Under the terms of the deal that President Bush negotiated ;and the Iraqi's agreed to in November all American troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011 .

Yesterday President Obama announced his long awaited Plan that he would withdraw combat troops and will leave behind up to 50,000 non-combat troops by 2012. He will take credit for ending the war. He is wrong.

The reason all this is possible is because President Bush defied pressure to surrender when combat was still ongoing and things did not look good . Instead he authorized implementation of the Petraeus plan ;the surge .

Yesterday President Obama proclaimed to the Marines at Lejeune "Today I've come to speak to you about how the war in Iraq will end."
But by all measure the war has been over for months now. Obama's plan is really, in most respects, Bush's policy. To the extent that he plans on leaving troops behind in a non-combat role ;I fully support him. Like Europe and Korea before ;victory must be preserved . It will not be an occupation ,but a security treaty between two allies.

Some on the internet proclaimed Victory in Iraq Day as November 22 . Hopefully NYC will host a ticker tape parade to honor our returning troops.

Yea, a ticker would be nice. I agree with you. Didn't Bush sign something around then saying that the troops would be out by a certain date?

Here is the agreement we reached with Iraq in November :

Article 24
Withdrawal of American Forces from Iraq
Admitting to the performance of Iraqi forces, their increased capabilities and assuming full responsibility for security and based upon the strong relationship between the two parties the two parties agreed to the following:
All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/56116.html

Hello tom:

You can't win a war that you shouldn't have started in the first place. All you can do is end it.

excon

So now, on to Afghanistan!
I'll bet we don't get the daily report of the body count the way we did with "Bush's war".

I thought Obama's appearance at Camp Lejeune was stilted and effete. He's a "Jimmy Carter' with a voice.

Gal
Did you hear that Obama wants to negotiate safe passage of military supplies to the troops in Afghanistan THROUGH Iran ?

He's increasing troop levels to territory without a secure supply line . Pakistan's land route is unstable and transport convoys get repeatedly attacked with hundreds of trucks destroyed . Manas air base is going to be closed to US access by Kyrgyzstan.Other countries in the region such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have said they will not permit us access to bases to transport military supply to the troops.
Last week however ,we reached a tentative agreement with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow the passage of non-military cargo bound for Afghanistan. Russia and Kazakhstan have also agreed to allow U.S. non-military supplies to be transported to troops in Afghanistan by rail.

Obama has announced a 'surge' in Afghanistan but I see no strategic logic behind the move .

Gal
did you hear that Obama wants to negotiate safe passage of military supplies to the troops in Afghanistan THROUGH Iran ?

He's increasing troop levels to territory without a secure supply line . Pakistan's land route is unstable and transport convoys get repeatedly attacked with hundreds of trucks destroyed . Manas air base is going to be closed to US access by Kyrgyzstan.Other countries in the region such as Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have said they will not permit us access to bases to transport military supply to the troops.
Last week however ,we reached a tentative agreement with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to allow the passage of non-military cargo bound for Afghanistan. Russia and Kazakhstan have also agreed to allow U.S. non-military supplies to be transported to troops in Afghanistan by rail.

Obama has announced a 'surge' in Afghanistan but I see no strategic logic behind the move .

I hadn't heard this. To think that we could depend on Iran for ANY favor is lunacy. It just goes to show how lost this President really is.

So let me get this straight.

Bush's original plan in Iraq was to keep troops levels at around the 50,000 level once "major combat" was complete. When Bush did just that, and it resulted in the terrorism in Iraq, Bush was criticized for not having enough boots on the ground. At least by some people... others thought we should have simply left, regardless of the situation in Iraq.

So we increased our troops levels... a bit later than we should have, but it was done. And the resulting "surge" was a success, dropping levels of violence in Iraq to very low levels.

So Obama's response is to go back to the 50,000 troop level that caused Bush to be criticized in the first place and caused all the violence in Iraq.

And for this we're supposed to congradulate Obama for "ending" the war in Iraq?

Talk about not remembering history and being doomed to repeat it.

Elliot