Is there any difference between the war policy of Obama and Bush?
President Barack Obama with the Nobel Prize medal and diploma during the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Raadhuset Main Hall at Oslo City Hall in Oslo, Norway, Dec. 10, 2009. Image has been cropped from original. The diploma reads (in English): “The Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting has, in accordance with the terms of the will set up by Alfred Nobel on the 27th of November 1895, awarded Barack H. Obama the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.” Photo/Pete Souza/Maison Blanche
As the anti-war, peace president went to Oslo to receive that joke of an award, I thought we should take a hard look at what Mr. Obama has done to deserve the peace prize.”No matter how justified, war promises human tragedy”, said the commander in chief. As the media turns a weakened eye at the latest “surge” (remember when Bush did it, many on the left went nuts and the press was horrible). The number of 30,000 has been printed in the media for the last 9 days and this is the number the President himself used in his speech last week.The facts are that Iraq, the Bush “surge” deployed an extra 28,000 troops. Let’s look at what Mr. Obama has done in 10 months:
In March he deployed an extra 21,000 troops to Afghanistan. In an unannounced and certainly underreported move, he added an additional 13,000 troops to a total of 34,000. At that point he already beat Bush by 6000 soldiers.
This had effectively doubled the number of military in Afghanistan when Bush left office. So currently, Mr Obama will have 98,000 troops in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region.
What happened to bringing troops home from Iraq? After all even the left would say we should have never been there. True Mr. Obama has removed troops in dribs and drabs, we still have 124,000 US military in the country.
So let’s look at the numbers: Obama’s total in Iraq and Afghanistan is 222,000 while the most George W Bush ever had was 186,000. That is 36,000 more troops that the peace president has over the war monger (I believe both are war mongers by the way).
And Lord have mercy this huge number doesn’t even include the 242,000 private contractors (mercenaries) we have present in the Middle East. And consider the danger of having paid mercs who have no allegiance to the US who could kill for the enemy for the right price.
Not only is the increase in troops (and not the withdrawal) troubling for me, but we are making enemies in Pakistan with drone attacks. Mr. Obama started days after taking office (before the Peace prize nomination by about a week) with the use of drone attacks, which are notorious at killing many innocent civilians, but the Commander in Chief has authorized as many drone attacks in Pakistan in 9 months as GW Bush did in his last 3 years.
And as I previously posted a week or two ago, we are never leaving the Middle East. Today Bush family confidant and current Obama defense secretary Robert Gates said we will be in Afghanistan long past 2011, a whole week or so after Mr. Obama said 2011!
Do these people think we are stupid? Yes they do.
Mr. Obama also said in his acceptance speech today about the justifications for war: in self-defense, to come to the aid of an invaded nation and on humanitarian grounds, such as when civilians are slaughtered by their own government or a civil war threatens to engulf an entire region.
Is that what the founders envisioned? Humanitarian grounds? We will never have enough military to prevent the numerous government atrocities on their citizens and civil wars throughout the globe! Is this Obama talking or is it Bush?
Mr. Obama put on quite an act of being humble. I don’t by it at all. I believe his ego actually believes he deserved it. In the opinion of this humble writer, Mr. Obama should’ve been embarrassed to even be nominated none the less winning it. Mr. Obama does not represent peace one iota.
