Web Letters: Maliki's Obama Endorsement

"The Afghan government needs to do more. But we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism," Obama said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq," he said.

Tom Hayden, wake up! Obama's election is all about the US plot to control the world's oil supply through corporatUS capitalismUS gigantUS.

Obama must be stopped before he kills more civilians.

Hey, hey, Barack-a, how many Afghan kids will you kill your first day!

I just wanted to be first in line to oppose Obama's war. Why the hell follow him into battle?

Does Obama have a vote of Congress?

How bloodthirsty is this oil-drinking capitalist exploiter, anyway?

Why doesn't he sit down and talk to the Taliban and negotiate with bin Laden to surrender?

He needs to talk day-for-day how long the Europeans have been talking to Iran before he kills his first baby, don't you think?

If anybody didn't get it so far, I'm pointing out that anything you can say about the "bad" bush war is going to apply to the "good" Obama war. Soon enough, like LBJ, the Haydens will move to get us out of Afghanistan, and Barack Obama is unlikely to have the courage to "stay the course" in the face of that opposition, especially because Barack's position is a mere campaign tactic to make it seem like he's as tough as McCain and they just disagree over where to fight.

So, he might as well not get elected on a pretext and he might as well surrender in Afghanistan on day one.

Keevan D. Morgan

Wilmette, IL

Fox News headline, July 20, 2008: " Iraqi PM Steers Clear of Obama Plan."

So your story is out of date and totally incorrect. Iraq has made it quite clear they are not in favor of Obama's plan. Even Iraq's military commanders say Iraq is not ready, in interviews I have read.

The Nation now needs to run an equally strong retraction of this story, for you have totally misinformed the electorate.

Yours for a more honest press,

Roger A. Webb

Santa Fe, NM

Perhaps you should get your facts straight. Maliki didnt endorse any exact time frame. He has only endorsed the US leaving based on conditions that are progressing on the ground. Be careful what you print. Make sure your interpretations from one language to another are accurate.

Michael Pinto

New York, NY

Maliki has already begun to reverse course on his supposed statement of support for Obama. He now says his remarks were "taken out of context."

I suspect this will blow over in a day or so.

Obama must tread very carefully here. No matter what he meant, you can be sure that Maliki was not supporting a forced pull-out of American troops, because that troop presence is against Iraqi interests. Maliki will be the first to say that without the surge--which Obama has never supported and went so far as to deny that it worked until the facts overwhelmed him a week ago--there would be no circumstances that would permit any reduction in US forces.

Chaos would still reign and Iraq would be in a mess if Obama had his way.

McCain is not against an end to the war. He simply wants it to end with victory, which by and large means a stable and Democratic government in Iraq. That goal has been nearly achieved, and McCain should receive credit for courageous support of a tactical plan that almost destroyed his candidacy. But he put country first.

Obama stubbornly stuck to his wrong judgment on Iraq and will now use the success of the surge to claim that he is right on withdrawal. At best he is the beneficiary of luck; at worst, a political opportunist.

Many see the recent US participation in the Iranian nuclear talks as vindication of Obama's position on negotiations. It is if he now claims to have invented the notion of diplomacy much the way Al Gore invented the internet!

In truth, Obama was all for direct talks between heads of state, which are far from coming to fruition, and what we are seeing now are the very preconditions and preparations that Obama was willing to bypass so he could get a crack at Ahmadinejad directly--apparently believing that by force of his personality alone he could turn the tide of years of enmity. He is both vain and naïve in that!

The Republicans are the party with the long and successful track record of negotiating with our enemies from a position of strength and achieving worthy goals. Witness the fall of the Soviet Union, the opening of relations with Red China and now, even under the (neanderthal) Bush, progress on both North Korean and Iranian nukes.

I have no doubt that McCain, with his twenty-plus years of foreign policy experience, will continue this path toward progress.

I have no such confidence that a former "community organizer" (what is that, exactly, anyway?) from Chicago who had virtually no legislative record of note (other than to vote against the giving of medical attention to babies born from botched abortions) in the Illinois State Senate and who has spent his entire US Senate tenancy seeking the presidency is at all prepared to deal with these issues, his Harvard and Columbia educations notwithstanding.

As Bill Clinton put it so well: "Give me a break! This whole thing is a fairy tale!

Pete Kent

Union, KY