General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDec. 31: The United States military has withdrawn from Iraq under the terms of the SOFA...
"SOFA" is the Status of Forces Agreement reached between the Bush regime and the Maliki government in 2007.
SOFA specified a schedule of drawdowns and eventual withdrawal of US troops from Iraq by December 31, 2011. The schedule has now been kept, notwithstanding the continued presence of thousands of mercenaries contracted by the Pentagon and of a US embassy housing 6,000 employees in a complex larger than the Vatican.
While the Obama administration has followed the SOFA as agreed by Bush and Maliki, it first attempted to renegotiate or circumvent the SOFA so as to allow US troops to stay in Iraq past the December 31 deadline. This failed, however, because while amenable to such an extension, the Iraqi government found it could not, given the present political climate in Iraq, feasibly enact an immunity for US troops against future charges by Iraqi authorities.
Iraqis' popular rejection of extending the US occupation of Iraq in turn was influenced by the Wikileaks release of US war logs. These confirmed at least 15,000 more deaths in hostilities than had been counted until then in such sources as the Iraq Body Count, and also documented cases in which US troops had massacred Iraqi civilians. Thus Private Bradley Manning, if the allegations against him are true, goes down as one of the true heroes of the war, as the leaks of the war logs helped block US plans to extend the occupation.
The Obama administration has no business taking credit for "ending the war," as it has only enacted the withdrawal that the Bush regime negotiated. However, the US corporate media and both Democrats and Republicans (each for their own twisted reasons) prefer to pretend that this myth is true.
Above all, however, the Obama administration has failed in the essential mission of restoring the rule of law and constitutional democracy, having made no move whatsoever toward bringing the perpetrators of the US war of aggression and war crimes against Iraq to justice. The primary perpetrators such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, Wolfowitz, Tenet and Rice need fear no indictments as they enjoy their freedom and personal prosperity and plot their comebacks. It should dismay us all that Obama's speech on the occasion of the withdrawal underlined his administration's willed failure by applying heroic labels to atrocities such as the December 2004 leveling of Fallujah ordered by Bush.
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gateley
(62,683 posts)"The Obama administration has no business taking credit for "ending the war," as it has only enacted the withdrawal that the Bush regime negotiated. "
The motherfucker who started this mess to begin with??
If Bush were still in office, or McCain, do you think we actually would have withdrawn?
The important thing is many of our military is coming home from Iraq, and I give total credit to Obama for that.
"Are you saying we should give credit to BUSH?"
...now you know that some people now hate Obama more than Bush. Still, it doesn't change the fact that Obama ended the war. The document officially ending the war was signed by his administration.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Special prize who finds anything about "hate" in there. Also, see if you can miss the part where war crimes trials are recommended for Bush et al.
A lot less of the universe revolves around the spin needs of the Obama campaign than Mr. Sense's posts would indicate.
Robb
(39,665 posts)JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I suppose it's better when Mr. Sense takes quotes my words accurately, if out of context, than when he ventures into malicious paraphrase (as when I'm told I "hate" Obama and "give credit" to Bush).
Robb
(39,665 posts)There's zero daylight between that statement and what came out of Cheney and Limbaugh's mouths. Generously, echoing it for whatever rhetorical purpose is provocative.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)I didn't hear any statements from Cheney, and I generally have no idea what Limbaugh says. So please be assured that I did not and would not echo either of those gentlemen, for any rhetorical purpose. It can't be helped that, evil as they are, they too will speak truth on those occasions when the truth happens to suit their purposes. If I wish to say, correctly, that M&Ms come in different colors and some with nuts, I can't check first if one of them has already gone on record saying the same thing, or held accountable for that.
Also, I can't help that certain subjects, if brought up here, are going to prompt predictable misrepresentations of my position. The only alternative would be never to bring up these subjects.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Since I'm not for the death penalty, and if you care to read the OP, I'm saying Bush should get life in prison for starting a war of aggression. Nevertheless, Obama didn't end it -- Iraqi resistance and other obstacles to a perpetual occupation in the end forced Bush into SOFA. Obama fulfilled the SOFA only after trying to undermine it. Those are just the facts as they happened. (What McCain or whoever would have done is strictly hypothetical and irrelevant.)
Do you prefer to pretend something that isn't true because it makes you feel better about your team?
Also, do you need it simpler?
gateley
(62,683 posts)And although I don't care for your post (my "team", and all) I wonder why you felt you needed
to include
The Obama administration has no business taking credit for "ending the war," as it has only enacted the withdrawal that the Bush regime negotiated. .
Sorry I questioned you. Your virulent anti-Obama rant should have clued me to stay away and keep my mouth shut.
Response to gateley (Reply #1)
Obamanaut This message was self-deleted by its author.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"The Obama administration has no business taking credit for "ending the war," as it has only enacted the withdrawal that the Bush regime negotiated."
...Jeb Bush can jump into the race and run against Obama using the claim that Bush ended the war.
The little thing about the referendum and the massive drawdown of forces, the closing of bases and other operations were a piece of cake compared to Bush's legacy saving agreement after launching an illegal war.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)
jaxx
(9,236 posts)To say anything else is saying there was no choice in the matter. The troops were removed from the country.....the war is over. And it's for damned sure that Manning and Assange weren't the heroes.
Damn, I miss that unrec feature.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)of the occupation. This failed, so then, luckily, they chose to go ahead with the SOFA schedule. To call this "the Obama administration ended the war" is a historical distortion.
TheWraith
(24,331 posts)There are two realistic facts here. One. Obama campaigned on ending the war, and did. Two, no Republican would EVER have done the same.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Oh, wait, a question:
Yes or no: Did Obama fulfill the terms of the SOFA?
If yes: When was the SOFA negotiated?
Thanks.
frylock
(34,825 posts)4. the obama administration failed in their attempt to extend the mission beyond the agreed upon SOFA.
jaxx
(9,236 posts)The distortion is that even though people said it would never happen, it did and now excuses are being made to say Obama didn't get it done.
I call BS on that theory.
bhikkhu
(10,715 posts)He was one guy in the field, even in 2007, who had always opposed it, and who promised to end it as president. Which he did.
Anyone who thinks that a pre-election 2007 republican plan to end a war four years down the road would have amounted to anything if they still had the presidency...well, they're selling plenty more BS like that this year if you're still buying.
MilesColtrane
(18,678 posts)Yeah, we get it already.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)We create our own reality now, distortion by distortion.
MilesColtrane
(18,678 posts)Just thought I'd break it down to its essence.
Major Hogwash
(17,656 posts)I think it is Sofa King funny that you think Bush deserves credit for ending the Iraq War when we all know that the last troops just came home this month.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)the Iraqis are celebrating an end to Bush's war: http://www.democraticunderground.com/100295645
bigtree
(85,996 posts)The SOFA was full of loopholes allowing him to remain indefinitely. He would have kept many more troops there than Obama was contemplating for embassy security. It's a shame that you've chosen to represent Bush as someone who was interested in leaving Iraq, even though he never made any move to do so outside of the SOFA that THIS president took advantage of. Brilliant move on Obama's part. Use Bush's SOFA for cover. You completely missed that.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Did you know? There are actors other than Bush and Obama in this theater. Really!
As the OP says, Bush is a war criminal on the lam. Let us hope one day he'll wander into a jurisdiction with the courage to arrest and indict him. It is Obama's great failure, one that will bite us all many times in the future, that Bush's prosecutor is not the US Department of Justice.
Bush didn't write SOFA as he willed, but the circumstances of 2007 forced it on him. Presumably he would have wanted to undermine SOFA, but he wasn't around this year to do so. Hypotheticals are irrelevant.
Reality is that Obama tried to undermine SOFA, but Iraqi conditions did not allow it.
For that I give credit the Iraqi resistance to the war of aggression, and to the popular will of the people there that made their own government hesitate to allow immunity to US soldiers and extend the occupation.
I give credit to Manning as the alleged leaker of the US military war reports, and to Wikileaks for exposing covered-up atrocities commited by the US occupation, which put the Iraqi government under further pressure not to cave in to the US extension plans.
I give credit to the unpopularity of the war in the US and the enormous costs it has imposed on the American people.
Some touch of credit is due to the Obama administration for giving up on its attempt to do the wrong thing, and finally following the letter of SOFA. But to say simply that "Obama ended the war" or the occupation is a historic distortion. The end came on the schedule laid out in SOFA.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)No, he ended the war: closed down the operation and pulled all the troops out. It's that simple. The "historic distortion" is to claim otherwise. The historic documents show that Obama ended the war.
bigtree
(85,996 posts). . . and did it. None of the quibbling can detract from that point.
Bush wouldn't have left Iraq by now, despite his SOFA. He intended for the document to establish that he intended to bring about an end to his opportunistic occupation, despite never doing so. The SOFA, however, was full of loopholes which allowed him to stay for as long as he wanted, as long as he made that determination that our 'national security' was at stake.
President Obama looked at the same set of standards in the SOFA and concluded that there weren't any national security impediments to withdrawing. In the face of continued political instability and continued Iraqi violence, this President made the determination to exit.
He spoke out before he ran for president; he campaigned on ending the occupation; and, he ended it. Bush's SOFA was used by this President to advantage that withdrawal in a way that wouldn't be challenged by the Congress which codified those SOFA provisions into U.S. law.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)And was rejected by the Iraqi government. If he'd gotten what he was trying to get, the US occupation of Iraq would still be continuing today. I'm all for the campaign promise, but he kept it only because he failed to get what he wanted from the Iraqi government. These aren't hypotheticals about what Bush would have done,* these are the real choices Obama made. (All this while escalating on other fronts, so that the number of soldiers in the field in pointless wars and occupations and the number of countries under attack remain much the same as before.)
* Again no doubt Bush would have also tried to undermine SOFA, but there's no way of knowing how far he would have gotten "in the face of continued political instability and continued Iraqi violence," as you say. After all, this criminal who launched the war of aggression in the first place at some point was also compelled to sign SOFA. I think no matter what, American troops would have been out by the SOFA deadline, or there would have been a mass uprising in Iraq today - Jan. 1, 2012 - but again that's a past hypothetical, so whatever.
The "credit" for ending the US occupation goes to the Iraqis who never stopped resisting it, by every means.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"President Obama in office attempted to renegotiate SOFA and extend the occupation..."
Haven't you heard, the Iraq war is over: http://www.democraticunderground.com/100295645
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)Unfortunately the administration that should have brought the perpetrators of this war of aggression to justice has not only failed to do so, thus rewarding the criminals, but has also escalated the Bush wars on other fronts. The "defense" budget continues to swallow half of the discretionary budget, in a time of economic misery and calls for austerity and cuts to the social programs that the people finance (at a surplus) with their payroll taxes.
Hmmmmmm?
A Simple Game
(9,214 posts)if you would like to have an intelligent discussion for a change.
bigtree
(85,996 posts)And it's just sophistry to argue that Bush's continued occupation (or McCain's 100 year occupation) is anything similar to the residual troops the President wanted to remain to help train Iraqi forces. For over a year, the troops there had been mostly restricted to base and not directly involved in Iraqi military operations. That's why the U.S. casualty rate dropped so dramatically. The missions weren't the same, the ambitions weren't the same . . . nothing is similar in this President's approach to Iraq except the SOFA he used to advantage his own withdrawal.
Also, I'm quite certain that you've misstated the facts about the overall deployment numbers.
There are certainly troops still in Kuwait on their way home. Others have been stationed there as a 'stability' feature of the withdrawal. But there has been a 10,000 troop reduction of 'surge' forces in Afghanistan, not an escalation or an effort to preserve the status quo of troops there using forces leaving Iraq. So those developments, on their face, would indicate an overall reduction of deployments.
And, again, you've conflated two entirely different ambitions and approaches by comparing Bush's insistence at EVERY turn that the forces should remain, and President Obama's steady progress toward his promise as president to withdrawal.
It makes little difference to point out that there would have been an uprising of Iraqis if a President McCain would have continued the occupation. That Iraqi resistance meant almost nothing to Bush; it would likely only serve to reinforce the philosophy of McCain and other republicans that we shouldn't remove our protective forces until that resistance ended. That was Bush's posture throughout and McCain's in the campaign. It's just not credible to claim that they would be moved by Iraqi resistance.
At any rate, It's clear that this president was superior in all aspects of his dealings with Bush's occupation to any republican scheme. Equating them is just factually incorrect.
