The “Obamameter” is the St. Petersburg Times new tool for following President Obama’s progress on completing his campaign promises. It’s very cute and handy, but is it any more reliable than the president?
While checking in to the site this afternoon, I came across this in the “Promise Kept” section: “No. 125: Direct military leaders to end war in Iraq.” Needless to say, my jaw dropped. Did I miss something super important when I compiled my daily casualty report this morning? Should I run out and pick up a hard copy of the newspaper in hopes of seeing “IRAQ WAR ENDS” as the headline? Or should I just dig into this “promise kept” a little bit further?
As evidence of a kept promise, the paper quoted Obama as saying, “on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war” and re-ran a story on Obama’s historic meeting with military officials. Okay, so that is vaguely true, but is it what the public was hoping for? A meeting that, even a month later, has given us no new, concrete plans? President Bush undercut that promise anyway, when gave us the SOFA agreement that forces U.S. combat troops out by the end of 2011. I was expecting more at this point in the administration. Heck, the Obama hasn’t even bothered to get a new Defense Secretary yet.
Obama in the same op-ed piece wrote, “[we] can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months.” That particular sentence, I believe, is what lured many voters to pull Obama’s knob in the voter’s booth. But, as of this morning, he is still considering a 23-month timeline—and the drawdown in Iraq would be mostly to feed the Afghanistan surge instead of ending U.S. warmongering.
Thankfully, the Times has the 16-month timeline as their next campaign promise, but if you are looking just in the “Promises Kept” section, you get the phony impression that Obama has done something to speed up the end of the war. At least that’s what I thought at first. I don’t know if the Obamameter’s editors meant to be intellectually dishonest — I actually don’t think so — but we have to stay on top the media and the President if this endless is ever to actually end.
Unfortunately, President Obama has also apparently kept the following promise: “No. 134: Send two additional brigades to Afghanistan.”
We have to do something about that too.
The U.S. should get out of Iraq. And Afghanistan. And South Korea. And Okinawa. And Europe…..the American overseas empire should be dissolved. The troops should all come home and most of them should be demobilized. America should just become a ‘normal’ country with a ‘normal’ foreign policy. Or as close to ‘normal’ as Washington can ever be.
Heck, the Obama hasn’t even bothered to get a new Defense Secretary yet.
“New” “Defense” Secretary? I don’t think we’ve ever HAD a “Defense” Secretary; Secretaries of “War” or Secretaries for the “Aggressive Expansion of the Empire Abroad”, yes. But a “Defense” Secretary? Not within our lifetime, that’s for sure.
Secretaries of Terror and Extermination is the way Mankind thinks of them.
Back in the day they were accurately labeled as Secretaries of “War”. But when the US began expanding its Empire, so they began calling them Secretaries of “Defense”. I suspect 20 years from now they will be called Secretaries of “Peace”, while holding the same position.
Recall all troops, transfer them to the Army Corp of Engineers, declare war on energy dependence and failing infrastructure. Most troops enlisted because of dire economic circumstances, so put them to work where the country needs it: at home. Build electric rail systems that are powered by parallel networks of renewable generation. Build proper levees around New Orleans, build hospitals and schools. Convert the US Military Academies into the world’s largest and most advanced medical and environmental educational institutions.
And shovel my driveway, dammit.
And at the end of that 16 or 23 month timeline or whatever, guess what? There will still be tens of thousands of our troops and mercs still occupying Iraq.
BO’s a lying, warmongering fraud, nothing more.
Barrack Obama never fooled me for an instant. the powers that be (iron heel)have control so tight nothing changes all that much, and the “controlled media” dutifully comply. if americans really wanted change theyd vote for someone like Ron Paul, but who today is really educated enough to vote? who today is capable of abstract thought with a knowledge of history and economics, with a sense of duty to “our” nation? too few it seems, it showed on election day.
I have contributed to AntiWar on several occasions in the past and unfortunately I am not able to do so presently since I lost my job a few weeks ago and I need every penny I have.
I love Antiwar.com and would be lost without it. Yet, it seems to me that lately, they have adds popping up all over the place. Surely they are getting paid for presenting them and surely whatever they are being paid does go towards making up any shortfall in the $70,000.00 being asked for.
I think, they should just stop the pretense and go full out with selling adds and I would be the very first to wish them all the best of luck (they deserve all of it) as they do so, which they already started to do anyhow.