The 'surge' is working?  Well, kinda':

Despite all the talk about Iraq being "calm," I'd like to point out that the month just before the last visit Barack Obama made to Iraq (he went in January, 2006), there were 537 civilian and ISF Iraqi casualties.  In June of this year, 2008, there were 554 according to AP.  These are official statistics gathered passively that probably only capture about 10 percent of the true toll.

That is, the Iraqi death toll is actually still worse now than the last time Obama was in Iraq! (See the bombings and shootings listed below for Sunday).  The hype around last year's troop escalation obscures a simple fact: that Obama formed his views about the need for the US to leave Iraq at a time when its security situation was very similar to what it is now!  Why a return to the bad situation in late 05 and early 06 should be greeted by the GOP as the veritable coming of the Messiah is beyond me.  You have people like Joe Lieberman saying silly things like if it weren't for the troop escalation, Obama wouldn't be able to visit Iraq.  Uh, he visited it before the troop escalation, just fine.

The troop escalation, which actually allowed the ethnic cleansing of the Sunnis of Baghdad and the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis from the country, has largely been pushed as propaganda by the White House and the AEI.

Juan Cole - Obama in Iraq Informed Comment 21 Jul 08

Not to mention the cited Round-up of Daily Violence in Iraq, Sunday 20 July 2008, for example, from McClatchy.  Read it.  You may be surprised.  It's a daily feature.

There is no intellectual honesty, at least among the politicians.

Obama has been pushing his 16 month timeline since January 2007, without regard to the consequences.  http://obama.senate.gov/press/070130-oba ma_offers_pl_1/index.php  (By the way, there is no contemporaneous evidence of the contents of Obama's 2002 speech in Chicago -- the media did not cover it -- so all we have is his campaign's word on that.)

McCain has been parading THE LIE, I'll agree with Josh on that.

But Obama is a hack, just like McCain.  I've written this before, but it bears mentioning what Biden said about Obama back when they were running against one another.  

Jake Tapper, who compiled this info, noted:

But Biden's letter brought attention to the fact that Obama did not attend two of those three hearings -- and for the third, on March 8, 2007, Obama only asked one question, one unrelated to Afghanistan.

How do I know the latter fact? From an August 2007 press release from Biden himself, when he was running for president.

"BIDEN CAMPAIGN CONGRATULATES SEN. OBAMA FOR JOHNNY-COME-LATELY POSITION," it read. Noting that at the March 2007 hearing, "Sen. Obama asked one question that was unrelated to Taliban or Afghanistan."

Thanks, Joe!

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/ 2008/07/thanks-for-noth.html

Politico had more of the story on Biden's "Before he was nominated" criticism: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0 807/Biden_Obama_stole_my_ideas.html

Sen. Biden has been talking about this for over 6 months. Dating back to January 5th, Sen. Biden said America Should Surge Troops in Afghanistan. He told the Washington Post, "If we're surging troops anywhere, it should be in Afghanistan," Biden said. Adding troops there would give the United States "the moral high ground" in its quest for more forces from NATO allies. [Washington Post, 1/5/07]

"We find it a little disingenuous that Sen. Obama is hailing this as a new bold initiative when he has neglected to join his colleagues in the Senate when the opportunities have been there to redirect our forces into Afghanistan" said Biden for President Campaign Manager Luis Navarro. "It's good to see Sen. Obama has finally arrived at the right position, but this can hardly be considered bold leadership."

Now let me ask Mr. Orton this multi-part question.  The current active duty military view is this:

The nation's senior military official warned yesterday against a plan, put forward by presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama, to remove all U.S. troops from Iraq by early 2010.

"I think the consequences could be very dangerous," Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on "Fox News Sunday." "I'm convinced at this point in time that . . . making reductions based on conditions on the ground are very important."

Is Mullen wrong?  Why or why not? And what are your qualifications for making that judgment?

The McCain op-ed that I read this morning added nothing to the conversation, but just objected to Obama's proposals.  It was basically a political ad.  I don't thing any newspaper should have to carry those without getting paid for them.

blind you to the simple truth.

The NYT decision has nothing to do with who is right or wrong on Iraq. It has to do with whether it was a proper piece. It wasn't. There was nothing but distortions and attacks in McCain's op-ed. If he wanted it to be published they should have done a submitted more than a hatchet job.

I respect the fact that you disagree with pretty much everyone else here (and in the country) in regards to the war; but you really shouldn't let it color your perception of what happened here.

Can there be a greater contrast between this photo and the one of Obama sinking a three pointer in Kuwait?

I've 59, sonny.  Stop discriminating against older people.

The surge has worked.

Its hard to make a claim that is easiy disputeable.

That is the intellectual dishonesty in Obama's position , if he can take your advice and stick to your position i.e. surge didn't work ( which would lead to another round of questioning ) then his position would be understandable , now I don't know how he would defend it .

But he has said the surge worked , yet he says the surge was a mistake and he would have voted against it .

Not a clear position in my view , almost like he wants to have it both ways .

The 'surge' essentially co-opted a large population of Sunnis and turned the rest into virtual refugees.

There's no doubt who you rely on -- GOP propagandists for more of the banal stupidity that Camp McBush has come to beknown for.

Take a deep breath and look at the bigger picture:

The rap on Barack Obama, at least in the realm of foreign policy, has been that he is a softheaded idealist who thinks that he can charm America's enemies. John McCain and his campaign, conservative columnists and right-wing bloggers all paint a picture of a liberal dreamer who wishes away the world's dangers. Even President Bush stepped into the fray earlier this year to condemn the Illinois senator's willingness to meet with tyrants as naive. Some commentators have acted as if Obama, touring the Middle East and Europe this week on his first trip abroad since effectively wrapping up the nomination, is in for a rude awakening.

These critiques, however, are off the mark. Over the course of the campaign against Hillary Clinton and now McCain, Obama has elaborated more and more the ideas that would undergird his foreign policy as president. What emerges is a world view that is far from that of a typical liberal, much closer to that of a traditional realist. It is interesting to note that, at least in terms of the historical schools of foreign policy, Obama seems to be the cool conservative and McCain the exuberant idealist.

[...]

Obama rarely speaks in the moralistic tones of the current Bush administration. He doesn't divide the world into good and evil even when speaking about terrorism. He sees countries and even extremist groups as complex, motivated by power, greed and fear as much as by pure ideology. His interest in diplomacy seems motivated by the sense that one can probe, learn and possibly divide and influence countries and movements precisely because they are not monoliths. When speaking to me about Islamic extremism, for example, he repeatedly emphasized the diversity within the Islamic world, speaking of Arabs, Persians, Africans, Southeast Asians, Shiites and Sunnis, all of whom have their own interests and agendas.

Obama never uses the soaring language of Bush's freedom agenda, preferring instead to talk about enhancing people's economic prospects, civil society and--his key word--"dignity." He rejects Bush's obsession with elections and political rights, and argues that people's aspirations are broader and more basic--including food, shelter, jobs. "Once these aspirations are met," he told The New York Times's James Traub, "it opens up space for the kind of democratic regimes we want." This is a view of democratic development that is slow, organic and incremental, usually held by conservatives.

Fareed Zakaria - Obama Abroad Newsweek 19 Jul 08

Is it possible that something is going on here which doesn't appear neatly within your, apparently narrow, ideological prism?

Tell that to the Iraqi PM and government that wants the US out of Iraq on Obama's schedule.

It must suck to so far up shit creek without a paddle as your boy McDespearate is.

but that we will get out in 16 months. 16 months is the goal. The military's job is to make 16 months happen in the safest, most effective way possible.

The military's job is NOT to assume a different goal that 16 months is incompatible with. The tactical situation, from the military's point of view, does not override the strategic initiatives of civilian leadership.

How to wage a war is the purview of the military. Whether to wage one, is not.

"Obama's 16-month plan has never been anything but a number, with no tie to military or geo-political reality"

This is precisely wrong. Obama's 16-month plan shapes the geo-political reality, just as Bush/McCain's strategy of eternal occupation is shaping the current geo-political reality. If the Iraqi's know that we're leaving, with a clear timeline, then they know that they have to step up and take control over their country. And they know that they can stop attacking us to get us to leave. Bush/McCain's current strategy allows the Iraqi government and military to rely on us to do all of the heavy lifting, and drives the Iraqi people to attack us.

Imagine if during our civil war France had occupied the US in order to impose peace and democracy. If they did so and left, we might thank them (or at least forgive them(. If they did so and stayed as an occupation force forever, we'd fight them every chance we get. That's how the Iraqi's feel about us.