitment, and reviving self-congratulatory righteousness within elegant foreign policies redefining national interest, proportional response, multi-lateralism, re-deployment and exit strategy.
Because he just can’t fathom military strategy, and maybe, just maybe, he wants the enemy to win (despite what he says)
Time will tell if he will ever heed the advice of any of his military advisers. If I were one of them, I’d walk off the job. Why advise him if he’s not gonna listen?
It won’t happen until he’s out of office (however that happens)
You think the troops would actually comply with those orders? Maybe at first, but not for long///
I thought during the campaign he said he would first get recommendations from the officers in Iraq before he made this decision.
Can anyone find that quote?
You could at least PRETEND to not be a TOOL!!
Or alternatively, that a big chunk of the voting age population of our country consists of totally f*n clueless morons.
/.02
That may be true for junior officers and most enlisted and warrants, but for senior officers they need to "fall on their swords". Inside they can't speak out, outside they can, and should. The failure to do something like this over Johnson's handling botching of the Vietnam war, was a major contributor to how that came out. Obama won't be listening to them anyway. The others should transfer to the guard or reserve. That way they too can speak out, at least somewhat, and they remain available "at need".
But the timeline is accelerated quite a bit. And timing is very important in these affairs. Too soon, and you lose all you've gained as the good guys are not yet ready to hold out against the bad guy. Too late, and the good guys get too dependent on the "foreign" troops to do the heavy lifting. Although slightly too late is better than too early.
The mobilized reserves, maybe. Although their jobs are supposed to have been preserved, but that might be problematic in the current economy. The company might not exist anymore.
But unless one is going the cut the numbers of troops, you just reposition them on stateside posts, which is where they came from in the first place.
However I fully expect The One to cut those numbers, in the face the "economic crisis", despite his initial promises to *raise* the numbers in the Army and Marines (at the expense of numbers in the Navy and Air Force) The money to pay them will be needed for "bailing out" Bami's friends and paying for the Obama Youth Corps. So he'll cut the Navy and Air Force as promised, but will not expand, and will probably cut, the numbers in the Marines and Army as well.
We are already sending B-52s to the boneyard, the latest models, which is all we have left anyway. The F-117s have been sent there as well. They are supposed to be replaced with F/A-35s and F/A-22s, but those numbers will also likely be cut. The -35 might be canceled outright.
BO has also promised to cut Future Combat Systems, and other new developments. So there will also be lots of engineers, software developers and skilled tradesmen laid off and looking for work. I might very well be one of them, as I was under The 'Toon'.
They will be pulled out the first time a bunch of them are attacked and many killed. They will no longer have the combat troops pushing the bad guys into the boonies, and to adopt a "low profile".
Even Reagan pulled out the troops after a couple of suicide bombers hit their barracks. You expect Obama to have a stiffer spine?
God forbid the military 'walk off the job'. The reason they won't is because they are committed to the country, not a man. Our country is much larger than a man, and represents so much more. Those higher ideals are what the military is defending, and will continue to defend.
Thank you for that photo/reminder. Ever since Obama has been campaining (two years ago!) this has been the obvious ending place for the Iraq war (and the Iraqis) if Obama got elected.
Just like in Vietnam, we won the war, gave support to the government troops for awhile, then left - but with the agreement of continued material support. Then the liberals broke that off. Leaving their allies at the mercy of the enemy.
An interesting point of order.
In reality, very few Americans benefited from Affirmative Action. The huge failures of the program hurt Blacks and Whites alike!
As former ABCer Bob Zellnick points out in his book on the subject, of course, it was a huge problem for Whites. It was racism, but this time, politically-correct racism that denied them higher educations, jobs, and contracts so the positions could be given to Blacks
But this idiotic program hurt Blacks as well,
The plan had the effect of pushing Blacks into competitive universities and jobs where they could not compete. A typical AA-aided Black student would be admitted to a highly regarded school such as Yale, Cal Tech, Harvard and others. Once there, the failure cycle started immediately. He would be on academic probation after one semester, removed then reinstated under a special tutoring program for minorities after the second semester, then finally, permanently out after his 3d semester after all the special tutoring failed to produce the impossible result of having him compete where he was not qualified to.
The tragedy was, if it hadn't been for AA, this student could have entered a second tier school such as SUNY, North Carolina, Florida, fine schools all, and exceeded. He could have gotten his degree and moved on.
But time and again, these otherwise qualified students did not return to second tier schools after being academically removed from Harvard and the like. The stigma of failure permeated their lives. They ended up flipping hamburgers in their home towns, another failure thanks to Affirmative Action.
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