US News
Obama, McCain urge focus on Afghanistan
Jul 15, 2008, 23:34 GMT
U.S. Senator and Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama delivers remarks on Iraq policy and U.S. national security in Washington, D.C. USA, 15 July 2008. Obama is laying the groundwork for a trip abroad, vowing to shift the "single-minded" U.S. focus from Iraq to Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan. EPA/SHAWN THEW
Washington - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on Tuesday said the United States must broaden its foreign policy focus beyond Iraq, as he pledged to end the war and focus on fighting al- Qaeda in Afghanistan, while Republican John McCain put forward his strategy for addressing ongoing violence there.
In a speech on foreign policy in Washington ahead of a planned trip to Europe and the Middle East, Obama said the war in Iraq 'distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize.'
'This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe,' he said.
He renewed his call to withdraw most US troops from Iraq within 16 months if he is elected, and said at least two brigades should be shifted from Iraq to defeating al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
'In fact, as should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain, the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was,' Obama said.
While he admitted a surge in US troops has helped reduce violence in Iraq, he emphasized that it did not change the need to withdraw US troops from the country.
McCain, a long-time supporter of the troop surge, criticized Obama's plan and said his fellow senator should should wait until he assesses the situation in Iraq in person before putting forward a plan.
McCain called for a comprehensive strategy for the conflict in Afghanistan, including a troop increase of three brigades and a renewed international commitment to the conflict there.
'Insecurity in Afghanistan is the world's problem, and the world should share the costs,' McCain told a townhall forum in the southwestern US state of New Mexico.
He said a civilian-military campaign plan could help to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The Taliban has launched a major offensive in recent weeks while seeking refuge in neighbouring Pakistan, including a rash of suicide bombings that have left scores of people dead. More than three dozen people died in the July 7 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul.
President George W Bush told reporters Tuesday that the violent situation in Afghanistan has grown worse than that in Iraq because of resilient Taliban militants and their determination to kill innocent people.
During a White House press conference, Bush said Afghanistan now looks similar to Iraq two years ago, when violence peaked and the country was on the verge of a sectarian civil war.
McCain noted that several NATO countries have placed restrictions on where and how their troops can operate in Afghanistan. 'That's no way to run a war,' he said, in calling for a more unified command.
On Iran, Obama said 'no tool of statecraft should be taken off the table' in diplomatic efforts to convince the country to halt its nuclear programme.
'I will use all elements of American power to pressure the Iranian regime, starting with aggressive, principled and direct diplomacy - diplomacy backed with strong sanctions and without preconditions,' Obama said.
A Washington Post-ABC poll released late Monday showed that Americans were evenly divided between the Iraq strategies of the two presumptive candidates.
But when it came to either candidate's capability as an effective commander in chief, McCain won hands down with a 72-per-cent positive rating. Obama only received a 48 per cent thumbs-up on his capability as the nation's top military officer.
Obama's speech also focused on keeping nuclear weapons from terrorists, achieving energy security and rebuilding US alliances with other countries.
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Older Talkback
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What's up with this rino talking just like a defeatocrat? Proposals for troop increases in Afghanistan are nothing more than crazy libnazi lies and loser propaganda. They are only intended to take our focus off of the real War of Terror in Iraq where we are busy killing enemy. Someone should tell mclame what the Commander in Chief absolutely knows as a fact: we already won the War of Terror in Afghanistan years ago. That's why we left, after our total victory over enemy. Then, we carefully tracked the fugitive
b. Hussein obama bin laden in 2001 as he fled from Afghanistan into Iraq, to take refuge with his supervillian cousin Saddaam the Insane, who had also killed zillions of his own kind. That's exactly why we had to attack Iraq for the War of Terror. I am convinced that the world's first TAD {Terrorist Attraction Device} has been very effictively working in Iraq, and we need to kill as many enemy as we can there, before we need to move the operation into Iran. Despite what the libnazi propaganda says, Afghanistan, or any other ...stan is just not a part of the Big Picture in the War of Terror.
Lets remember history ... The whole world wanted the U.S. to go into Afghanistan. Then the U.S. got cocky and blew it.
Half the world wanted the U.S. to go in and save the day, while half the world wanted the U.S. to go in and get screwed over (just like the Russians did). Either way, the whole world wanted the U.S. to be in Afghanistan.
And then the U.S. started pissing over nations in the Middle East or tried to buy them off like patsies and simply blew it.
Can McCain or Obama help the U.S. recover from this history? So far they have not even come close to demonstrating what is needed to succeed.
The Commander in Chief is absolutely right about this. We are winning the war on terror in Iraq. What he diplomatically failed to mention is that the defeatocrat libnazis and their buddies at communist controlled MSM are deliberately manipulating the facts by trying to link what is happening in Afghanistan to 9/11 and the war on terror. The war on terror began in Iraq, and will end in Iraq, even if we have to be there for one thousand years just killing enemy. We may have to open a two front war on evil when we attack Mr. Evil's home base in Iran, but it will be a cakewalk; and when the smoke clears whomever is left will wecome us with flowers just like they did in Iraq. The traitorous demonrat libnazi losers know we are winning the war on terror in Iraq, but they refuse to admit it because they stubbornly resist being patriotic. They are hell bent upon destroying the US as much as terrorist enemy is. When they are not preaching about how to lose, they are complaining about the costs of freedom. They act like ten trillion more is too much to pay. Well, those cocktail sucking and milktoast nibbling, whiny ex-draftdogers are going to be made to pony up soon, and they will just have to get over it. Now that b. hussein osama bin laden has reportedly moved from his home in Iraq back into Iran, the Commander in Chief realizes we have the window of opportunity to attack. After we will win, we can ship all the libnazi traitors to our new colony in the middle east. Even 100 trillion is a meager price to pay for the cost of freedom, and to get rid of all the demonrat vermin investing our great country.
spfool: actually you are not only spoofing SP, but you are actually also spoofing president Bush and his cronies. And, that is scary. I often wonder how a mind can get molded to think in such a way. I believe it has to do with some type of innate primitive rage and hate, probably reinforced by the bigotry of christianity against others (nonbelievers and nonconformists) such as muslims. Although Bush, etc. sequesters such ideological speech, every so often he slips and sometimes his wife, etc. catches him and shuts him up. But, the telltale signs are there.
What makes Afghanistan so f--king critical?
The libnazis say we went to Iraq for the oil. If true, and there is a part of it that IS true, what about Afghanistan???
Osama? Al Qaeda is not a top-down organization, so what makes him so important? Is anyone under the delusion that, once Osama is caught this is all over?
The Taliban? Well, OK....but their only crime was coddling Al Qaeda. Clinton didn't think it was critical enough to go get them, but now, everyone has this huge hard-on.
Their location? Oil reserves?...remote and none.
All this talk while Iran, quietly develops nuclear weapons.
I think these chuckleheads want to talk about Afghanistan so they will not have to talk about Iraq and Iran.
to laugh your ass off sp4, you-tube ''Bush Lies''. Some really great accurate stuff there and a lot of it.
March to Nationalize US Oil Industry held on 9/11/08 in Los Angeles, CA
The march is scheduled for September 11, 2008 at the Federal Building 11000 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, Usa.
Congress WILL nationalize the oil industry!
CHANGE for America, for Americans.
THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
A Sovereign Republic
'What makes Afghanistan so f--king critical?'
The real question is: What makes SP4 so stupid?
The answer: drug abuse.
...to watch things like that, it's OK with me. I look at a presidents actions and measure those instead.
Bush, you see, is a straight politcal animal, and not even a very interesting one, in that he's almost 100% predictable. He has been straight up on trade, on the economy,
and certainly on energy, as we can all now plainly see....
So I do not spend to much time watching out-of-context media after CBS blatantly falsified a document, or at the very least looked the other way, about the notorious GW Bush. The man does not care about insults, about the vaunted approval ratings, the detractors, or anything else. He only cares about passing legislation and communicatiing American values to the world. In these two things he is a runaway success. Almost everything he has sent to Congress has passed, even in a dem congress.
Bush is out in 6 months. When he leaves, there will be no apol;ogies, or books like McNamaras, or the endless 'gee, we f--ked up' the dems did after Vietanm, because he is winning his wars, like he did with Libya, like he is with N. Korea, etc. He's even got the anti-americans out of euro politics and now they are online with us. Bush the multilateralist...golly, who knew???
We did.
The worst part is, we're elikely to get a President who will give it all away.
'or the endless 'gee, we f--ked up' the dems did after Vietanm'
It was Nixon, a Republican't who turned chicken and bailed out, you simpering wimp. He is the turkey that lost the war. He 'f--ked up,' to use your expansive command of the English language.
@sp4- the only one in a rush to judgement seems to be you- to be totally dismissive and condenscendingly judgemental about the legitimate concerns of many American patriots, including many who are not liberals, regarding the politicians' conduct of the war on terror. You seem to easily forget that we went to Afghanistan, not Iraq, to capture or kill the islamic fundamentalist extremists who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Is this not true? Most, if not all Americans, deemed it to be a very critical mission in 2001. We all thought that our troops would follow the enemy to whereever they came from, and to whereever they fled to, in the identified countries that harbored them {Afghanistan and Pakistan}. Now you want us to believe that because the politicians perverted the mission into an attack on Iraq, and did not stick to the original mission, and therefore it was not accomplished, that 6 years later the original mission has become not very critical. You, sir, are very wrong in making such a superficial assessment.
You believe that it doesn't matter that our original enemy, al qaeda, and the Taliban who protect them, is alive and well, and actually thriving in those areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan that we failed to secure.
You also believe that it does not matter that our original enemy has created the world's largest narco-terrorist enclave, producing vast amounts of opium and heroin that they use to buy weapons to kill US and Nato troops.
You are foolish to consider them to be 'no more than an irritant to be kept at bay' as you claim them to be. You, a person who constantly condemns Bill Clinton for not crushing them before 9/11. Now they mean next to nothing to you? By the way, if you mean going into the safe havens in Pakistan, when you talk about 'once we take our other arm from behind our back[s]' you should say so, plain and simple. But I doubt that this is what you mean to say. You would probably rant about how Pakistan is such an ally in the war on terror, and we can't go there to get osama bin laden and al qaeda in their safe havens because Pakistan is on our side. The chief complaint about this action really is that it would come 6 years later than it should have been done, not that it would violate the sacred sovereignty of a country harboring al qaeda and Taliban, as your neocon cohorts exclaim. Since when do we care about the sovereignty of any nation except our own? Especially one that openly allows our enemy to operate freely in large areas the Pakistani government claims they can't control. The big question to be answered by the politicians is why we have waited so long to accomplish the mission?
Sp4-Your believe system is very faulty, totally partisan, and subservient to your neocon controllers. Your beliefs are certainly not in the best interest of the whole nation, and are stupid, if not outright un-patriotic to our country.
..just go watch, read or listen to McNamara about Vietnam and then file your comments under you-are-just-a-little-more than full of crap.
Nixon was America's cleanup boy, son. He forged a peace that, after he was out of office, was broken and the dem libnazi congress, along with an unelected president, failed to act.
Johnson was the progenator of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution. It was on Nixon's watch that we secured all the victories.
Go inform yourself.
what has Obama changed and when did it occur?
Here is the answer.
ZERO changes.
ZERO accomplishments.
ZERO initiatives.
You monkeys voting for Obama should burn your voting cards.
Obama all hype, all media frenzy, all glitter, ZERO resume and nothing in the way of doing anything meaningful.
Go win McCain and please pick Mitt Romney for your VP as that man DID make changes in Utah, the Olympics, and in the leftist state of Massachusetts.
Romney actually DID MAKE POSITIVE CHANGES and receives ZERO accolades.
I guess it is because he is just 1 of those white guys.
Obama should be a school principal or a producer for the Oprah show.
Those things are about in the range of his REAL skills and abilities.
All true. Romney's Health Care iniative is on track in Mass. to have everyone in a health insurance plan in two years. There isn't another state in America, or a democrat, who can make that claim.
It was hard work and sticking your neck out that got Romney results. Yet, look at the dem lib candidate and all that is wasted on a constituant who would flush a Romney in the blink of an eye.
Look at Illinois: corrupt, glaring class distinctions, poverty and environmental messes, yet Obama flits away with no accountability on any of this.
Your comments are so correct. This black school prefect has about as much ability as an up-market latrine cleaner.
He should never have been thrust onto the American public by a group of insane and naive faggots, who had this heavenly ambition to see either a black man or a woman as US President. A foolish and disgusting attitude by a foolish and disgusting Party.
A mixture of Disneyland and Hollywood theoretical madness.
To live in a city where this black piece of puke has crawled his way through condescending and idiotic whites to become a Senator, must be terrible.
But you must appreciate his problem. He is unable to go elsewhere, it HAS to be Illinois. The reason is that birds do not fly over Illinois, because there is nothing there worth shitting on.
If Obama went elsewhere, he would look like a walking domino, with all those white spots on him.
An Open Letter to Barack Obama from the American Republic
It is very important that you think about what I am going write.
I realize that it will be a sacrifice of your campaign and for your sponsors for you to tell the truth. That in itself would finish your attempt to be elected as the President of the United States of America. Its unfortunate that in politics you must slide the truth in order to win favor by business interests , political advocates, well financed families and then what is left of the American people. It is that portion of people that you sir, should be catering your interests to. There are millions of Americans that really need a strong honest leader that can go up against the current dishonest Congress and demand CHANGE for the people of America and not just a surveyed few. And CHANGE sir, means a identified selection of problems with America that need replacement or repair, without the contention of Congress or the ones that pull the rule strings from behind. And CHANGE made within a short period of time, not years or centuries.
If you are elected by some reason, that only a privileged few will know, you will of course be in the same situation as many others before you have been, because they did not tell the truth. In the real world, the truth is not welcomed, but it exists anyway, waiting for the few or the many that can make the CHANGE to live that and become that, that so many people wish they could be. Americans must truly help the Homeland our Country become the true leader of the many that have lost their way thru choice.
The American Republic
A Sovereign Republic
1. Erased defecit in Utah WITHOUT RAISING TAXES and balanced the budget.
2. Erased the defecit in leftist Massachusetts AS A REUPBLICAN and balanced the budget.
3. Returned and refunded money TO THE TAXPAYERS!!
4. Took over the Salt Lake City Olympics when it was losing money under another organization AND MADE IT PROFITABLE under his management AS A TRUE AND UNCORRUPTED REPUBLICAN.
5. The only guy now who actually NAMED islam as the biggest threat to all free nations and strongly denounced it and promises to fight terrorists with a free hand.
WHO ELSE can claim CHANGE and actually prove it?
Obama is such a joke and that broom riding wife of his needs to go to the Oprah Show and mop the floors.
She is qualified to do that type of work.
McCain please pick Romney as a VP.
AQ defeated on primary front in Iraq and is now regrouping in backwater Afghanistan.
There. Now was that so hard to acknowledge?
AQ was defeated in Iraq and the remenant element in Afghanistan is all that is left....?
The liberal literari and gliterari, the drive-by libnazi media and the dem party will not acknowledge that Bush has completed just about every milestone set by Congress for Iraq in 2006. This is why, now, they must focus on Afghanistan, when they ignored it for 4 years.
'...to think that the surge will accomplish it's goals in Iraq is silly...and will actually have the opposite effect on the warring elements, enabling them.' - Barak Obama, January 2007.
Anyone want to comment on his foresight now?
Has Obama outlined his strategy for victory in Afghanistan? What will it look like? How long will it take? How much will it cost in blood and treasure?
He has all the answers on how to lose. Have the dems come up with any suggestions for victory?
..or at least not until they are forced to come up with one, if their trophy boy ends up in the white house.
These pogues have, for 4 years, done absolutely zip for this war effort, instead pillorying the standing president for, correctly, invading. I suspect that, if they win in November, they will suddenly call on America to unite behind them, not because it would insure victory, but to insure their political careers.
This lemon has, for at least two years, called every move wrong. He said the surge in Iraq would backfire - how'd that turn out? Then he said we should raise taxes. Even Chuck Rangell is backing off that.
As usual the neocons have it all wrong .Don't they know it wa the bribing of the sunni militias that brought a certain degree of succes to the so called 'surge',not the military operations ?The same insurgents that belong to the sunni militia ore showered with money to assist the Iraqi army to patrol the streets and look out for ...what used to be themselvs.I understand that the Bush administration is rather reticent on calling this operation with it's real name and prefered to call it a surge,brought about byin increase of vaillant troops .Unfortunately there has been no increase of battles or military operations,just anopening of the money taps .Andso it became a surrealistic ,absurd policy of the neocons to throw money at the same people they claimed to combat,the sunni insurgents,from which the bulk emanated from Saddam's party,the Baath party,in order to combat an ennemy that wa not even present orassociated in any way with the regime of Saddam;Al Quaida .
Such a scenario must have been written in Holywood,it is too absurd for the real world .Oh no,wait a minute ,it was written by Rove,Rumsfeld and a few others ,nowhere to be found these days .
THis is how things are for the moment,it is also how things are perceived in informed parts of the world .Te only people still clinging to a twisted version of history are the neocons,as demonstrated by SP4 and Charles .I guess it is nicer to live in deams than in reality,when reality contrasts too much with their ideology .
What a joke ...tell me SP4,are you a brother of Basil Fowlty ?
...we've seen this before. We won all the battles in Vietnam and then had them given away by politiicans that they meant nothing to.
In the world of the american libnazi, where 1 in 5 WANTS the USA to be defeated, the idea of claiming success is totally repugnant.
Bush has, successfully, brought all the parties together and now, they are proceeding to put down the pro-Iranian sects. Success is so good the Iraqi leadership wants us to vacate and handle it on their own. All this after Obama said, in 2007 that it would be a failure. Now, he wants to be president. Perhaps, just once, he can show us where he was right.
In case after case, from old 'pockets' Murtha to the messiah Obama, the libnazi defeatist appeasers have mis-read the sit-rep. They have sought to institutionalize their views by goading Bush to retreat for the same reason they greenlighted this war to begin with: They want to gain power and use the pillory of Bush to get it. I would love to ask them how it's working out, so far...?
Now,with success broken out, the libnazi template, all facilitated by the Libnazi drive-by media, needs a new place to conduct the policy of failure: Afghanistan.
My only hope is Bush answers their prayers one minute before he leaves office. Nothing would please me more than to see him hand the dems their bucket of crap right back to them.
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MIDNITE COWBOYJul 16th, 2008 - 00:16:22
May I suggest we take a break from the black man`s white-sponsored 'mission impossible' attempt to gain civilized and intellectual recognition and reverse half a million years of absolute zero anthropological evidence.
I SUGGEST ! That from mid-nite tonite, or if you miss it, tomorrow nite, we ALL observe a ;-
'BE NICE TO ESS PEE DAY' ; 24 hours of unadulterated bliss.
YES ! I know it is hard, but this modern day genius who is on a par with Archemides, Gallelio, Leonardo Da Vinci and not of course forgetting Adolf Hitler, deserves a token of our undivided and genuine gratitude.
Where would this M&C garbage of literary crap coughed up by the peasants be without the sheer artistry and intellectual restraint of ESS PEE ?
The man is pilloried, called vile names wished ill etc. - all this by brainless scumbags like ourselves. Good and righteous personalities are always crucified for their unique genius - remember Jesus Christ ?
It will also give our angelic overlord a day of rest from converting normal adult discussion and expressions into that of a convent Kindergarten. No more foul language or calling blacks by their rightful descriptions. He can stay in heaven for a whole day.
SO ! you uncouth bastards, grin and bear the pain of it -
BE NICE TO ESS PEE from mid-nite tonite - JUST FOR 24 HOURS. You never know, it may hold.
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