Soldiers kept in harms way to benefit John McCain Presidential campaign.

Last July, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said U.S. troops should be out of Iraq “as soon as possible” and endorsed Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) withdrawal plan. Obama “talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes,” Maliki told Der Spiegel magazine.

Do you remember this? It was a great moment for supporters of Barack Obama, and it demonstrated that his ideas about Iraq and when we could start to bring our troops home was right in line with the wishes of the Maliki government.

But then, after Bush started to "negotiate" an actual timeline for withdrawing the troops, the date was pushed back to 2011. Did you ever wonder why an extra year was added? And why that would make nay difference?

Well if you guessed the reason was political then you get a gold star.

As it turn out the Bush administration convinced the Maliki government to agree to a timeline that was a year later to help his choice for President, John McCain, win the White House.

This according to Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki:

Actually, the final date was really the end of 2010 and the period between the end of 2010 and the end of 2011 was for withdrawing the remaining troops from all of Iraq, but they asked for a change [in date] due to political circumstances related to the [U.S] domestic situation so it will not be said to the end of 2010 followed by one year for withdrawal but the end of 2011 as a final date.

So to sum up, the families of any soldiers who lose their lives after 2010 can thank John McCain, and best buddy George Bush, for taking their loved ones from them.

And this is the candidate running on his experience with war and the military. Apparently what that experience tells him is that Americans are an expendable commodity that he can waste simply further his own ambitions.