The President takes credit for end of Iraq War...a war he opposed.

Some may forget what was said in the past, but others hold people to their words.

The President likes to take credit for the efforts of others....this is a prime example....Enclosed is what he said in 2002....You be the judge. The only reason why we are leaving is Iraq asked us to leave...But Barry takes credit as if he did the heavy lifting.

What a poser.

Barack Obama's Anti-Iraq War Speech (2002)http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama%27s_Iraq_Speech

" That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

Now let me be clear — I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.

He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.

I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars"

“This is a political decision, not a military decision,” - OBAMA shows it is all about his desire to get re-elected, not what should be done

“This is a political decision, not a military decision....” - Damned Straight.

The cheers you heard last night were the Taliban getting exactly what they wanted from the President last night. They are more than happy to wait for things to go back to the way they were before the Surge pushed them to the brink....It will be a year before the 30000 extra leave but "Barry-From-Chicago" isn't worried about the economy or the terrorists, unless those issues can be used to bolster his re-election campaign....what a feckless POL.

Hopefully he'll be ousted and when we have to detail why we let the terrorists catch a break and allow them to return to their murderous ways, we'll owe the world an explaination on why we made decisions on the fate of this effort based solely on what POTUS hoped would help the empty-suit get relected....not based on what the military experts said we should do.

The people of Afghanistan have always feared we would only give this a half-hearted effort and then leave....It may be that their worst fears about the future of this place will be realized based on what the "Community Organizer" told the world last night.


To Obama, Afghan war no longer seems so smart
By: Glenn Thrush - Politico
June 22, 2011 11:16 PM EDT

If Afghanistan doesn’t fit President Barack Obama’s definition of a “dumb war” – his famous description of the conflict in Iraq — he’s no longer entirely confident it’s still a smart war worth blood, treasure or his own political capital.

In a primetime address Wednesday night announcing the withdrawal of 33,000 U.S.troops in the next year, Obama trumpeted the fulfillment of two goals first articulated nine years in the same Chicago speech in which he defined George W. Bush’s intervention in Iraq — killing Osama bin Laden and denying a safe haven to al Qaeda.

One additional achievement unmentioned in the 14-minute address: The role Obama’s Afghan surge played in bolstering his national security credentials at a time when Republicans portrayed him as just another weak Democratic president lacking the guts to wage war for a just cause.

But that just cause, in Obama’s view, is no longer reason enough for what had essentially become an open-ended U.S. commitment. So the president has opted for a faster-than-expected withdrawal timetable against the advice of senior military advisers, including Gen. David Petraeus.

“These long wars must come to a responsible end [and] we must learn from their lessons,” said Obama, articulating a more surgical approach to U.S. military intervention than he was able to describe during a speech on Libya earlier this year.

History will tell if the speech Wednesday night was a form of capitulation, a well-earned victory lap or combination of both.

Obama’s “dumb” vs. “smart” war meme, first outlined in his October, 2002 speech as an unknown state senator, didn’t seem to be far from his thoughts. Now as then, he made the argument for extricating the country from an unpopular war without losing political face — or bitterly-won gains against al Qaeda.

“We must chart a more centered course,” he said after announcing that 10,000 troops would be pulled out of Afghanistan by year’s end.

“We must embrace America’s singular role in the course of human events but we must also be as pragmatic as we are passionate, as strategic as we are resolute. When threatened we must respond with force – but when that force can be targeted, we need not deploy large armies overseas.”

Robert Kagan, a former adviser to his 2008 opponent John McCain, warned that a quick withdrawal threatens recent gains against the Taliban – and popular opinion could swing against the president if an emboldened enemy takes the speech as a cue to step up attacks.

“This is a political decision, not a military decision,” he told POLITICO. “Americans are tired of this war, that’s true. But they hate losing more, and if there’s the perception that we’re being run out of there, the public will turn on him fast.”

Stephen Hayes, a writer with the conservative Weekly Standard, summed up the view of many hawks when he told Fox News that Obama seemed to be “declaring” victory even though Afghanistan teeters on the verge of violent chaos.

“I think we’ve undercut a strategy that was working,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned. “Having all the surged forces leave by next summer is going to compromise next summer’s fighting season.”

Liberals, on the other hand, think the speed of the pull-out is too sluggish, with Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) expressing disappointment and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) telling MSNBC the 30,000 troops “ought to come home by the end of the year.”


Yet the politics of Afghanistan are scrambled and unpredictable, with many Republicans citing the fiscal strains of waging two full wars – and the House GOP threatening to pass legislation de-funding Obama’s controversial intervention in Libya.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) seemed skeptical but not overtly hostile to Obama’s speech. “Congress will hold the administration accountable for ensuring that the pace and scope of the drawdown does not undermine the progress we’ve made thus far,” he said in a statement.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t reject the plan out of hand either, focusing on the need for the White House to adjust their timetable according to conditions on the ground.

“The drawdown of forces described by the president needs to be conducted in a manner that respects the professional judgment of our military commanders, preserves the security gains of the last year and allows for a slower pace of withdrawal if necessary,” McConnell said.

In the hours leading up to the address, Obama’s staff emphasized a triumph without triumphalism.

Yet it was hard to mistake Obama’s valedictory tone, despite his acknowledgement that the gains in Afghanistan could be fleeting and that “dark days” of fighting remained prior to a larger pull-out in 2014.

“Mission Accomplished” it wasn’t – the best Obama offered was “The tide of war is receding.” But he mentioned the killing of Bin Laden no fewer than six times while praising the surge and he began with an explanation of his decision to transfer military resources from Iraq to Afghanistan.

Obama aides emphasized that “Operation Enduring Freedom,” which has cost the lives of more than 1,600 Americans over the last decade, has finally achieved many of its objectives under his stewardship. With the terror threat migrating to Yemen and Pakistan, they declared that the smart war simply doesn’t look quite so smart anymore.

“On the threat side, we haven’t seen a terrorist threat emanating from Afghanistan for the past seven or eight years,” a senior national security official told reporters.

“There has been clearly fighting and threats inside of Afghanistan,” the person said, adding that that there is “no indication at all that there is any effort within Afghanistan to use Afghanistan as a launching pad to carry out attacks outside of Afghan borders.”

Smart, dumb or otherwise, Afghanistan remains an easily forgettable, if not altogether forgotten war. And Obama’s speech didn’t seem to attract the attention of previous addresses he’s delivered.

Of the three broadcast networks, only one – CBS – led with the Obama speech on their evening news shows. ABC and NBC both featured the floods in North Dakota at the top of their broadcasts.

That reflected a larger focus, adopted by Obama himself, on tending to the country’s internal affairs, especially the economy, and pulling back from the international entanglements of the Bush years.

“We have spent a trillion dollars on war, at a time of rising debt and hard economic times,” Obama said. The president acknowledged the popular frustration with seeing schools and roads built abroad at American expense while an atmosphere of fiscal austerity reigns in the U.S.

“America, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home,” Obama declared.

Under Obama’s plan, roughly 68,000 U.S. troops would remain in Afghanistan by late next year — about twice as many as were in the country when he took office. He vowed to continue to withdraw troops “at a steady pace,” though he offered no further details on the timetable.

“This is the beginning – but not the end – of our effort to wind down this war,” he said. “We will have to do the hard work of keeping the gains that we have made, while we drawdown our forces and transition responsibility for security to the Afghan government.”

ART IMITATES LIFE - POTUS BECOMES NEVILLE CHAMBERLAIN

HISTORY

16th September 1938: Neville Chamberlain (1869 - 1940) prime minister, arrives back at Heston aerodrome after his appeasement meeting with Adolf Hitler.

TODAY - ART IMITATES LIFE...


POTUS repeats history, not because his political foes are as bad as Germany, but simply because he is as feckless, incompetent and as clueless as Neville Chamberlain was....He had control of both houses of Congress and he still couldn't get it done....He was self-absorbed and turned a deaf ear to the real needs of the American people - instead he spent our treasure on the STIMULUS, which is nothing more than a slush fund for his political friends, and a Healthcare Bill that is the most wasteful and screwed up bill ever produced by Congress...They weren't even reading the bill before they passed it....His Presidency was like handing the keys to a brand new car to a teenager, then watching as POTUS drove our country into the ditch and then tried to blame it on everyone else.

The American people could have elected better but bought into the dreck that the media fed them and that brings us to today, with an American President that emboldens our enemies and imperils us as he cannot even handle things at home...

Maybe he should have listened to another voice out of history.....

“ Strong men don't compromise, it is said, and principles should never be compromised.”

Andrew Carnegie (Scottish born American Industrialist and Philanthropist. 1835-1919)

It is OBVIOUS that POTUS never had any principles to start with....his favorite thing to do is admiring himself in the mirror while looking down his nose at those in our country who try to work hard and earn a living.

So if POTUS is Neville Chamberlain, where is our WINSTON CHURCHILL now that we need him more than ever????

'The people have spoken, the bastards." - How the DEMS feel after the election....Americans Vote for Maturity

Peggy gets the message - too bad Mr. Clueless, a.k.a as "Mr. President" can't catch a clue. I found another article that illustrates that clearly, but this one tells it like it is.....Too bad the "Moon-Bat" Liberals like Pelosi can't figure it out....you lost because the Voters DON"T WANT what you're selling and have no interest in following you....rejection. Figure it out.

The President and the DEMS "act" like they feel they are the smartest people in the room, but OBVIOUSLY they aren't. The clueless factor is what galls me and the average voter...How can you be so clueless and at the same time, act so arrogantly smug?

U.S. Edition
WSJ.com

Americans Vote for Maturity -
Obama gets a rebuke, but so do Republicans who seem unqualified.
By PEGGY NOONAN WSJ

" The people have spoken, the bastards."

That is how Democrats in the White House and on Capitol Hill are feeling. The last two years of their leadership have been rebuffed. The question for the Democratic Party: Was it worth it? Was it worth following the president and the speaker in their mad pursuit of liberal legislation that the country would not, could not, like? And what will you do now? Which path will you take?

The Republicans saw their own establishment firmly, sharply put down. The question for them: What will you do to show yourselves worthy of the bounty?

The Republicans won big, but both parties return to Washington chastened. Good.

Two small points on the election's atmospherics that carry implications for the future. The first is that negative ads became boring, unpersuasive. Forty years ago they were new, exciting in a sort of prurient way. Now voters take for granted that politicians are no good, and such ads are just more polluted water going over the waterfall. The biggest long-term loser: liberalism. If all pols are sleazoid crooks, then why would people want to give them more governmental power to order our lives? The implicit message of two generations of negative ads: Vote conservative, limit the reach of the thieves.

The second, not much noticed, is that all candidates must assume now that they are being taped, wherever they are, including private conversations. Sharron Angle was taped in a private meeting with a potential supporter, who leaked it to the press, to her embarrassment. The taper/leaker was a sleaze and a weasel—a sleazel—but candidates can no longer ever assume they are speaking in confidence; they have to assume even aides and supporters are wired. (Go reread "Game Change" and wonder if some of the conversations reported there were taped.) The zone of privacy just got smaller, and the possibility of blackmail, a perennial unseen force in politics, wider. Prediction: This fact will, at some point in 2012, cause an uproar.

On to the aftermath of the election. On Wednesday, President Obama gave a news conference to share his thoughts. Viewers would have found it disappointing if there had been any viewers. The president is speaking, in effect, to an empty room. From my notes five minutes in: "This wet blanket, this occupier of the least interesting corner of the faculty lounge, this joy-free zone, this inert gas." By the end I was certain he will never produce a successful stimulus because he is a human depression.

Actually I thought the worst thing you can say about a president: He won't even make a good former president.

His detachment is so great, it is even from himself. As he spoke, he seemed to be narrating from a remove. It was like hearing the audiobook of Volume I of his presidential memoirs. "Obama was frustrated. He honestly didn't understand what the country was doing. It was as if they had compulsive hand-washing disorder. In '08 they washed off Bush. Now they're washing off Obama. There he is, swirling down the drain! It's all too dramatic, too polar. The morning after the election it occurred to him: maybe he should take strong action. Maybe he should fire America! They did well in 2008, but since then they've been slipping. They weren't giving him the followership he needed. But that wouldn't work, they'd only complain. He had to keep his cool. His aides kept telling him, 'Show humility.' But they never told him what humility looked like. What was he supposed to do, burst into tears and say hit me? Not knowing how to feel humility or therefore show humility he decided to announce humility: He found the election 'humbling,' he said."

What Democrats have to learn from this election: Cut loose from that. Join with Republicans where you can, create legislation together, send the bill to the White House, see what happens. Even as the Republicans have succeeded in getting out from under George W. Bush, this is your chance to get out from under Mr. Obama, and possibly prosper in 2012 whatever happens to him.

What the tea party, by which I mean members and sympathizers, has to learn from 2010 is this: Not only the message is important but the messenger.

Even in a perfect political environment, those candidates who were conservative but seemed strange, or unprofessional, or not fully qualified, or like empty bags skittering along the street, did not fare well. The tea party provided the fire and passion of the election, and helped produce major wins—Marco Rubio by 19 points! But in the future the tea party is going to have to ask itself: Is this candidate electable? Will he pass muster with those who may not themselves be deeply political but who hold certain expectations as to the dignity and stature required of those who hold office?

This is the key question the tea party will face in 2012. And it will be hard to answer it, because the tea party doesn't have leaders or conventions, so the answer will have to bubble up from a thousand groups, from 10,000 leaders.

Electable doesn't mean not-conservative. Electable means mature, accomplished, stable—and able to persuade.

Conservatives talked a lot about Ronald Reagan this year, but they have to take him more to heart, because his example here is a guide. All this seemed lost last week on Sarah Palin, who called him, on Fox, "an actor." She was defending her form of political celebrity—reality show, "Dancing With the Stars," etc. This is how she did it: "Wasn't Ronald Reagan an actor? Wasn't he in 'Bedtime for Bonzo,' Bozo, something? Ronald Reagan was an actor."

Excuse me, but this was ignorant even for Mrs. Palin. Reagan people quietly flipped their lids, but I'll voice their consternation to make a larger point. Ronald Reagan was an artist who willed himself into leadership as president of a major American labor union (Screen Actors Guild, seven terms, 1947-59.) He led that union successfully through major upheavals (the Hollywood communist wars, labor-management struggles); discovered and honed his ability to speak persuasively by talking to workers on the line at General Electric for eight years; was elected to and completed two full terms as governor of California; challenged and almost unseated an incumbent president of his own party; and went on to popularize modern conservative political philosophy without the help of a conservative infrastructure. Then he was elected president.

The point is not "He was a great man and you are a nincompoop," though that is true. The point is that Reagan's career is a guide, not only for the tea party but for all in politics. He brought his fully mature, fully seasoned self into politics with him. He wasn't in search of a life when he ran for office, and he wasn't in search of fame; he'd already lived a life, he was already well known, he'd accomplished things in the world.

Here is an old tradition badly in need of return: You have to earn your way into politics. You should go have a life, build a string of accomplishments, then enter public service. And you need actual talent: You have to be able to bring people in and along. You can't just bully them, you can't just assert and taunt, you have to be able to persuade.

Americans don't want, as their representatives, people who seem empty or crazy. They'll vote no on that.

It's not just the message, it's the messenger.

Regret...

I regret people were dumb enough to elect "Barry from Chicago"...bet he'll regret that he decided to act like a prize winning jack-arse over the last 18 months and wasted his chance to prove the critics wrong....instead, all he did was prove them right...

Look for POTUS to enjoy " Lame Duck " status for the next two year starting on Nov. 3rd followed by lotsa fingerpointing/back-biting/whining on the DEMS side of things...bring it on.