Obama and al-Maliki Plan for Iraq

One of the things that I am certain of in this next political election is that I want to end the body bags full of our children coming home for burial from Iraq. Everything to do with the Iraq War has been more or less proven to be a lie. Bush and Cheney proposed it and the Republican henchmen in charge of the Congress railroaded it through. They tossed flag burning, patriotism, with us or against us, 9/11 and terrorists at us all till it stuck to the wall. Same thing they did against Gore and then at Kerry in the Presidential elections to close to call that the courts decided who won one election and the other was a guess. Misdirection is a key forte of the Bush Presidency and it worked again when it came to the war in Iraq. Again, every single reason they used to get us into the war other than the UN violations that were ignored for decades turned out to be lies, rumors, innuendo and hearsay.

Barack Obama and John McCain have an open forum over at the New York Times and I applaud the Times for allowing them both to write their thoughts on many of the issues that we the people need to know where they stand. Like it, hate it, the issue is covered. Obama wants to end the war and so does the Prime Minister of Iraq! Huge surprise that McCain wants it to go on for as long as America has one last dollar to spend.

After reading the article by Obama there is not one way I could see that we should not be out of Iraq. Our troops, our support personnel, they are all easy targets for anyone with a pissed off attitude against our military being in Iraq years after the monster of Baghdad, Saddam Hussein, was captured and hanged. Then again, even the Prime Minister of Iraq no longer wants our troops on his soil and believes that his nation can deal with what they have to deal with. Maybe al-Maliki will make Saddam look like a saint but that is not our problem.

Over at the New York Times they have this piece from Barack Obama, read it through. He isn’t looking at this blindly…

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
My Plan for Iraq
By BARACK OBAMA
Published: July 14, 2008

CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States. - New York Times

One of the things I do know about war is that it is hell to the people that actually face it. Washington is not looking at what effect this war has on the wounded or killed in this conflict, they are looking at the dollars rolling into campaigns.

One last thought, the only part that was not blah, blah, blah in this piece from Obama to the general public was this little ditty…

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war. – New York Times

Now that makes sense to me!

One of the things important to remember in this Presidential election is that you and your Congressional representatives in your government were lied to. Not just in Blue States and Red States but all of us were deceived and pretty much conned. Bush and company sold the lies after 9/11 and the first amendment and freedom of the press exposed it. Common sense tells you why so many Republican candidates have chosen a graceful exit from public service. Vote where your heart and children are. How are we supposed to raise our children with the truth when those we send to lead us follow lies blindly even if they are wrong?

Papamoka

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McCain Balanced Budget… Bull Expletive!

John McCain is going around the nation telling people that he will balance the federal budget by 2013 but there seems to be a little problem with his calculator. I’m thinking that Senator McCain has been drinking to much of the Bush BS juice and probably should cut back on the 80 proof that keeps falling into his coffee cup. Maybe he borrowed the shiny object from the Karl Rove playbook and thinks it will distract the nation while he keeps the nation building plan of W going in the Middle East?

Over at Politico they have this observation and I happen to think they are right…

“The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”

The pledge is a return to an earlier position he'd later backed away from. On April 15, McCain backed off a February pledge to balance the budget in his first term when asked about it by Michael Cooper of The New York Times, who reported that McCain said “at a news conference … that ‘economic conditions are reversed’ and that he would have a balanced budget within eight years.”

McCain advisers admit that the document is a repackaging of previous policies, without dramatic new initiatives. Some Democratic officials had thought McCain might try to make a splash by proposing a bold middle-class tax cut.

Jason Furman, Obama's economic policy director, called McCain's pledge “preposterous." Furman pointed out that the Congressional Budget Office now estimates a 2013 deficit of $443 billion, assuming the Bush tax cuts are extended. And he estimated that McCain would have to cut discretionary spending—including defense—by roughly one-third to bring the budget into the black by then.

"McCain would have to pay for all of his new tax cuts and other proposals and then, on top of that, cut an additional $443 billion from the budget—which is 81 percent of Medicare spending or 78 percent of all discretionary spending outside of defense," Furman said. - Politico

By all of the savings in the Iraq/Afghanistan war does McCain mean to pay off the debt with the $100’s of billions per quarter he is also going to spend on keeping our military in the region for the next one hundred years? Maybe he has an in at KBR for services rendered in the region, or over at Bush and company a connection to a buy one get one free coupon? Then again, Bush and company is not giving up its secret recipe for denial to protect themselves from all those subpoenas building up on the front lawn of the White House as if they are on vacation from the real America.

Will McCain cut Social Security? He would have to actually gut Social Security to the bone if his plan to balance the budget could even remotely come close to reality. How about Medicaid? Same scenario just a different hunting knife. Then again cutting all them pesky programs that clutter the government might be a good thing if you just say to hell with the National Institute for Health, Center for Disease Control, and of course the Veterans Administration and all them wasteful military hospitals they run. Mind you, he wants to keep our troops in harms way for one hundred years, he just doesn’t want to pay for the wounded.

Maybe we should all just listen to Senator McCain when he says he knows nothing about economics. I sure as hell would not want him balancing my household checking account with all the made up numbers he has in his head when it comes to the federal governments budget. He’s spending dollars that his mouth can not pay for but then again this is politics where dollars grow on trees or should I say the backs of the middle and lower classes. Something John and Cindy McCain have no experience with.

If you follow the Maverick’s vote in the Senate then there has never been a spending bill for the VA that he has ever liked and yet he claims to be a hero for Veterans in the Senate. Feel free to research his votes and every single time a VA funding plan or expanse of funding came up, John McCain voted against the majority of them. Just more bull from the Maverick and with that being said, I need to borrow a shovel to clean up all the McCain bovine by product this post has left on this site.

Papamoka

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