Obama uses soldiers as pawns

[SnakeBoy]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09152008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_tried_to_stall_gis_iraq_withdrawal_129150.ht m?&page=1

[Findog]

http://spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=104895

Discussion here

[balli]

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2116/warlordas1.jpg

[Yonivore]

http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/2116/warlordas1.jpg
You're point? Obama won't even visit wounded soldiers.

[boutons_]

"Obama won't even visit wounded soldiers."

a fucking lie

[Findog]

You're point? Obama won't even visit wounded soldiers.

He doesn't send them off to die for lies either. I'm pretty sure the guy in that picture wouldn't look like Eric Stoltz in Mask if not for Bush.

[Yonivore]

He doesn't send them off to die for lies either. I'm pretty sure the guy in that picture wouldn't look like Eric Stoltz in Mask if not for Bush.
Well, your absolute idiocy aside, he apparently is content with letting them stay in a war, with which he publicly disagrees, for political expediency.

If the NYPost story is true...Obama is screwed.

[Biernutz]

Obama won't even visit wounded soldiers. Unless it's a photo opp with his guys on the cameras.

[Nbadan]

How many times can a wing-nut repeat the same lie?....it's called reading comprehension people...try it...

[Nbadan]

What a bullshit story....all the Pentagon is doing is reducing Iraq troop levels to pre-surge levels, and then turning them around and sending to Afghanistan....

[tranquill]

It's interesting how the Israelis view Obama. He receives much support
both from Jewish liberals and arguably the right-wing AIPAC, but his
middle name bothers Israelis a lot. Also, there are doubts whether he is
really a Muslim apostate. Here is an article which analyzes Obama's
similarity to early Zionists:
http://samsonblinded.org/blog/obama-against-jewishness.htm What do you think of the parallels?

[obama the mesiah]

Obama:
Occidental College - Two years.
Columbia University - B.A. political science with a specialization in international relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

& Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in political science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 out of 899 (meaning that, like George Bush, McCain was at the bottom of his class)

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire to lead the most influential nation in the world?

[Viva Las Espuelas]

"Obama won't even visit wounded soldiers."

a fucking lie
well played :tu

[balli]

Obama:
Occidental College - Two years.
Columbia University - B.A. political science with a specialization in international relations.
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

& Biden:
University of Delaware - B.A. in history and B.A. in political science.
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)

vs.

McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 out of 899 (meaning that, like George Bush, McCain was at the bottom of his class)

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - general study
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism

Now, which team are you going to hire to lead the most influential nation in the world?
Do you mind if I turn that into my sig?

[Oh, Gee!!]

Well, your absolute idiocy aside, he apparently is content with letting them stay in a war, with which he publicly disagrees, for political expediency.

If the NYPost story is true...Obama is screwed.


yeah, I don't see the harm in letting Dubya handle the draw-down. He's handled the war pretty fucking great up to this point.

[Mr. Peabody]

Per ABC News


Undermining McCain Campaign Attack, Republicans Back Obama‘s Version of Meeting With Iraqi Leaders

September 19, 2008 1:06 PM

Earlier this week, the campaign of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., seized upon a column in the New York Post that described Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., as having urged Iraqi leaders in a private meeting to delay coming to an agreement with the Bush administration on the status of U.S. troops.

"Obama has tried in private to persuade Iraqi leaders to delay an agreement on a drawdown of the American military presence," Post columnist Amir Taheri wrote, quoting Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, who told the Post that Obama, during his meeting with Iraqi leaders in July, "asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the U.S. elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington."

The charge -- that Obama asked the Iraqis to delay signing off on a "Status of Forces Agreement," thus delaying U.S. troop withdrawal and interfering in U.S. foreign policy -- has been picked up on the Internet, talk radio and by Republicans, including the McCain campaign, which seized on the story as possible evidence of duplicity.

The Obama campaign said that the Post report consisted of "outright distortions."

Lending significant credence to Obama's response is the fact that -- though it's absent from the Post story and other retellings -- in addition to Obama and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, this July meeting was also attended by Bush administration officials, such as U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker and the Baghdad embassy's legislative affairs advisor Rich Haughton, as well as a Republican senator, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Attendees of the meeting back Obama's account, including not just Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., but Hagel, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffers from both parties. Officials of the Bush administration who were briefed on the meeting by the U.S. embassy in Baghdad also support Obama's account and dispute the Post story and McCain attack.

The Post story is "absolutely not true," Hagel spokesman Mike Buttry told ABC News.

"Barack Obama has never urged a delay in negotiations," said Obama campaign national security spokesperson Wendy Morigi, "nor has he urged a delay in immediately beginning a responsible drawdown of our combat brigades."

Buttry said that Hagel agrees with Obama's account of the meeting: Obama began the meeting with al-Maliki by asserting that the United States speaks with one foreign policy voice, and that voice belongs to the Bush administration.

A Bush administration official with knowledge of the meeting says that, during the meeting, Obama stressed to al-Maliki that he would not interfere with President Bush's negotiations concerning the U.S. troop presence in Iraq, and that he supports the Bush administration's position on the need to negotiate, as soon as possible, the Status of Forces Agreement, which deals with, among other matters, U.S. troops having immunity from local prosecution.

Obama did assert at the meeting with the Iraqis that he agrees with those -– including Hagel and Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- who advocate congressional review of the Strategic Framework Agreement being worked out between the Bush administration and the Iraqi government, including the Iraqi parliament.

The Strategic Framework Agreement is a document that generally describes what the relationship between the two countries should look like over time.

According to one person present at the meeting, Obama told al-Maliki that the American people wouldn't understand why the Iraqi parliament would get to have a say on the Strategic Framework Agreement, but the U.S. Congress would not, especially since Bush is only months from leaving the White House, regardless of whether Obama or McCain succeeds him.

Morigi said in a statement that "Barack Obama has consistently called for any Strategic Framework Agreement to be submitted to the U.S. Congress so that the American people have the same opportunity for review as the Iraqi parliament."

It’s possible, Obama advisers believe, that either Zebari or Taheri confused the Strategic Framework Agreement -- which Obama feels should be reviewed by Congress -- with the Status of Forces Agreement, which Obama says the Bush administration should negotiate with the Iraqis as soon as possible.

Two officials of the Bush administration say that if Obama had done what the Post story asserted –- which they believe to be untrue -– Crocker and embassy officials attending the meeting would have ensured that the Bush administration heard about it immediately. If such an incident occurred in front of officials of the Bush administration, it would have constituted a foreign policy breach and would have been front-page huge news; it would not have leaked out two months later in an op-ed column.:lol

Nonetheless, based on nothing more than the Post report, McCain senior foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann issued a statement earlier this week, expressing outrage.

“It should be concerning to all that (Obama) reportedly urged that the democratically-elected Iraqi government listen to him rather than the U.S. administration in power,” Scheunemann said, apparently not having talked to anyone with knowledge about the meeting in the Bush administration, the U.S. embassy in Baghdad, Hagel, or any Republican staffers on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“If news reports are accurate, this is an egregious act of political interference by a presidential candidate seeking political advantage overseas,” Scheunemann continued. “Sen. Obama needs to reveal what he said to Iraq's foreign minister during their closed door meeting. The charge that he sought to delay the withdrawal of Americans from Iraq raises serious questions about Sen. Obama's judgment, and it demands an explanation.”

What actually demands an explanation is why the McCain campaign was so willing to give credence to such a questionable story with such tremendous international implications without first talking to Republicans present at Obama’s meeting with al-Maliki, who back Obama’s version of the meeting and completely dismiss the Post column as untrue.

[Shastafarian]

Yeah the New York Post is so reputable. I'm glad they published yet another "true" story to build their credibility.

[Nbadan]

The media has no credibility..


http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a191/Whoa_Nelly/darrisdawson.jpghttp://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a191/Whoa_Nelly/Wesleydurbin.jpg


The Associated Press retracted two government-issued photographs last night after a photographer in Texas alerted the agency that the photos in question appeared to be doctored.

Bob Owen, chief photographer of the San Antonio Express-News, notified the AP that the photos of two deceased soldiers, who died in Iraq on Sept. 14, were nearly identical. Upon examining the photos, Owens noticed that everything except for the soldier’s face, name, and rank was the same. The most glaring similarity, Owen told CJR, was that the camouflage patterns of the two uniforms were “perfectly identical.”

After inspecting the photographs, the AP confirmed that the images were, indeed, Photoshopped, and issued eliminations on the two photos.

[ChumpDumper]

So the media notified the media that the Army had sent them a doctored photograph. Therefore the media has no credibility.

[Nbadan]

Nevermind that the AP was floating around these pics for days before a photographer, not the Express-News, noticed that the pics were doctored...

[Biernutz]

Obama’s Trip: No Bounce, Flags, or Wounded Soldiers

Sunday, July 27, 2008 8:15 PM

By: Newsmax Editorial


Sen. Barack Obama’s international globe-hopping to the Mideast and Europe was meant to burnish his credentials as a foreign policy and potential military leader – the strong suit of his Republican rival Sen. John McCain.

Despite the media love fest over the political junket, Obama has yet to pull away from McCain in the polls. His campaign had expected a minimum eight-point lead after Obama clinched the Democratic nomination back in June, with even more momentum moving his way as the campaign progressed.

Both the most recent Real Clear Politics rolling average and the Rasmussen tracking poll that coincided with the end of Obama’s trip this weekend show Obama with just a five-point lead over McCain -- consistent with his numbers for the past two months. [Press reports this weekend have almost completely ignored the Rasmussen poll to only report on a Gallup poll, which showed Obama with a nine-point lead. Not as good as the Newsweek poll from June, which had Obama 15 points ahead of McCain.]

With President Bush suffering low approval ratings, the economy moving into a recession as gas prices surge above $4 a gallon, and growing resentment about the unending war in Iraq, Obama should be pulling away in the polls.

But he isn’t.

The Obama campaign has been quick to be out front on the bad news, claiming -- at the end of the trip -- it never expected a poll bounce from Obama’s trip anyway.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe told Politico’s Mike Allen: “We wouldn’t expect any sort of -- I guess the term people use is ‘bounce.’”

In fact, during Obama’s global meet-and-greet tour, McCain’s poll numbers have risen in key battleground states like Ohio.

As crowds cheered Obama globally, Americans here on the homefront were left wondering if the Illinois senator wants to be their president -- or the president of some other country. [And whether the major U.S. media would at least offer the pretense of objectivity. An MSNBC poll from last week found that 47 percent of the public thought the coverage of Obama’s trip was “excessive.”]

After Obama’s speech to an estimated 200,000 Germans in Berlin, a columnist for Britain’s Guardian newspaper began his review this way: “Barack Obama has found his people. But, unfortunately for his election prospects, they're German, not American.”

Obama's speech to the Germans left much to be desired, from an American’s perspective.

For starters, the crowd’s size was beefed up by the fact that the event was billed as a free rock concert for German citizens, with popular musical performers helping to draw the big crowd. Scant U.S. media even noted the warm-up rock draws of reggae artist Patrice and rock band Reamonn.

Then there was the simple stage, with the podium surrounded by three potted plants. Missing was the American flag -- nowhere to be seen. Perhaps Obama’s staff might consider the U.S. flag offensive.

And then there was his speech, in which he proudly proclaimed he was in Germany as a “a fellow citizen of the world.”

And there was the spectacle of the presidential wannabe going to a foreign land to apologize about the United States.
Obama told his German audience he was sorry about his country because “I know my country has not perfected itself.” [This comment was made in the former seat of Nazi power. A letter to editor published in Obama’s hometown Chicago Tribune noted the irony: “While America may not be perfect, there is no reason to apologize to the Germans, architects of the Holocaust.”]

As for America’s role in saving Germany from the onslaught of Stalinist communism and the subsequent Cold War, there was nothing.

There was a rhetorical flourish about the Berlin Wall coming down, but nothing about the great American sacrifice, not to mention how our military might made President Reagan’s call -- “Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachev” -- a reality.

There was a fleeting mention of the famous Berlin airlift of 1948 that President Truman ordered to thwart the Soviet blockade that sought to starve West Berlin.

As Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote, “Obama seemed to go out of his way not to say plainly that what saved Berlin in that dark time was America's military might.

“Save for a solitary reference to ‘the first American plane,’ he never described one of the greatest American operations of the postwar period as an American operation at all. He spoke only of ‘the airlift,’ ‘the planes,’ ‘those pilots.’ Perhaps their American identity wasn't something he cared to stress amid all his ‘people of the world’ salutations and talk of ‘global citizenship.’”

The Hollywood-staged Obama event for a man who has yet to ascend to the presidency didn’t sit well with all the Germans. Germany’s Stern magazine carried the headline "Barack Kant Saves the World."

One of their columnists, Florian Güssgen, wrote: "The man is perfect, impeccable, slick. Almost too slick … Obama's speech was often vague, sometimes banal and more reminiscent of John Lennon's feel good song 'Imagine' than of a foreign policy agenda."

Slickness without substance seemed to be the enduring theme of his trip. Among the little hiccups covered up by the major media, there were several gaffes on the global coronation trip.

Perhaps the most notable -- and reprehensible -- was Obama’s decision to cancel a visit to wounded American soldiers at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in southern Germany.

Apparently, the Pentagon informed Obama that since his visit was a political one, the hospital visit would be only open to him and his official Senate staff. This excluded the press and campaign officials.

The Pentagon did offer to allow Obama’s campaign plane to land at the nearby U.S. air base at Ramstein. The media also was to be accommodated there.

Without the photo opportunity and his press entourage, Obama declined to meet the wounded soldiers. At first, Obama’s campaign claimed to the press he decided to cancel the trip to visit the troops because it was "a trip funded by the campaign," and therefore somehow inappropriate. [What is inappropriate about a presidential candidate visiting wounded troops?]

But the Obama story belies the fact it was only after the Pentagon closed the event to his traveling press, that Obama’s campaign nixed the event.

Rightfully, McCain noted that it is never inappropriate for a candidate or official to visit U.S. troops.

"If I had been told by the Pentagon that I couldn't visit those troops, and I was there and wanted to be there, I guarantee you, there would have been a seismic event," McCain said.

McCain continued the attack on ABC News Sunday show “This Week”: “Those troops would have loved to see him, and I know of no Pentagon regulation that would’ve prevented him from going there” without the news media.

The McCain campaign has been quick to pounce on Obama’s obvious slight to the troops and double-talk, airing a new commercial this weekend.

“And now, he made time to go to the gym, but canceled a visit with wounded troops,” the ad says. “Seems the Pentagon wouldn’t allow him to bring cameras. John McCain is always there for our troops.”

McCain added that Obama “certainly found time to do other things."

One of those other things Obama did was visit Paris and hold a joint press conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, typical of an American president visiting the French capital.

Interestingly, The New York Times quoted Elysee officials that “Obama aides insisted that an American flag not be displayed alongside the French flag because Mr. Obama is only a visiting senator and not the president.”

There is no protocol preventing an American official from having the flag displayed when abroad.

America snubbed once again by a lame excuse.


http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/obama_mccain_berlin/2008/07/27/116772.html

[Shastafarian]

^^^ wow what a load of opinionated crap. Thanks. I feel like I need to go wash my eyes now.

[Biernutz]

^^^ wow what a load of opinionated crap. Thanks. I feel like I need to go wash my eyes now.

Your first bath in a month --glad to help-----

[Shastafarian]

Good comeback. I do find it odd that you posted this story that eludes to the German's starting the holocaust yet your name has a german word in it. Funny.

[Biernutz]

Good comeback. I do find it odd that you posted this story that eludes to the German's starting the holocaust yet your name has a german word in it. Funny.

He is running for president and could insist he meet the wounded men and women solders serving in the American military. No excuses as he is a member of congress, he could make it happen. He wimped out. He dissed our wounded solders in Germany.