6 Responses for "Watch what you say, Obama."

1. William Brendel January 11th, 2008 at 7:23 pm 1

   Jon, I think you’re completely misunderstanding what he said. Think of it this way:

   The Titanic crashed into an iceberg, causing a large number of people to die (Bush invading Iraq for no reason–seriously, there were no WMDs, and the evidence he used was outdated and extremely flimsy, at best). Back to the Titanic analogy, the next week suppose I make a statement criticizing the captain of the Titanic for increasing speed through a clearly iceberg-filled patch of water (Obama criticizing the Bush administration, not the troops remember). Would you automatically assume that my statement criticized the crew of the ship (in this case, the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan) for following their captain’s orders? Because that’s exactly the same leap in logic you just made with Obama’s quote.

   Regarding the strength of Al Qaeda, you are clearly only considering their presence in Iraq (which was virtually non-existent prior to the invasion, FYI). According to reports from the military and State Department, yes, the surge has allowed them to open a few roads that were closed due to security concerns. Big deal. Overall progress remains unsatisfactory according to the GAO report from September 2007. Their presence worldwide has been strengthened, not hurt, by the US invasion of Iraq. This isn’t just about their strength in Iraq. That’s not the troops’ fault, rather the fault of their commander.

   Oh, and as for your concern about sending a negative message to our beloved leader (Bush), I have some news for you. He’s the President of the United States. I think he can take a little criticism. In fact, that’s the job of the news media, citizens, and yes, other politicians like Obama. Unfortunately, the news media and citizens in general have failed to tell him he’s doing a bad job. Someone’s got to do it. This time, it was Obama.

   Regarding your remark about ending the war after capturing Saddam: huh? Do you honestly believe we should have been in Iraq in the first place? That aside, do you think going in, capturing Saddam, and leaving would have been a good thing for the Iraqi people? What were you trying to say exactly? You disagree with the President’s decision to “stay the course”, but you want to send him positive messages as well? Not only that, you criticize people that criticize *him*? That’s bad citizenship right there, sorry.

   Your post was way out of line, not to mention flat-out factually incorrect. What a crock of shit.

2. Jonathan Kingsbury January 14th, 2008 at 10:28 pm 2

   You are definitely entitled to your opinion and I’m not going to argue against that. Don’t get me wrong…I don’t dislike Obama. I decided to talk about this just after I got off the phone with my cousin in Iraq. We had a long talk about the debates and one thing that really upset my cousin and the many in his battalion was Obama’s remarks that Al Qaeda is now, stronger. After doing some research, there are some news sources that state Al Qaeda is stronger than ever, however other news sources contradicts your opinion as they state they’re much weaker since we have been over there (who knows who is telling the truth these days..) But I can tell you this, according to my cousin who is in Baghdad right now, they have been making progress and the U.S. and allied forces have greatly weakened Al Qaeda since day 1.

   Don’t get me wrong, this doesn’t outweigh all the negatives of this War! Even if Al Qaeda has been weakened due to this War, we have lost many soldiers and many countries no longer look upon as a friendly nation. So again, I’m not against you entirely…

   Although we do differ on our thoughts of whether or not we should have entered into War with Iraq/Afghanistan, I’m just glad that we do agree this War is long overdue and needs to come to an end.

3. Spc Giardina US Army January 15th, 2008 at 8:44 pm 3

   Live from Iraq my message to you…Let us do our job wether you agree or not…and shut up about troops until you have stepped in the boots

4. Hev January 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm 4

   I agree with William Brendel on this one…

   but what impacts me the most is how much Obama’s words upset you. That means that Obama is very much in America’s “head” so to speak.

   I’m amazed this “grassroots” campaign has gotten as far as it has. It might even have a shot to win!

5. Ed Giardina February 6th, 2008 at 4:35 pm 5

   Obama’s words are hollow. How are we supposed to weaken Al Qaeda if we withdraw from Iraq? Al Qaeda has franchised itself in Iraq. If we withdraw from Iraq we hand Al Qaeda a victory and a staging ground.

   The ‘Eye off the ball’ comment is not accurate. AQ is stronger not because of a deficiency in our troops actions. In fact, our troops have been remarkable under terrible conditions. What really happened is we allowed Afghanistan and Iraq to be run by ineffectual, partisan, corrupt politicians. These leaders can’t drive the nation towards the unified fronts they need to combat terrorism themselves. The solution to this is the same thing we did in Japan and Germany: Have a heavy hand in setting up proxy governments who WE HAND PICK AND TELL WHAT TO DO. Then we slowly release our hand in running their gov’t as the extremists are driven from the lands.

6. Theresa March 12th, 2008 at 11:28 am 6

   This is my perspective on the issue.

   I look at time, I also look at what transpired since the 1980’s.

   If you took some time to research from then, it would probably give a better understanding of today.

   My guess would be to start with the documentary or articles of Charlie Wilson’s war, even though it was made into a movie and movie’s have a tendency to be dramatize, but what the movie was based on is true.

   Back in the 80’s the Afgans were fighting the Soviets. With our (US) help they defeated the Soviets.

   But in the end, we didn’t stay to help. There was very little humanitarian aid, and the government was non-exsitant.

   Reagan felt that it would be draining for the economy if we had stayed. To some degree he encouraged the Taliban to be the government. Which started the ball rolling for what is today and what happen on Sept. 11.

   Obama I think paid little attention, considering he was in his twenties, I know because I am the same age as him today and I didn’t pay to much attention to it myself. My son who was born in 1980 was just a child back then. I would imagine that most Obama supporters are around his age. So they wouldn’t know to much about what happen back then. Unless of course they paid attention to history class or government back in high school. I don’t blame them, both classes would be pretty boring.

   What happened on Sept. 11 was very devasting, it effected us all. We all were out for retaliation, and to some degree it didn’t matter who it was. To go into Afganistan was the right thing to do.

   If things were done right for Iraq we wouldn’t be were we are at today. If Pres. Bush just let the inspectors do their job, we wouldn’t be stuck in there. AQ was not in Iraq when the inspectors went in. It wasn’t untill we invaded that they came. But now that we are there we have to do what is right. Other wise we would only be repeating history.

   But on the other hand the Iraqi Gov. has to start taking the lead as well.