Even though my feelings about the Obama campaign did not develop positively since its beginning, I am completely and utterly mystified by the rush from the Left to brand Barack Obama and his candidacy as some kind of Republican front or something.
It's absurd.
I've been lectured by people on how Patriot Act Co-Author and proud member of the New Democrat Coalition John Edwards was the "real" leftist in the race. I've been lectured about how Hillary Clinton - the Senator from NEW YORK, for pete's sake - has a far superior position on Israel, as if she is some great ally of the Palestinian people.
And then we have Krugman constantly yammering how Obama's enforceable, rational, defined health insurance mandate program is practically a plot against healthcare while Senator Clinton's undefined, (as far as I know) unenforceable mandate program will wash all our troubles away.
Now Obama - who has, in fact, opposed the Iraq war from the start - is some crypto-McCain who will sneak past us 100 years of occupation.
Bullshit.
Obama is a Democrat. He's light on experience. He needs to be reassuring.
Will he pull out troops as rapidly as Kucinich would? Faster, actually, because Kucinich is not in the race, he would lose if he was and he would be a gift to Republicans even if he did somehow win.
Any Democrat will start by withdrawal through relative inaction - but thirty to forty thousand troops will simply rotate home within months of Bush's last day in office if a Dem is elected.
Even a Democrat who wants to project a more "muscular" foreign policy will rotate troops out of Iraq in addition to that. Sending a larger force to Afghanistan would necessitate large redeployments of combat forces out of Iraq and significantly reduce the remaining forces.
It sounds odd, but simply moving soldiers and marines to more forward, combat areas in Afghanistan would significantly change the structure of the Iraq force for the smaller AND reduce TOTAL deployments. The war in Afghanistan is much more about forward-deployed combat forces and much less about occupation forces. It is, therefore, a lighter operation. Think of combat soldiers as the point of a pyramid. If they are forward-deployed in rural and mountainous terrain, there is a much smaller base to the pyramid than if they are simply the cutting point of a large, urban occupation force. I'm not arguing the merits of such a move, but I am pointing out that even the most right-wing Democrat will have an easy route to follow to remove tens of thousands of troops from Iraq.
And if we're talking about a candidate worth endorsing who has the best Iraq policy and best-demonstrated commitment to ending the war, it's Barack Obama, hands-down.
boddi
On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 12:12 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> The Nation - April 7, 2008
>
> Letters
>
> About That Obama Endorsement...
>
> New York City
>
> I was not surprised by your endorsement of Barack Obama ["Obama's
> Promise," Feb. 25]. But I was astonished that you made no mention of
> an editorial you ran almost exactly twelve months earlier vowing "not
> [to] support any candidate who does not call for a speedy withdrawal
> of our troops" from Iraq ["Into 2008," Feb. 26, 2007]. "Speedy
> withdrawal" is not Obama's position, by a long shot. Not only has he
> promised to maintain a military presence in order to protect the new
> US Embassy in Baghdad, the largest embassy in the world; he also says
> he'll keep troops in or around Iraq in case "Al Qaeda attempts to
> build a base within Iraq." Considering that Al Qaeda already has a
> base in Iraq, this is a loophole big enough to admit a B-52. Promises
> of any kind of withdrawal, speedy or sluggish, are thus meaningless.
>
> Obama also says he'll send two additional brigades to Afghanistan,
> increase the number of US combat troops overall by 100,000 and strike
> at "terrorist" targets inside Pakistan with or without the Pakistani
> government's say-so. Not even the Bush Administration goes that far.
>
> The next time you run a tough-talking editorial like the one in
> February 2007, perhaps you ought to attach a disclaimer saying, "Not
> to be taken seriously."
>
> DANIEL LAZARE
>
>
>
>
> The Editors Reply
>
> In November 2005 we stated in our cover editorial: "The Nation will
> not support any candidate for national office who does not make a
> speedy end to the war in Iraq a major issue of his or her campaign."
> We urged all voters to join us in adopting this position. In February
> 2007, we harked back to that editorial when we wrote, "This magazine
> has already staked out its position on one of the day's great
> challenges: ending the military occupation of Iraq. We will not
> support any candidate who does not call for a speedy withdrawal of
> our troops."
>
> In accord with our November 2005 statement, Barack Obama has made a
> speedy end to the war in Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign. His
> opposition to that war from its start has been the core of both his
> distinction from Hillary Clinton and his legitimate claim for having
> the judgment needed to be President.
>
> This does not mean that The Nation endorses every one of his Iraq-
> related policies. Obama's plan to end the war--like that of the
> largest bloc of antiwar Democrats in Congress--falls short in some
> important respects. The size of the embassy he plans to maintain, his
> ambiguous stance on private contractors and his plans for a sizable
> "follow-on force" are all reasons for concern (see Jeremy Scahill's
> "Obama's Mercenary Position," March 17). In the remainder of this
> presidential campaign, and no matter who wins the nomination, the
> very definition of withdrawal will be repeatedly contested--and we
> will continue to publish articles and editorials that strive to
> sharpen and clarify the terms of that debate. Moreover, we will
> continue to oppose the commitment of both Clinton and Obama to
> increasing the size of the military and to spending more on our
> military than the rest of the world combined. We believe that
> progressives must mobilize to challenge these policies.
>
> We endorsed Obama as the better choice in this election, in part
> because we believe that the new energy he is calling into electoral
> politics will push the limits of his own politics. We applaud him for
> his commitment to grassroots organizing and mobilization, for
> unleashing this new energy. It will be our task--and the task of
> activists and others across the country--to keep pushing beyond the
> limits that he or any candidate for President would define.
>
> THE EDITORS
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>