Obama Goes After McCain on Issue of Timetable
Barack Obama criticized Senator John McCain for not supporting a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, even though the Republican leader says the U.S. and Iraqi allies are winning the war and it is only a matter of time before insurgent, extremist forces are destroyed.
If that is true, Obama wonders, why can’t McCain support a timetable. After all, if the war is almost won, it is time to think about bringing the troops home, isn’t it?
It is a fair point. If it’s almost won, why can’t one talk about a timetable? Why not indeed?
Well, the ‘why’ can be answered as followed; things are improving, but a lot of work still remains to be done. The war is going well, but that does not mean the U.S. can afford to withdraw whenever it wants to, nor does it mean it can afford to empower extremists by publicly setting timetables.
That is one response, not necessarily mine, nor anyone else’s.
What is most interesting about this debate is that one gets the feeling the two are not separated too much on this specific issue. Obama is unlikely to withdraw prematurely from Iraq; it will destroy his legacy. McCain, on the other hand, won’t keep U.S. troops one day longer in Iraq than necessary. These two principles lead one to the logical conclusion that forces will be withdrawn at approximately the same time. In order to safe face, all Obama has to say is that it may have ended up quite well, but that the result was not worth the cost. That would go well with quite people, one would think.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
This whole timetable idea, is completely flawed.
As you said, it empowers our enemies. It informs them of moments where our troops are weakest.
Most importantly, we haven’t finished the job.
This is like having a progress-bar for downloading a file that we do not know the size of…
It certainly seems that both candidates are using ‘gatcha’ politics here with very little substantive differences on what the future of us involvement in Iraq would look like.
One counter to the ‘empowering enemies’ argument could easily be made by saying that the timetable doesn’t have to be public. "I can’t share with you the exact dates of US troop withdrawl, because unfortunately our enemies are listening, but rest assured, we plan on bringing our troops home soon, and we have specific timetables in place within the pentagon" or something like that.