The Commander-in-Chief Sets the Mission
One of the stronger points last night was made by Obama when he said this about withdrawing from Iraq:
Well, the president sets the mission. The general and our troops carry out that mission. And, unfortunately, we have had a bad mission set by our civilian leadership, which our military has performed brilliantly. But it is time for us to set a strategy that is going to make the American people safer.
Now, I will always listen to our commanders on the ground with respect to tactics, once I've given them a new mission, that we are going to proceed deliberately, in an orderly fashion, out of Iraq, and we are going to have our combat troops out. We will not have permanent bases there.
Once I have provided that mission, if they come to me and want to adjust tactics, then I will certainly take their recommendations into consideration. But, ultimately, the buck stops with me as the commander-in-chief.
posted by spooked at 12:17 PM
7 Comments:
"We will not have permanent bases there". Bwahaha! Puhleeze. What are
they gonna do, tear them down? 700+
bases around the world and counting, why would Iraq be any different? Permanant bases is the whole point.
"We have had a bad mission set by our civilian leadership". For someone to say this they're either
A) too naive to understand what the real mission was/is or B) full of shit. Since the real mission was to go there and set up shop, one can only conclude they did a pretty damn good job.
People are so dumb...
Obama is a major Insider who looks like an Outsider.
Obama is where he is because his elitist packagers realize he takes a good picture and delivers a good speech.
The elites sensed that public cynicism regarding government is at an all time high, so they manufactured a JFK/MLK cult of personality to regain our faith.
Most senators and governors and all major presidential candidates are controlled by elite financial/industrial/corporate interests.
Major political figures are simply mid-upper level managers who implement policies formed by others.
The political game is and has been rigged for a long time.
-driftbolt
of course!
New mission? LOSE! Conduct whatever tactics you want to achieve this mission, but you must LOSE!
Great mission.
By no means am I saying Obama is going to change things, or that he is a legitimate agent of change. But merely taken at face value, he says the right things here.
As far as losing in Iraq, we've already lost-- a long time ago.
"we've already lost", in the context of Iraq, implies a War.
Question: since there never was anything resembling a war, what exactly did we lose that we once had or once fought for but never attained?
Wars are usually driven by economic needs/wants, and in Iraq, the U.S. controls most of the economy as well as the country's assets (oil, gas, minerals, only major shipping port).
If the Iraq war was simply about controlling Iraq's resources, then yes-- we've won!
But that obviously wasn't the stated reason for invading.
""what exactly did we lose that we once had or once fought for but never attained?""
how about the moral high-ground.
how about honor.
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