Three days before the official end of the US combat mission in Iraq, US President Barack Obama said on Saturday that the war in the country was "ending" and called Iraq a "sovereign" nation free to determine its own destiny.
"On Tuesday, after more than seven years, the United States of America will end its combat mission in Iraq and take an important step forward in responsibly ending the Iraq war," Obama said in his weekly radio address.
The president, who spends Saturday his last full vacation day at on the island of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, will cover the issue of Iraq in a nationally-televised address from the Oval Office on Tuesday.
"As a candidate for this office, I pledged I would end this war," Obama recalled in the address. "As president, that is what I am doing. We have brought home more than 90,000 troops since I took office."
US troop numbers in Iraq fell below 50,000 last Tuesday in line with Obama's instructions as part of a "responsible drawdown" of troops, seven years on from the invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein....but how many of those 90,000 troops are now in Afghanistan as part of the "surge" there to fight that particular losing war? Obama really, really should avoid making "Mission Accomplished!" type statements like this until he's brought all of our troops home from the Middle East...
...which of course will never happen.
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5 comments:
So you address none of the points made and move on?
How is this over? It's the same exact line of thought. I'm not comparing the two events in question, I'm comparing the thought process.
"I don't think they should build a Mosque because 9/11 happened nearby, and Mosques are bad because their Islamic...and Islamic people are responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center!"
vs
"I don't think Beck should have given his speech at that location on that day, because one time MLK had a famous speech at that location, and since Beck isn't supporting the same ideas, he shouldn't speak from that site on that day!"
In both examples the perpetrators have the right to however people feel it's in bad taste and they shouldn't. So either you and others are just as big of bigots and hypocrites as those wingnuts or you have more in common than you think. Either way it's bringing Americans together on common ground!
Just because you just got made out to look like a close minded person doesn't mean the discussion is over, it just means you need to admit something you don't like about yourself and either come clean with that realization, or change that thing you've decided you don't like.
Obama Derangement Syndrome for allright wingers who don't like Obama and left wingers who think they are exempt from logic and reason.
Except you, at no point during your tired tirade trying to prove that Glenn Beck's followers are victims precisely as the Park51 Muslim community is, have actually employed working logic or reason.
It's a false equivalency. At no point did I ever say Glenn Beck couldn't peaceably assemble at the Lincoln memorial. I said that he was lying when he himself said that he wasn't trying to compare himself to Dr. King, which he was. I found the lie to be offensive, and the reasoning behind it, but at no point did I ever advocate Glenn Beck not being able to exercise his Constitutional right to assembly, where as the people saying "don't build the Park51 project two blocks from Ground Zero!" certainly are advocating that Muslims in Manhattan not be able to exercise their Constitutional Rights.
That is the difference. One is me not agreeing with Glenn Beck, the other is unconstitutional bigotry.
For the love of God, grow up.
Actually Zandar, your own words sought to demonize the entire thing based on it's location bye demonizing Beck and his "reasons" for having the event to begin with. By making the kinds of half-worded out accusations of a man who should be troubled by "ghosts of people who died so he could exploit them" you set up the entire event as an unnatural blight because of it's location. You're applying the same logic of "Date and/or Location means something". MLK gave a very, very charged speech from that very spot...and therefore you are against Beck having had his rally there. Muslims are going to build a Mosque on Ground Zero! And therefore it shouldn't be allowed.... I never once compared the events, only the thoughts being invoked in the argument. Having a speech on the same stairs MLK had his from doesn't take away from MLK. It's a non-argument. It's a method used to draw upon past emotionally charged events to try and add normally unobtainable support to your cause.
Beck is doing MLK a disservice by having a speech from the same stairs rabble/rabble/bitch!
Muslims are going to build a Mosque near the site of 9/11, when the Muslims killed our people! Rabble/Rabble/Bitch
You want to come down on Beck, there are plenty of ways of doing it, trying to bring the ghosts of the Civil Rights Movement into play is poor form, and in the long run not going to help your side.
OK, and now you're on complaining that I'm equating Ground Zero to I Have A Dream.
Except that I'm not the one who's doing that, you are.
You're also equating me saying that denying a group their constitutional rights to worship in a place of their choosing as "demonizing Glenn Beck".
We keep coming back to the words "false equivalency".
It's getting tiresome.
I'm done here.
You didn't even address a single thing that was brought up. I hope you have no aspirations of actually going places as a political commentator if you can't even shut down one guy who uses metaphors and comparisons short of "THREAD OVER"
The comparison has nothing to do with "I have a Dream" and "9/11", the comparison is with the thought process of "This location has meaning and saying and/or putting something here is insulting". You keep trying to suggest I'm invoking 9/11 as an event, but I'm not. The current uproar on the national level about the Mosque boils down to a thinly veiled bigoted mindset that "Mosques are Islamic and Islamic people did WTC, and therefore the Mosque is disrespectful to the seriousness of 9/11". The arguments you've brought up about Glenn Beck have boiled down to "Glenn Beck is a right wing asshole, and his rally was on the steps of MLK's speech, and because Beck has a 180 different view then MLK, him having his speech from that location is disrespectful to MLK." It's the same style of thinking. Now, one might say the Muslim bit was fueled by racism, but I think you're incapable of NOT making a biased judgment when it comes to things such as the Civil Rights Movement, etc.
The thought process is the same, if not fueled by the same poor mindsets.
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