Obama and Iraq

The New York Times: Interesting article by Senator Obama on his policy in Iraq. On the one hand he sees the success in Iraq but still wants to take the troops out based on a timetable and then wants to send them to Afghanistan. That a problem when you have a good politician but young, he makes this kind of mistakes, he wants to send more troops and Afghanistan, does he read the news in between watching the Polls. Obama writes the following, " We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated,........I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there..." Afghanistan can never be won with more troops, its a long low level War, the trick is not to lose troops, its not to be all macho and send in more troops, the West cant win that kind of war, the USSR who did not play by Western Rules got their backside hit all the way back to the border. Obama has been caught in between the base and Moderate Republicans and Independents. The Elite Media has given him a free ride on the whole, minus is Pastor problem, Obama has to decided does he want to win or keep his base happy, Iraq could be a good issue for him but he has to change policy or it will be Senator McCain who will be the 44th POTUS.

Lieberman and the GOP

IHT: Reports on the growing distance between Senator Lieberman and the Democrats in the Senate. They will play nice for now, they need his vote to keep control of the body, once they gain more Seats Lieberman will be out in the cold. The Democrats have no sense of loyalty when it comes to their Agenda.

Deaths in Afghanistan

BBC News: Reports on the death of nine U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan. Obama Campaign should be careful about its stressing of Afghanistan as the main battlefield and not Iraq. The Terrorists have regrouped, they have the border with Pakistan which allows them to come and go without much that the West or the government of Pakistan can do to stop them, Afghanistan can not become another Vietnam, the West can not afford to lose this fight.

UK Troops Out by 2009

The Sunday Times: Reports that the majority of the UK Troops should be out of Iraq by end of 2009. The surge and the presence of Western Forces has allowed Iraq to govern itself, this is good news after a long time of bad news. The troops from the USA and the UK are needed in Afghanistan. On the political front this should help PM Brown, he can announce an honourable departure. The one condition is always Israel and Iran.

WAR OF WORDS

New York Times: The President Ahmadinejad of Iran has made a statement that can be seen as making a threat to take action before his country is attacked. If in Israel and the USA one could take the statement as a reason to attack Iran now, just in case they launch an attack, also Ahmadinejad has placed himself in the USA Presidential context, he has offered to have direct talks with the Bush Administration, this is of course the policy of Obama, Obama has to be careful he does not place himself on the same page as Iran, he is even in the polls.

Iraq and the Troops

Fox News: Reports based on a lead in the NYT that due to the success of the surge in Iraq and downward trend of attacks on the USA, the USA could remove troops from Iraq and move them to Afghanistan. I see a problem with this move, what if and its a big if, Israel attacks Iran, Iran will cause havoc in Iraq. Thus before any troops are removed the Bush Administration will have to be happy that Israel will not attack Iran. If Israel does not attack, and Iraq becomes peaceful then surge will be seen as a success, this will be bad for Obama, his weak policy on Iraq could come back to haunt him and McCain will be seen as a leader when others had weak backbones, e.g the Democratic Party. Iraq in way could decide the election in November.

The Left and Obama Redux

New York Times: Interesting article how the new and improved Obama if your in the centre and the right is not going down well the Liberal Voters that got him the nomination. In other words the Obama Camp doing the right thing on the political front, the left of the Democratic Party is not America.