President Obama, a critic of the Iraq war from the very beginning, announced Friday that all U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of December. After nearly nine years, he said, the war will be over.
The president spoke after a video-conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki. The White House says the two men agreed this is the best way forward for both countries.
The president's announcement fulfills a campaign promise he made more than four years ago. The U.S. has already withdrawn more than 100,000 troops from Iraq. And Mr. Obama says the last 40,000 will be leaving by the end of this year.
"Across America, our servicemen and women will be reunited with their families," he said. "Today I can say that our troops in Iraq will definitely be home for the holidays."
To be fair this timetable was first put together in 2008 by President Bush, but I refuse to give the guy who lied us into the war credit for finally getting the troops back home after so many years spent killing and dying in a foreign land where they never should have been in the first place.
In my opinion all credit should go to President Obama for finally bringing our troops home, and that is not the only conflict he is trying to bring to an end.
President Obama is also planning a troop draw down in Afghanistan, and says by year's end there will be half as many Americans in the two war zones as there were when he took office.
Mr. Obama is increasingly relying on more targeted military operations, like the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, or the NATO campaign that toppled Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.
"The end of war in Iraq reflects a larger transition," he said. "The tide of war is receding."
"The tide of war is receding," taht is like music to my ears.
Do you know that almost every single child currently in elementary school has NEVER known a time when their country was not at war?
Perhaps it is time that they learn about an America at peace, instead of one actively killing people half a world away.
At the end of this year. 2011
ReplyDeleteAhh! I did write "2012" didn't I?
ReplyDeleteSorry brain fart.
Fixed now.
Thanks Zeus it's Friday!
All this war has not made us better citizens toward each other, either.
ReplyDeleteWork for peace, everyone.
Signed, sealed, delivered! Troops home for Christmas! No more war? Peace on Earth? No 'victory lap' in a codpiece? And that's how it's done in the world of sane, patriotic grownups.
ReplyDeleteLet's give President Obama a LANDSLIDE in 2012!!!
I will believe this when I see it.
ReplyDeleteAnd the hits just keep on comin' from this leader!!
ReplyDeleteGag on that, Fox and Rethugs!
Thank you President Obama.
ReplyDeleteI have had an ornament hanging from the rear view mirror of my car that says "Peace" with a white dove hanging below that. I put it in my car when we invaded Iraq and vowed not to take it down until all our troops came home.
Soon I will get to hang a new ornament!
Are we allowed to discuss the Ruffles post over at you know where? I would really like to trash that. I don't want to write it up if you're not going to let me post it here. I'm sure I'll get censored over there.
ReplyDeleteGod Bless President Obama. Perhaps he will be a one-term President (I certainly hope not), but I think he is the best President we have had in my lifetime.
ReplyDeleteEveryone should make sure that everyone they know is registered to vote and does vote. If we can get the non voters to the polls, President Obama will remain where he belongs; at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. until January 20, 2017 (the day Hillary and Bill move back in).
Hurrah for President Obama and our American troops!
ReplyDeleteAnd screw Twit Romney and all the classless Rethugs who can't be gracious enough to congratulate their own President for a job well done.
The other day Obama said, "I'm not the Democratic President. I'm not the Republican President. I'm the American President."
"I will believe this when I see it."
ReplyDelete@2:26 PM
And when it really DOES happen, you'll just move the goalposts, as usual.
Troops are returning?
ReplyDeleteOh my, this is not good news for Sarah Palin.
Sarah is very close to talking Track into returning to Iraq because she still wants to announce to America that she is the mother of a combat vet and how can she do this if Obama is announcing our troops are returning home.
Damn, Obama has ruined Sarah's chance of being POTUS and a pretend mother of a combat vet.
Hail to the Chief!
ReplyDelete:")
Dammit Todd!
ReplyDeleteWhy did we let McCain talk Track into being a chauffeur in Iraq instead of a combat vet?
Now that Obama is bringing our troops home we won't be able to say I'm a mother who lost her son in war defending our country.
Maybe I can still start a war with North Korea?
My students (hs sophomores) were in Kidnergarten, so their lives haven't been much different, either. We had a local firefighter who had friends die at WTC come in and talk- most of the kids don't remember what it was like between 9/11 and going into Iraq.
ReplyDeleteWooHoo!
ReplyDeletehttp://obamaachievements.org/list
carollt: 2:42
ReplyDeleteGet the vote out. And don't think negatively. President Obama will win reelection.
As Andrew Sullivan said:
ReplyDelete"this week saw two wars effectively ended - one inherited, the other not. That doesn't happen often - about as often as government programs simply being abolished."
The neocons are lockstep in denouncing Obama's "failure" assuming that the MSM doesn't have Gryphen's integrity to remind these ideologs that the Iraq withdrawal was agreed to by GW Bush (who could agree to anything knowing he wouldn't be responsible for implementing). GOP spinmasters merrily spew and publish lies, and their gullible followers end up believing lies, and pass on these lies as truth, ad nauseum.
Two tweets to share today (the first one is sarcastic):
1) Memo to the Media: The only thing President Obama is allowed credit for is George W. Bush's economy.
2) Guess who hearts mainstream media reporting on Obama? http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=10150340167778435 (links to Sarah Palin Facebook post "American Crony Capitalism Brings Jobs to Finland.")
Think Progress says that ABC's reporting of the "Finland Scandal" is all wet:
http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/10/21/350428/did-the-obama-give-a-529-million-loan-to-create-electric-car-manufacturing-in-finland/
Tweet URLs:
http://twitter.com/#!/LOLGOP/status/127040698552827904
http://twitter.com/#!/jmartpolitico/status/127481757917396992
Some people preach about how, according to the Mayan Calendar, the end of the world will take place in 2012.
ReplyDeleteOthers point out that the Mayans were simply signaling the end of the "old" world, and the start of a new age of enlightenment.
I tend to have faith in the second option. It's starting to happen now.
Thanks, Pres. Obama.
What I want to hear is how much do we save and where are those dollars going to be spent?
ReplyDeleteThank God. And thank you President Obama. I'm so sorry you've had mess after mess to clean up courtesy of George Bush and Co.
ReplyDeleteA little OT: Sen.Marco Rubio, a possible Republican VP choice has been outed about his story about his "courageous parents" who fled the Castro regime in Cuba to come to America. Turns out, his parents came to the US in 1956, a full three years before Castro took power.
ReplyDeleteCan't these Repubs do anything but lie? (At least this one got caught because a reporter for the Washington Post did his homework.)
Lies got us into Iraq, but the liars won't even acknowledge that Obama did what they couldn't do: got us out.
I am so proud to have this man as MY President!
ReplyDeleteI had withheld putting my Obama 2012 bumper sticker on my brand new Soul because I live in Las Vegas and thought some dumbass teabagger sack of shit would smash my windows. But last night I had a couple of drinks and basically my hubby and I said, we have enough insurance so screw those rat bastard sons of bitches.
We now drive our little hamster car with PRIDE!!
Crystal Sage @4:22 pm
ReplyDeleteI'd cut Marco Rubio some slack. There's a pushback editorial in one of the Miami papers that says that Rubio has been open that his parents arrived before Castro took power in 1959, he just wasn't 100% sure of the year. The regime that his parents fled was no bed of roses, and I think it was virtually impossible for Cubans to flee after Castro took power (hence the ram-shackle boat flotillas that drowned many Cubans trying to make it to Florida).
Seems unnecessary to attack him about his parents; hispanics and Cubans especially will rally around his family. He obviously delegates his website and PR to someone (probably younger than him) who isn't aware of what happened in the late 1950s.
Rubio will trip himself up because you have to sound insane to most Americans to appeal to the crazy Tea Partiers.
The troops are leaving Iraq because the Iraqi government is refusing to give them immunity for crimes committed in Iraq after 31 Dec 11. That's why they're leaving. They're being kicked out.
ReplyDeleteThis time, President Obama should receive little or no credit. He could have brought them all home months/years ago by vetoing continued funding of the invasion and occupation. (Perhaps he considered it unwise or impossible to buck the Industrial Military Complex. Campaign contributions loom large.)
So the Iraqis have done it for him. Winners all around. (Excapt for the beleagered IMC. Poor babies.)
His media appearances today are so dishonest. He has so many foreign policy achievements, why try to fraudulently add this to his already stupendous resume?
I will be most interested in how this plays out. Perhaps he had his reasons. But, right now it is another big disappointment from our sometimes enigmatic president.
(I'm still going to vote for him!)
It's about fucking time.
ReplyDeleteGryphen, you're a class act all the way. Giving Bush a nod and a wink for having some obscure connection to this most auspicious achievement by a Great Leader shows integrity I doubt I could muster.
ReplyDeleteI didn't vote Bush, but he was our President and when he said the way to fight terror was to shop, dammit, I marched out and shopped till I dropped!
The spin cycle in the news has already begun, but the fact remains it's happening under this president's leadership. He kept his promise, and I'm supporting him, giving him the respect and credit he deserves.
He had my vote at "Hello", and he'll have it again this time.
Obama 2012
Honor our Dead
Heal our Injured
Support our returning troops and their families.
The truth is that the US has lost. Obama is bravely spinning it as a victory but the rest of the world know the truth.
ReplyDeleteThe Iraqis, under pressure form Iran, have insisted that no US bases be left in Iraq. Everything has to go, except for a few hundred troops who will stay behind to train Iraqi troops to use their new equipment.
Untold billions of dollars have been wasted and countless Iraqi and US lives destroyed because of a lie.
The only Americans to gain from the war were the shareholders of corporations like Cheney's Halliburton and the Bush family's The Carlisle Group. These people have enriched themselves while the lives of ordinary Americans have become poorer.
All the money wasted on Iraq could have been spent on paying for single payer healthcare for US citizens and improving the country's infrastructure and educational system. At least, the US is leaving Iraq having given Iraqi citizens the constitutional right to free health care!
Gyalist said..."The truth is that the US has lost. Obama is bravely spinning it as a victory but the rest of the world know the truth."
ReplyDeleteConsidering the supposed objectives of this war kept changing, it's hard to decipher if we "won" or not. I think George Bush one - he got to one up his Daddy and get Saddam once and for all. (And it's good that Saddam is gone, provided an equally ruthless power doesn't take his place.) But for sure, the tens of thousands of lost lives (hundreds of thousands, actually) and trillions of dollars that went straight down the drain are a terrible loss. We didn't even end up with cheaper oil. You want to hear something outrageous? China now holds leases in Iraqi oil fields - and they didn't have to send a single soldier to do it. America did the work for them. The whole thing just makes me sick.
Thank you, President Obama. And thank you, all who served and sacrificed. And fuck you, George "Yeah, I'm A Rat Bastard" Bush, Dick "Hey, I'm A Fuckwad!" Cheney, Don "Total Shithead" Rumsfeld and the rest of the neocons for putting us there in the first place.
ReplyDeleteMaybe there is a Zeus, after all...
What's even more terrifying about this Gryph is that if Mamma Monkey and Grampy had been elected we would be in a WORLD WAR 3 by now...
ReplyDeleteGet these rethuglicon lunatics OFF the world stage and back in their oatmeal box....FOR GOOD.
Yes,bring the troops home to their families that they can't feed because they won't have a job. Let's add to the unemployed. Will they all get unemployment pay? I hope so. They should. I know they want to come home but to what. Some to die on the streets with maybe no home and no food. Welcome home troops.
ReplyDeleteGryphen, it turns out your accolades for President Obama were premature.
ReplyDeleteMittens Romney has pulled his enormous head out of his butt to announce that “President Obama’s astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women," Romney said in a statement. "The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitude in negotiations with the Iraqi government."
Dont bother reading Romney's whole statement. In summary, he's just lamenting the end of war and admitting that he's one huge, sad sack of shit.