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Obama's Foreign Prerogative
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bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 5:46 pm Post subject:

bacasper wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one.

Huh? Timetable for what exactly? After all, Obama has tripled troops in
Afghanistan.

No, I know he increased the troop #s (hence my reference to the lost cause), but he also said that they'll draw down. The increase isn't indefinite.

Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:02 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

bacasper wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one.

Huh? Timetable for what exactly? After all, Obama has tripled troops in
Afghanistan.

No, I know he increased the troop #s (hence my reference to the lost cause), but he also said that they'll draw down. The increase isn't indefinite.

Do you actually believe they will pull out when the time table says to. I bet you 5million won they don't. What even is the exact day? December 24th 2011?

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:14 pm Post subject:

Senior wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

bacasper wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one.

Huh? Timetable for what exactly? After all, Obama has tripled troops in
Afghanistan.

No, I know he increased the troop #s (hence my reference to the lost cause), but he also said that they'll draw down. The increase isn't indefinite.

Do you actually believe they will pull out when the time table says to. I bet you 5million won they don't. What even is the exact day? December 24th 2011?

Well it is happening with Iraq. Granted, it was a little behind schedule, but not by a whole lot, especially by gov't standards.

Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:18 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Senior wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

bacasper wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one.

Huh? Timetable for what exactly? After all, Obama has tripled troops in
Afghanistan.

No, I know he increased the troop #s (hence my reference to the lost cause), but he also said that they'll draw down. The increase isn't indefinite.

Do you actually believe they will pull out when the time table says to. I bet you 5million won they don't. What even is the exact day? December 24th 2011?

Well it is happening with Iraq. Granted, it was a little behind schedule, but not by a whole lot, especially by gov't standards.

As far as I know, there are still something like 100,000 troops in Iraq. They might be pulling some of those troops out, but how many are being re-deployed to Afghanistan? What is the date for zero troop presence in Iraq? How about Afghanistan?

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:29 pm Post subject:

Senior wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

Senior wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

bacasper wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one.

Huh? Timetable for what exactly? After all, Obama has tripled troops in
Afghanistan.

No, I know he increased the troop #s (hence my reference to the lost cause), but he also said that they'll draw down. The increase isn't indefinite.

Do you actually believe they will pull out when the time table says to. I bet you 5million won they don't. What even is the exact day? December 24th 2011?

Well it is happening with Iraq. Granted, it was a little behind schedule, but not by a whole lot, especially by gov't standards.

Article

Most by august of this year (down to 35-40K), all by 12/31/11. That's from Iraq.

Senior

Joined: 31 Jan 2010

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:32 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

Senior wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

Senior wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

bacasper wrote:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one.

Huh? Timetable for what exactly? After all, Obama has tripled troops in
Afghanistan.

No, I know he increased the troop #s (hence my reference to the lost cause), but he also said that they'll draw down. The increase isn't indefinite.

Do you actually believe they will pull out when the time table says to. I bet you 5million won they don't. What even is the exact day? December 24th 2011?

Well it is happening with Iraq. Granted, it was a little behind schedule, but not by a whole lot, especially by gov't standards.

Article

Most by august of this year (down to 35-40K), all by 12/31/11. That's from Iraq.

Thanks. I'll believe it when I see it.

bucheon bum

Joined: 16 Jan 2003

Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2010 6:36 pm Post subject:

And in fact they're speeding things up

Quote:

The massive operation already underway a year ahead of the Aug. 31, 2010, deadline to remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraq shows the U.S. military has picked up the pace of a planned exit from Iraq that could cost billions.

The goal is to withdraw tens of thousands of troops and about 60% of equipment out of Iraq by the end of next March, Brig. Gen. Heidi Brown, a deputy commander charged with overseeing the withdrawal, told the Associated Press in one of the first detailed accounts of how the U.S. military plans to leave Iraq.

Convoys carrying everything from armored trucks to radios have been rolling near daily through southern Iraq to Kuwait and the western desert to Jordan since President Obama announced the deadline to remove combat troops, leaving up to 50,000 troops under a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement until the end of 2011.

First out, Brown said, will be the early withdrawal of an Army combat brigade of about 5,000. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said a brigade would leave by the end of the year, months ahead of schedule, if violence in Iraq did not escalate beyond current levels.

That will be followed by the Marine Corps, which has already shipped out about half of its 22,000 troops and more than 50% of its equipment since May.

"In about six months or less, they will be gone," she said.

The U.S. military also plans to shrink the contractor force from roughly 130,000 to 50,000 by September 2010. Those remaining would pick up additional duties from departing troops, Brown said.

I concede those Marines are going to Afghanistan. Well a lot of them at least.

The Happy Warrior

Joined: 10 Feb 2010

Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2010 3:29 am Post subject: The National Security Summit

Obama has recently concluded his Washington, DC Nuclear Security Summit. What was the NSS about?

Quote:

The NPT will go under review next month, and the Nuclear Security Summit was really about setting the table for that meeting. The summit took the opportunity to go after the lower-hanging fruit of securing domestic nuclear materials to 1) address that important issue and 2) begin the process of building a diplomatic �coalition of the willing� to beef up NPT enforcement.

[T]he main goal of the Nuclear Security Summit was to begin raising the international priority level for actively supporting the NPT and resolving tough proliferation cases. �We used the summit shamelessly as a forcing event,� the National Security Council�s Gary Samore is quoted in the Washington Post as having said. In short, it was sort of a kick-off event rather than a stand-alone conference.

[A] follow-up meeting to track progress from the summit will occur in six short months . . . President Obama has staked much of his diplomatic reputation on this issue, and it will not likely fade far from view over the coming months.

Given that the NSS is the kick-off for a comprehensive int'l nuclear policy, nat'l security reporters like Marc Ambinder have been trying to frame the Obama Doctrine.

Ambinder wrote:

Not Everything Is Zero Sum. On nuclear security, the end state is not zero sum for most every stakeholder; it redounds to everyone's benefit to secure loose nuclear material and increase cooperation given the global interconnectedness of this particular security problem. There's no need to be adversarial and confrontational.

Bringing More Countries Into The Circle. Obama thinks that broadening the conversation is critical to making what he likes to call "transformative" progress. . . . [T]reating smaller countries as if they were larger countries -- or treating them with the same respect as larger countries -- pays secondary dividends. Obama's "pull-asides" with several leaders, including some he'd never met, are where seeds are germinated. Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kazakhstan are fundamental players -- why not bring them into the circle at the highest levels?

It's Not Personal, It's About Respect. Obama has been decidedly deferential, which, in the traditional binary way the media covers foreign policy, allegedly suggests weakness. From Obama's perspective, deference is both strategic and is demanded by the goals he sets out. Treating countries as equals foists certain obligations upon them. It helps leaders deal with internal politics.

But controversially, the NSS has all but legitimized Pakistan's nuclear program. Pakistan's Prime Minister, Yousef Raza Gilani, has already crowed about the coup Obama has delivered his country's nuclear program.

Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani wrote:

Pakistan's participation in the summit itself brings a higher degree of legitimacy to our nuclear programme. Our nuclear programme is in safe hands, and President Obama is totally convinced that our command-and-control system is undoubtedly effective.

mises

Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired

Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 12:27 pm Post subject:

bucheon bum wrote:

And while I agree that pouring more resources into Afghanistan is a lost cause at least there is a timetable for that one. And we have been steadily drawing down in Iraq, and continue to do so.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N27100144.htm

Quote:

US Senate rejects exit timetable for Afghanistan

WASHINGTON, May 27 (Reuters) - The Senate rejected a proposal on Thursday to require President Barack Obama to submit a timetable for pulling U.S. forces out of Afghanistan, despite unease among some members of his party over the nine-year-old war.

Not picking on you BB. I just put "timetable" into search so that I don't have to start a new thread.

The Happy Warrior

Joined: 10 Feb 2010

Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 5:29 pm Post subject:

Timetables are perhaps inconsistent with modern American concepts surrounding Executive Authority. Congress is given power over the purse, but the Executive is broadly empowered with national defense. There's a tension here, as Feingold reveals. And there's probably Senators who have grown skeptical about the war who feel its not their place to wind it down. They may be right.

Fox

Joined: 04 Mar 2009

Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 5:49 pm Post subject:

The Happy Warrior wrote:

Timetables are perhaps inconsistent with modern American concepts surrounding Executive Authority. Congress is given power over the purse, but the Executive is broadly empowered with national defense. There's a tension here, as Feingold reveals. And there's probably Senators who have grown skeptical about the war who feel its not their place to wind it down. They may be right.

I think you're right about current concepts of executive authority, but I also think that needs to change. We can see where those current concepts got us, and the results aren't good. Executive authority needs to be reigned in on this matter.

When we began these wars, my feeling was, "It's not a good idea, and if Americans allow their elected government to go through with this, they'll have to pay a price as a lesson in why needless warfare is bad." Well that price has been paid sufficiently, and it's time to stop. A mistake was made. No matter how long we spend in Afghanistan, it's all going to fall apart when we leave. The excuses we see today will be the same excuses we see in one year, in five years, and so on. If anything, things will likely get worse as the American military continues to kill civilians.

Russ Feingold, as is so often the case, is correct. It's time to put a firm end date on this matter, and stick to it, and maybe this time learn that overwhelming military might is not an applicable means of solving problems which are ultimately cultural in nature.

Purely as an aside, I consider Russ Feingold to be one of the -- if not the single -- best Senators in our nation, and I'm quite proud to have him representing my home state.

The Happy Warrior

Joined: 10 Feb 2010

Posted: Thu May 27, 2010 6:12 pm Post subject:

Fox wrote:

Purely as an aside, I consider Russ Feingold to be one of the -- if not the single -- best Senators in our nation, and I'm quite proud to have him representing my home state.

Yes. He's a rare breed of Left Civil Libertarian that has a sense of fiscal propriety and none of the battiness of other liberals.

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