Below is the link to "Moving forward in Iraq" - Sen. Barack Obama's remarks as prepared for delivery to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-051122obamaspeech,1,1763806.story?page=1&coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=trueALSO NOTE: The speech is from November 2005 - though I don't recall hearing anything from Obama that differs substantially from what appears below.
Shit. Obama is still spewing right-wing talking points about the battle against radical Islam.
According to a recent Pew survey, 42% of Americans agree with the statement that the U.S. should "mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own" – a significant increase since the immediate aftermath of 9/11. We risk a further increase in isolationist sentiment unless both the Administration and Congress can restore the American people's confidence that our foreign policy is driven by facts and reason, rather than hopes and ideology. And we cannot afford isolationism – not only because our work with respect to stabilizing Iraq is not complete, but because our missteps in Iraq have distracted us from the larger threat of terrorism that we face, a threat that we can only meet by working internationally, in cooperation with other countries.He is concerned about "isolationist sentiments" among citizens. When the f*** are they going to get that the desire to end the empire is NOT isolationist? I am so damn sick of their twisted rhetoric. :grr:
Look - Barack is going to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic!
First and foremost, after the December 15 elections and during the course of next year, we need to focus our attention on how reduce the U.S. military footprint in Iraq. Notice that I say "reduce," and not "fully withdraw."
This course of action will help to focus our efforts on a more effective counter-insurgency strategy and take steam out of the insurgency.
On this point, I am in basic agreement with our top military commander in Iraq. In testimony before Congress earlier this year, General Casey stated that a key goal of the military was to "reduce our presence in Iraq, taking away one of the elements that fuels the insurgency: that of the coalition forces as an occupying force."
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I believe that U.S. forces are still a part of the solution in Iraq. The strategic goals should be to allow for a limited drawdown of U.S. troops, coupled with shift to a more effective counter-insurgency strategy that puts the Iraqi security forces in the lead and intensifies our efforts to train Iraqi forces.And a finale' from the GOBAMA MAN:
Fourth, we have to do much better job on reconstruction in Iraq.
The Iraqi people wonder why the United States has been unable to restore basic services – sewage, power, infrastructure – to significant portions of Iraq. This has caused a loss of faith among the Iraqi people in our efforts to rebuild that nation and help it recover from decades of brutal tyranny.THINK BARACK - WHY HAVEN'T WE DONE A GOOD JOB ON RECONSTRUCTION -- BECAUSE THAT ISN"T THE JOB OF EMPERIAL FORCES -- we are supposed to suck all of the life and material wealth out of them, not put any in. C'mon Barack - how 'bout a little honesty. Just a little.
I have to say that I now feel justified for having gone a bit bat shit crazy on the phone when someone called to ask me for money for this man. I told him his foreign policy was a horror and here we have it -- a man who has sold his soul to the military-industrial-congressional complex and now enjoys his time philosophizing about the affairs of the empire with his good elitist buddies.