gbaji wrote:
No. Obama's stance has always been to placate the anti-war faction on the Left while not appearing too soft on foreign policy.
Nonsense.
It has been obvious for months what Obama was going to do. Escalation.
Massive projects to build military bases in Afghanistan involving billions of dollars. Thats from last January.
More from October. Spending billions on new bases and military infrastructure doesn't happen if you plan on
leaving in a few months.
I think Obama has done quite the opposite from placating the anti-war faction. He's caved into pressure from the pro-war people including Patraeus and MacChrystal, as well as the warmongering c
ocks in Congress who accused him of 'not listening to the Generals on the ground', as though they the generals should be in charge of foreign policy.
The Generals and the Pentagon have carried on escalating the war over the last year, and Obama has eventually gone along with it. Whether he went along with it because he actually wanted to, or bowed to pressure from the hawks is irrelevant now that the warmongers have got their way.
gbaji wrote:
Now that Iraq has quieted down
Are you kidding? Or did you mean 'Now that Iraq is old news and no one cares about it any more'?
If I thought for a minute that Obama actually wanted to get out of the region I would be really impressed. but that
isn't what he wants. Any more than Bush did.
After all, if he
really wanted out of the region, he would start by shutting down some of the scores of military bases that are all over the place and bringing home the tens of thousands of troops that are stationed in them.
Whilst everyone is arguing amonst themselves from their partisan positions, the US administration, wether its Bush or Obama or whoever comes next, will continue expanding their influence and power in the pursuit of resources and territory at the expense of the people who live in those places.
Empire building is what 'powerful' nations have pursued throughout history.
Why does anyone think that its any different now??