In case anyone hadn’t noticed. Obama recongnizes that the surge was successful in lowering American military casualties but would still oppose it because he can’t stand the thought of agreeing politically with George W. Bush.

American lives are less important to Obama than political stands.

nt

Great job Erick.

The fact that he won’t admit that he was completely wrong on the surge bothers me a great deal. He’d rather lose a war than lose an election.

Much appreciated. His remark yesterday really got under my skin.

Obama is a dangerous combination of inexperience and arrogance, and your analysis highlights the possible consequences of an Obama presidency.

Excuse me while I go donate more money to McCain and other worthy Republican candidates.

and Erick this is the kind of arrogance and egotism that will sure many deaths…

““It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser…

http://campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MTUwNzdlMmZhZGZmMTY2MmNlOWMyZTc2YzNjOTAyY2U=

Please check the link for the non-answer on using al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades for security from his campaign.

with you Erick.

I even doubt the sincerity of Al-Maliki in accepting the friendship of the President. These political gimmicks in the last 3 days are putting our long-term objectives in Middle East and mission in Iraq at the side line.

Now, the MSM has just handed to Maliki the confirmation that he can truly influence the result of this election. Instead of keeping him humble, MSM is teaching him some arrogance and that’s dangerous. Soon he will use this knowledge against our very own government in the negotiations for forcing the US troops out of Iraq, and the main casualties shall be our long-term commitment for a stable Middle East and the control of muslim extremism.

I troubles me to think that it is possible for the Iraqis to betray our US troops still working in Baghdad and the neighboring areas. For me, this pandering to the Iraqis by Obama will compromise the safety of our troops. I fear for the lives of the US soldiers in Iraq.

Why can’t Obama spare the troops from his wacko selfish ambitions?

he has said that he would again do everything in his power to block the U.S. from taking those steps to succeed, even now that he has seen how successful those steps were.

It’s amusing to see this kind of criticism applied to Obama when the left has been complaining about the same quality in our current president. “Why can’t he just admit going into Iraq was a colossal blunder?” they ask themselves.

The Jimmy Carter of a new generation… a timely reminder of the failings of the left, a springboard to a new generation of rightwing thought and leadership.

Just as Carter gave us Reagan, so would Obama give us…Bobby Jindel? 1992, gave us Newt in 1994.

…and so it goes, one into the other. Yeah it bites to be one of those sacrificed, tens of thousands in Israel or millions in Iran, but I’m not so sure we can avoid it.

Via Terry Moran:  "Obama said that in his meeting with Petraeus, the general discussed his "deep concerns" about "a timetable that doesn’t take into account what they anticipate might be a change in conditions." "

Here’s a clip in which they discuss that

http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=5421292

OBAMA: "for us to begin a phased redeployment at a pace of one to two brigades per month, at which point we would have our combat troops out in 16 months. That’s the goal that I’m setting."

"His [Petraeus] argument would be that [the above] might happen I just don’t want to be bound by a timeline. My argument would be we need to have some sort of time frame because we have to start planning if we want to get an additional two brigades in Afghanistan. We’ve got to start planning now."

"My job is to think about the national security interests as a whole and to weigh and balance risks in Afghanistan and Iraq. Their job is just to get the job done here, and I completely understand that."

Well not quite, since General Petraeus now has command of Afghanistan as well. But regardless of that, there is a major flaw in the Senator’s argument which is going to be recognized sooner or later (given the in-the-tank MSM I suppose it will be later). A firm plan to withdraw all of our combat troops in 16 months is not required in order to address Obama’s concerns about Afghanistan. By next February the General will likely have — based on execution of the present withdrawal plans– two brigades available to send to Afghanistan.

Just one more way in which Obama has set himself up to be made a fool of.

Shouldn’t that be the real question? Then to determine that, we would have to start at something more than 7000 dead Americans. When you consider that W has killed more than 4000 American Soldiers, Sailor, Airmen and Marines and over seen the nearly 3000 killed during September 11, 2001, Obama can’t be evaluated until he passes that number.

We don’t know how many Americans will lose their lives during the Obama Presidency. We already know that Bush’s numbers is more than 7000 and counting. We also know that Bush’s number will end on January 21, 2009.

I’m just curious as to how you can think that less Americans will be dead underneath Obama? Won’t more Americans die if we elect McCain because we’re likely to go to war with Iran? At least Obama will get us out of that hell hole in Iraq, and maybe finish the business in Afghanistan.

Why don’t we say screw them both and elect Barr? A real conservative.

Why should we listen to what Petraeus says? He is not a policy maker? I guess if you want to know how best to destroy a city you would ask for his advice. The purpose of the military is to take orders and serve the people, not set policy.

Follow the constitution.

Why should we listen to what Petraeus says? He is not a policy maker. I guess if you want to know how best to destroy a city you would ask for his advice. The purpose of the military is to take orders and serve the people, not set policy.

Follow the constitution.

“fooliis ignoramus”

wow… buddy… fire your writer, that’s pretty dry. =P

ps. this blog is pure speculation.
BTW in response to the Bill Clinton part

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RLAKArfOe0

it gets good at about 5:50.

…the utterly repulsive, absolutely inexplicable, Israel-Hezbollah prisoner-corpse swap.

Link

“Every Israeli is now at much higher risk for kidnapping and murder. Why in the world should Israel’s enemies shrink from murdering their captives if they get just as much for corpses?”

Madness. They’re even appalled at Slate (somewhat) : Link

Sorry for posting slightly OT, I’ve been stumbling around the new site trying to find a diary on this topic.

I haven’t had time to jump in here and engage.

My apologies.

Kudos to Moe for handling the thread. Geez, the nuts came out.

With reference to your penultimate paragraph, here‘s a pdf of military death rates since 1980. (This and similar charts can be found here.)

The figure for 1980 was 2,392. The deadliest year in the new millennium was last year, with 1,950 deaths.

Great post, by the way.

I agree the surge issue is a big loser for Obama, rightly so.

But your other arguemnts I think only work with the base (big hunks of red meat:-). From a swing voters perspective your line of arguments are somewhat contradictory so no clear line of argument emerges (e.g. too weak on Iran but too strong on Pakistan) and we have now been severely gimped by bush’s new policy of sitting down in talks with Iran (the nuclear talks last week) plus the Maliki talk of withdraw of US troops doesnt at best muddies McCain’s line of attack about withdrawl=defeat at worst completely under cuts him (McC).