Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Obama's Plan For Iraq

This is his op-ed piece that ran today in the New York Times. I really don't care for this guy. The article isn't very long, but it's deceiving. Couple of quick things I don't like about it:


  • This plan that he's conjured has come without visiting Iraq in quite some time, and without consulting with any of the resident experts on the subject, namely, General Petraeus.
  • This is only second-hand as I heard it on the radio, but it seems that anybody on the ground refutes Obama's assertion that we can withdraw all of our forces within that 16-month timeframe that he keeps mentioning.
  • He also says in the article:
    Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been.
    That obviously does not seem to be what Osama or Al-Zawahiri thought. I think even just casual observers of the war can pick out how woefully mistaken that is. And what's more, how is Afghanistan more of a central front on the war on terror than Iraq? Looking strictly in terms of oil and location, i.e. proximity to other terrorist-sponsoring nations, how can it be more valuable than Iraq? It just seems so obvious.

What I seem to dislike the most about Obama is that he has no allegiances to anything. His only guiding compass seems to be whatever is most profitable to his political career. I guess people can make the same kind of accusations about McCain or any other politician, but an example that always seem to come to my mind is President Bush. While you may heartily disagree with his ideas, it's clear where that guy stands with respect to his various policies and ideology. I just feel like there is no foundation for Obama, and he makes me extremely uncomfortable. He is a master of sophistry, and his lack of experience alone should disqualify him automatically, but people just seem to be really enamored with him.

1 comment:

gregory said...

i have a lifetime subscription to your punditly poignant profundities - what did i say? no but seriously, any informed person, employing the rare talent of common sense, should come to the same conclusions as you, national review, and all our other seeing-the-big-picture conservative cronies. obama is bad news bears, not to say that mccain is the elixir of life though ...