2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumObama slams reporters Right Wing adopted talking point as bogus and wrong
This weekend a lazy seemingly gullible reporter asked President Obama if he regretted not leaving troops in Iraq. That is a question based on Republican talking points and not journalistic inquiry. The reporter should have known that the U.S.Iraq Status of Forces Agreement was signed by President Bush which specifically said all combat troops would leave Iraq in December of 2011. President Obama attempted to negotiate keeping more soldiers in Iraq but could not come to an agreement with the Iraqi government who wanted the soldiers out.
President Obamas response to the reporter was classic. He slams the reporters tenet without raising his voice.
And the Iraqi government, based on its political considerations, in part because Iraqis were tired of a U.S. occupation, declined to provide us those assurances. And on that basis, we left. We had offered to leave additional troops. So when you hear people say, do you regret, Mr. President, not leaving more troops, that presupposes that I would have overridden this sovereign government that we had turned the keys back over to and said, you know what, youre democratic, youre sovereign, except if I decide that its good for you to keep 10,000 or 15,000 or 25,000 Marines in your country, you dont have a choice which would have kind of run contrary to the entire argument we were making about turning over the country back to Iraqis, an argument not just made by me, but made by the previous administration.
So lets just be clear: The reason that we did not have a follow-on force in Iraq was because the Iraqis were a majority of Iraqis did not want U.S. troops there, and politically they could not pass the kind of laws that would be required to protect our troops in Iraq."
President Obama then explains the reality that attempting a military solution for a socio-political problem in Iraq or any country is in fact doing stupid stuff.
So that entire analysis is bogus and is wrong. But it gets frequently peddled around here by folks who oftentimes are trying to defend previous policies that they themselves made."
http://egbertowillies.com/2014/08/12/obama-iraq-analysis-bogus-and-wrong/
freshwest
(53,661 posts)indepat
(20,899 posts)media outlet would certainly get all right-wing talking points raised during any interaction.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)It was because that reporter was called upon and asked that stupid question that Obama was able to respond to what the right-wingers and chickenhawks and Bush apologists have been saying.
He gave a great answer.
indepat
(20,899 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)This time he applied the word to his critics, "who oftentimes are trying to defend previous policies that they themselves made."
He could reasonably have gone with "war criminals" instead, but I guess "folks" is shorter and less incendiary.
progressoid
(49,951 posts)Duers et. al. oft times sing his praises for getting us out of Iraq. Yet...
"What I just find interesting is the degree to which this issue keeps on coming up, as if this was my decision. Under the previous administration, we had turned over the country to a sovereign, democratically elected Iraqi government."
Yes, that is interesting
Hekate
(90,560 posts)Sheepshank
(12,504 posts)for it gives Obama one more (very visible) platform in which to explain the reality...and not the banality of made up shit.
Cosmocat
(14,559 posts)It is a detailed explanation of the facts of the situation.
Given the choice between that and some three word right wing quip like "leading from behind" repeated 1,000,000 times the American public goes with the second choice 999,999 out of 1,000,000 times ...
AgingAmerican
(12,958 posts)Is why I voted for him.
Martin Eden
(12,847 posts)What he said should be glaringly obvious to any person who is even moderately informed. When so-called journalists and political talking heads suggest otherwise, one of the following is behind it:
1) They really are that ill-informed.
2) They are trying to spread a false narrative or have a much greater interest in perpetuating political controversy than informing their viewers.
#2 is very much consistent with the sorry state of "journalism" in America today. Controversy attracts viewers and sells advertising, facts be damned.
Rosa Luxemburg
(28,627 posts)most of the public don't know what has been going on and republicans like to feed untruths. Obama should keep slamming them but he also needs back up from Democrats.