Oh yeah

[solarbird]

Today was the day Mr. Obama said the US was supposed to be out of Iraq. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA sonofabitch

Comments

[maellenkleth]

as I will recall, trenchantly, neither you nor I expected that statement to be true in the first instance. :(

[silussa.livejournal.com]

If one wants to convince the American Public that politicians can not be trusted, this is the sort of thing to do it.

[maellenkleth]

If and only if the media pick it up. One may reasonably suspect that any such news would be swiftly dropped in favour of reporting the peccadillos of basketball 'heros' or somesuch.

[silussa.livejournal.com]

The media is interested in selling eyeballs. If people don't care much about such things, they won't bother to report it.

[ypawtows.livejournal.com]

I would expect Fox to be all over it.

[lassiter.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't that create conflicts with their official line that Obama is a terrorist sympathizer who wants to withdraw all US troops to make us weak?

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

His comments need to be put in context, though. The 16-month withdrawal timeline he mentioned then was made as candidate before the Bush administration had negotiated the Status of Forces Agreement. The SOFA was negotiated in the context of Obama's withdrawal plans, and finalized less than a month before the 2008 elections. It committed the US to withdrawal from Iraqi cities by June 2009 (which occurred) and from the whole country by summer 2011 (which, you might have noticed, hasn't happened yet.) The language is written in such a way that a token continuing force is possible indefinitely if requested by the Iraqi government. That's wholly consistent with what Obama promised--he never promised all troops would come out, just all combat troops. Hillary Clinton made similar comments.

Obama has kept to that agreement, which most likely would not have been what happened if McCain had been elected (or Bush could have had a third term). The only reason the SOFA was negotiated as such was to respond to Obama's statements on withdrawal, and the only reason it has been kept to is that Obama is president. Obama announced his support of this timeline way back when he came into office, and it's consistent in principle with his comments all along. It's a phased withdrawal in response to conditions on the ground, negotiated according to the will of the Iraqi government.

I would count this as a promise kept so far, not a promise broken. If it's less than what I'd like, it's because Obama promised less, not because he has failed to deliver.