Un message de la MAF sur la visite d'Obama en Irak

OBAMA ATTEMPTS TO
STOP U.S. TROOP WITHDRAWAL
DISGRACEFUL ACTION TAKEN IN IRAQ
FOR POLITICAL ADVANTAGE!

Dear Friends:

It is almost impossible to believe Barack Obama can be this arrogant.  But sometimes the worst about politicians is true.  It looks like Barack Obama told the Iraqi government to halt negotiations on troop withdrawals until after the election.

Obama is putting his own political objectives ahead of the safety of U.S. troops in Iraq.  Apparently this all happened during his celebrated trip to Iraq - yes, the same trip where he refused to meet with American military personnel in the hospital in Germany because they wouldn't let news camera crews turn the visit into a circus and political stunt.

 

Iraqi government sources have revealed to the New York Post that Presidential candidate Barack Obama demanded that Iraqi officials stop negotiations with the Bush Administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq. 

Fearful that the success in Iraq would harm his political aspirations, Obama sought to keep U.S. troops in Iraq so he can continue attacking the Bush Administration for not imposing a timetable for withdrawal.  If these allegations prove to be true, it should be the end of the Obama campaign.  The report says this was a demand Obama made to Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari.

You can bet the mainstream media will try to smother this story and keep Americans from finding out about what happened. Only Fox News has reported it so far. 
 
Obama should have the decency to recognize that he lacks the moral character to serve as Commander-in-Chief, and he should withdraw from the ticket.  I have never heard of any candidate deliberately trying to get Americans killed to prove their point.

According to the New York Post story, not only did Obama seek to get the Iraqi to stop negotiating with Americans on the troop drawdown, he also tried to bully General David Petraeus to agree to a hard withdrawal date.

 
The hypocrisy of Barack Obama - to say, in the United States, that he wants a speedier troop withdrawal date - while telling the Iraqis to stop negotiating is appalling.  Even supporters of a quicker U.S. withdrawal must be sickened by his conduct in Iraq. If there were ever a candidate who has demonstrated the lack of character and leadership to represent the United States in foreign affairs, it is Barack Obama.


Paid for and authorized by the Move America Forward Freedom PAC(MAF PAC) - a federal political action committee.  MAF Freedom PAC is responsible for the content of this message. This message is not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. 

Move America Forward Freedom PAC
Attn: Betty Presley
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(Rapidement : Obama a profité de sa visite en Irak pour tenter de négocier un retrait rapide des troupes US s'il était élu, ce qui n'est pas vraiment dans les fonctions d'un candidat. Move American Forward est une association qui défend les soldats américains engagés dans la lutte contre la terreur. On comprend qu'ils n'aient pas vraiment apprécié cette attitude, d'autant qu'Obama n'a toujours pas reconnu l'efficacité du travail du général Patreus)

Comments

[Sebaneau]

http://www.nypost.com/seven/09172008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/obama_objects_129453.htm
OBAMA OBJECTS
By AMIR TAHERI, New York Post, 17 September 2008
BUT THE EVIDENCE SAYS I'M RIGHT
IN Monday's Post, I discussed how Barack Obama, during his
July trip, had asked Iraqi leaders not to finalize an agreement vital
to the future of US forces in Iraq - and how the effect of such a delay
would be to postpone the departure of the US from Iraq beyond the time
Obama himself calls for. The Obama campaign has objected. While its statement says my article
was "filled with distortions," the rebuttal actually centers on a
technical point: the differences between two Iraqi-US accords under
negotiation - the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA, to set rules
governing US military personnel in Iraq) and the Strategic Framework
Agreement (SFA, to settle the legal basis for the US military presence
in Iraq in the months and years ahead). The Obama camp says I confused the two. It continues:
"On
the Status of Forces Agreement, Sen. Obama has always said he hoped
that the US and Iraq would complete it - but if they did not, the
option of extending the UN mandate should be considered. "As to the Strategic Framework Agreement, Sen. Obama has consistently
said that any security arrangements that outlast this administration
should have the backing of the US Congress - especially given the fact
that the Iraqi parliament will have the opportunity to vote on it."
If there is any confusion, it's in Obama's position - for
the two agreements are interlinked: You can't have any US military
presence under one agreement without having settled the other accord.
(Thus, in US-Iraqi talks, the aim is a comprehensive agreement that covers both SOFA and SFA.) And the claim that Obama only wanted the Strategic Framework Agreement
delayed until a new administration takes office, and had no objection
to a speedy conclusion of a Status of Forces Agreement, is simply untrue. Here is how NBC reported Obama's position on June 16, after his conversation in the US with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari:
"Obama also told Zebari, he said, that Congress should be involved in any negotiations regarding a Status of Forces Agreement with Iraq. He suggested it may be better to wait until the next administration to negotiate such an agreement."
In other words, Obama wanted a delay on the Status of Forces Agreement, not on the Strategic Framework Agreement - as his rebuttal now claims. The NBC report continues:
"Asked
by NBC's Lee Cowan if a timetable for the Status of Forces Agreement
was discussed, Obama said, 'Well he, the foreign minister, had
presented a letter requesting an extension of the UN resolution until
the end of this year. So that' s a six-month extension.'"
That Obama was aware that the two accords couldn't be separated is clear in his words to NBC:
"Obviously, we can't have US forces operating on the ground in Iraq
without some sort of agreement, either a further extension of the UN
resolution or some sort of Status of Forces agreement, some strategic
framework agreement. As I said before, my concern is that the Bush
administration -- in a weakened state politically -- ends up trying to
rush an agreement that in some ways might be binding to the next
administration, whether it was my administration or Sen. McCain' s
administration." (Emphasis added.)
Obama also told NBC:
"The
foreign minister agreed that the next administration should not be
bound by an agreement that's currently made, but I think the only way
to assure that is to make sure that there is strong bipartisan support,
that Congress is involved, that the American people know the outlines
of this agreement.

"And my concern is that if the Bush administration negotiates, as it
currently has, and given that we're entering into the heat of political
season, that we're probably better off not trying to complete a
hard-and-fast agreement before the next administration takes office,
but I think obviously these conversations have to continue. "As I said, my No. 1 priority is making sure that we don't have a
situation in which US troops on the ground are somehow vulnerable to,
are made more vulnerable, because there is a lack of a clear mandate."
This confirms precisely what I suggested in my article: Obama preferred
to have no agreement on US troop withdrawals until a new administration
took office in Washington. Obama has changed position on another key issue. In the NBC report, he
pretends that US troops in Iraq do not have a "clear mandate." Now, however, he admits that there is a clear mandate from the UN Security Council and that he'd have no objection to extending it pending a bilateral Iraq-US agreement. The campaign's rebuttal adds other confusions to the mix. It notes that
Obama (along with two other senators who accompanied him) also stated
in July:
"We
raised a number of other issues with the Iraqi leadership, including
our deep concern about Iranian financial and material assistance to
militia engaged in violent acts against American and Iraqi forces; the
need to secure public support through our respective legislatures for
any long term security agreements our countries negotiate; the
importance of doing more to help the more than 4 million Iraqis who are
refugees or internally displaced persons; and the need to give our
troops immunity from Iraqi prosecution so long as they are in Iraq."
Note that in this part of the statement, the term "security agreements"
is used instead of SOFA and SFA - another sign that the two can' t be
separated. In any case, I never said Obama didn't raise other issues with the
Iraqis. Yet all those issues have been the subject of US-Iraqi talks
between the US and Iraq (and of conferences attended by Iraq's
neighbors) for the last five years. Simply repeating them isn' t enough to hide the fact that Obama' s
policy on Iraq consists of little more than a few contradictory slogans. My account of Obama's message to the Iraqis was based on a series of
conversations with Iraqi officials, as well as reports and analyses in
the Iraqi media (including the official newspaper, Al Sabah) on the senator's trip to Baghdad. It is also confirmed by Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari. In a long interview with the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, Zebari says:
"Obama
asked me why, in view of the closeness of a change of administration,
we were hurrying the signing of this special agreement, and why we did
not wait until the coming of the new administation next year and agree
on some issues and matters."
Again, note that Zebari mentions a single set of agreements, encompassing both SFA and SOFA. Zebari continues:
"I
told Obama that, as an Iraqi, I believe that even if there is a
Democratic administration in the White House it had better continue the
present policy instead of wasting a lot of time thinking what to do."
In other words, Obama was trying to derail current US policy, while Zebari was urging him not to "waste time." Zebari then says:
"I
pointed out to him [Obama] that the agreement being negotiated [with
the US] was not to be necessarily binding on the future administration
unless it wanted to cooperate with the people of Iraq instead of
[causing] crises and problems from its very start."
According to Zebari, Obama said
"some
media reports that I want all [American] forces withdrawn are wrong. I
want to keep American forces [in Iraq] to train [the Iraqi army] and
fight terrorism."
This is precisely what US troops have been doing in Iraq for the last five years. Zebari then says that he had the impression that US policy in Iraq wouldn't change:
"The
US has permanent strategic interests in our region. A change in the
administration would not change realities and priorities and would not
mean a change of policy as a whole." (Full text of the Zebari interview
is available on Asharqalawsat.com)
Contrary to what Obama and his campaign have said, Iraqi officials
insist that at no point in his talks in Washington and Baghdad did
Obama make a distinction between SOFA and SFA when he advised them to wait for the next American administration. The real news I see in the Obama statement is that there may be an encouraging evolution in his position on Iraq: The
"rebuttal" shows that the senator no longer shares his party
leadership's belief that the United States has lost the war in Iraq. He now talks of "the prospect of lasting success," perhaps hoping that his own administration would inherit the kudos. And he makes no mention of his running mate Joe Biden's pet project for carving Iraq into three separate states. He has even abandoned his earlier claim that toppling Saddam Hussein
was "illegal" and admits that the US-led coalition's presence in Iraq
has a legal framework in the shape of the UN mandate. In his statement on my Post article, Obama no longer
talks of "withdrawal" but of "redeployment" and "drawdown" - which is
exactly what is happening in Iraq now. While I am encouraged by the senator's evolution, I must also appeal to
him to issue a "cease and desist" plea to the battalions of his
sympathizers - who have been threatening me with death and worse in the days since my article appeared.