Obamanos: Phil-Am for Bam!

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF. United States presidential frontrunner Barack Obama, a Democratic Senator from Illinois, tours Iraq in an American chopper together with U.S. Gen. David Petraeus and Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

Asia cheers; GOPs jeer 

By MITCH R. CONFESOR
OIC (Obamanos in Chief)
23 July 2008
 
 
MANILA – The Filipinos for Obama Movement, a grassroots-based social networking movement favoring Barack Obama as the next President of the United States, expresses its solidarity with the senator from Illinois in his landmark and historic visit from Europe to Asia as he promotes healing peace and stability in the conflict-affected corners of the world.
 
The Obamanos: Filipinos for Obama (http://carlosjackal24jasonbourne.wordpress.com/) and its affiliates the Philippines-America for Obama Movement or Phil-Am for Bam  (http://jasonhusseinbourne.blogsome.com/ and http://jasonhusseinbourne.blogvis.com/) and the Filipinos Audicious for Change (FACs) support Sen. Obama as he strengthens his foreign policy credentials in his travels to Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, and the troubled regions of the border between Israel and Palestinian Territory.
 
Sen Obama, who is visiting these regions with Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and fellow Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, is expected to visit Germany this week to deliver an historic speech on U.S.-German partnership and trans-Atlantic relations in front of the gold-topped Victory Column, or Siegessaeule, in downtown Berlin.
 

Statement on U.S. troops withdrawal
by 2010 follows meeting with Iraqi PM

MSNBC News Services
Monday, 21 July 2008
 
 
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s government welcomed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Monday with word that it apparently shares his hope that U.S. combat forces could leave by 2010.
 
The statement by Iraq’s government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, followed talks between Obama and Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki – who has struggled for days to clarify Iraq’s position on a possible timetable for a U.S. troop pullout.
 
Al-Dabbagh said the government did not endorse a fixed date, but hoped American combat units could be out of Iraq sometime in 2010. That timeframe falls within the 16-month withdrawal plan proposed by Obama, who arrived in Iraq earlier in the day as part of a congressional fact-finding team.
 
“We are hoping that in 2010 that combat troops will withdraw from Iraq,” al-Dabbagh told reporters, noting that any withdrawal plan was subject to change if the level of violence kicks up again.
 
As he departed from talks with al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani in Baghdad’s heavily protected Green Zone, Obama said, “We had a very constructive discussion.” Obama also plans meetings with U.S. military commanders who will outline recent progress in the war he has opposed from the start.
 
This was the third stop on a foreign tour designed to gather information while burnishing the Democratic contender’s foreign policy credentials. National security issues are the one issue area in which Obama trails Republican John McCain in the polls.
 
The Iraqi government comment on troop withdrawals could be embraced by the Obama campaign, but may irritate White House officials. The Bush administration has refused to set specific troop level targets and only last week offered to discuss a “general time horizon” for a U.S. combat troop exit.
 
At the White House on Monday, Press Secretary Dana Perino said she had not heard the latest statement from al-Dabbagh. But responding to the continuing debate over withdrawal, Perino said the U.S. shares the goal of bringing U.S. troops home based on security success.
 
“The key issue is that they understand it will not be arbitrary; it will not be a date that you just pluck out of thin air; it will not be something that Americans say, ‘We’re going to do – we’re going to leave at this date,’ which is what some have suggested,” she said.
 
The Iraqi stance also is another wrinkle in a confusing series of remarks and denials in recent days.
 
Al-Maliki was quoted last week by the German magazine Der Spiegel appearing to endorse Obama’s 16-month timetable. The Iraqi leader’s aides have since said his comments were misunderstood, and he is not taking sides in the U.S. election.
 
The U.S. military also took the unusual step of translating and distributing the Iraqi government reaction to the Der Spiegel article.
 
On-the-ground inspections
 
The meetings with Iraqi officials came after Obama began his first on-the-ground inspection of Iraq since launching his bid for the White House.
 
It marked the second major leg of a war zone tour that opened in Afghanistan. The contrasts in tone and message were distinct.
 
Obama sees the battle against the resurgent Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan as America’s most crucial fight and supports expanding troop strength there to counter a sharp rise in attacks.
 
But Obama had opposed the Iraq invasion and now worries that an open-ended U.S. combat mission here will sap military resources and focus – at a time when Iraq violence has dropped to its lowest level in four years.
 
The Illinois senator – traveling with Senators Jack Reed, Democrat from Rhode Island, and Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska – arrived first in the southern city of Basra, the U.S. Embassy said.
 
Basra is the center for about 4,000 British troops involved mostly in training Iraqi forces. An Iraqi-led offensive begun in March reclaimed control of most of the city from Shiite militia believed linked to Iran.
 
His meetings in Baghdad included one with the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and other military chiefs outlining the significant gains in recent months against both Shiite militia and Sunni insurgents including al-Qaida in Iraq.
 
McCain: ‘He was wrong about the surge’
 
The White House and military leaders – and many residents of Baghdad – trace the momentum back to last year’s buildup of more than 30,000 troops in areas around Iraq’s capital. McCain has tried to hammer Obama on his criticisms of that military surge.
 
In an interview Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America,” McCain said he hoped Obama would now “have the opportunity to see the success of the surge.”
 
“This is the same strategy that he voted against, railed against,” McCain said. “He was wrong about the surge. It is succeeding and we are winning.”
 
All five surge brigades have left Iraq, but there are still about 147,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, more than in early 2007.
 
Iraqi leaders also pressed Obama for more clarity on his long-term vision for relations with Washington.
 
Such discussions have added importance since Iraq and U.S. negotiators appear stalled in efforts to reach a long-range pact to define future U.S. military presence and obligations.
 
American diplomats hoped to reach a final accord by the end of the month, but it now seems the goal is a stopgap “bridge” document that would maintain the status for U.S. forces once a U.N. mandate on their presence expires at the end of the year. Such as move would leave the hard bargaining to the next president.
 
Obama arrived following talks Sunday in Kuwait with the emir, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah. Earlier he met with U.S. military commanders and troops in Afghanistan and held talks with President Hamid Karzai.
 
He is scheduled to go on to Jordan, Israel and European capitals.
 

Obama pledges steadfast aid to Afghanistan

 Sunday, 20 July 2008
 
 
KABUL – Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks Sunday with its Western-backed leader and vowed to pursue the war on terror “with vigor” if elected, an Afghan official said.
 
On the second day of an international tour designed to burnish his foreign policy credentials, the Illinois senator and a pair of colleagues held two hours of talks with President Hamid Karzai at his palace in the capital.
 
Obama has chided Karzai for not doing more to build confidence in his government, which remains weak after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001.
 
He made no public comment after the meeting, but said in a written statement that his main purpose was to see U.S troops, thank them for their “extraordinary service” and let them know the United States is proud of them.
 
Obama said he and his colleagues were talking to military and diplomatic leaders, and Afghanistan’s leaders about whether the U.S. has the right strategy and resources to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida.
 
‘A strong partnership’
 
“Our message to the Afghan government is this: We want a strong partnership based on ‘more for more’ – more resources from the United States and NATO, and more action from the Afghan government to improve the lives of the Afghan people,” Obama and Sens. Chuck Hagel, Republican of Nebraska, and Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, said in a joint statement. “We need a sense of urgency and determination.”
 
“We need urgency because the threat from the Taliban and al-Qaida is growing and we must act; we need determination because it will take time to prevail,” they said. “But with the right strategy and the resources to back it up, we will get the job done.”
 
The Afghan presidency said Obama’s message was positive.
 
“Sen. Obama conveyed … that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continue the war against terrorism with vigor,” said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai’s spokesman. He said Democrats and Republicans “are friends of Afghanistan and no matter who wins the U.S. elections, Afghanistan will have a very strong partner in the United States.”
 
Obama has made Afghanistan a centerpiece of his proposed strategy for dealing with terrorism threats. The Illinois senator has said the war in Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida-linked militants are resurgent, deserves more troops and more attention as opposed to the conflict in Iraq.
 
Both Obama and his Republican rival for the presidency, Sen. John McCain, advocate sending more forces to the country.
 
‘Precarious’ situation
 
In an interview broadcast Sunday in the U.S., Obama described the situation here as “precarious” and “urgent,” and said the U.S. should not wait to begin the planning that would be needed to send in more troops. As troops sent to Iraq as part of the buildup of forces there begin to leave, Obama says one to two brigades should be redirected to Afghanistan to bolster the efforts here.
 
“The situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan and I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front in our battle against terrorists,” Obama told CBS News. “If we wait until the next administration it could be a year before we get those troops on the ground.”
 
While officially part of a congressional delegation on a fact-finding tour that is expected to take him to Iraq, Obama traveled in Afghanistan amid the security accorded a likely Democratic nominee for president rather than a senator from Illinois.
 
Media access to him was limited, and his itinerary was closely guarded.
 
Earlier Sunday, he praised U.S. troops during breakfast with soldiers at Camp Eggers, a heavily fortified military base in the city. “To see young people like this who are doing such excellent work, with so much dedication … it makes you feel good about the country,” Obama said.
 
“I want to make sure that everybody back home understands how much pride people take in their work here and how much sacrifice people are making. It is outstanding,” he said in footage filmed by the military and obtained by The Associated Press.
 
On Saturday, the delegation received briefings from U.S. commanders and a former Afghan warlord who is now the governor of Nangarhar, a province in eastern Afghanistan where militant attacks are spiraling.
 
The trip is Obama’s first overseas since he secured the Democratic nomination last month. He is scheduled to travel through Europe this week and give a speech on the U.S.-German partnership and trans-Atlantic relations in front of the gold-topped Victory Column, or Siegessaeule, in downtown Berlin.
 
Obama advocates ending the U.S. combat role in Iraq by withdrawing troops at the rate of one to two brigades a month while increasing the military commitment to Afghanistan. Obama has proposed sending two more combat brigades – about 7,000 troops – to Afghanistan. McCain, who has criticized Obama for not spending more time in the region, also advocates sending more forces to the war-battered country.
 
U.S. military officials say the number of attacks in eastern Afghanistan, where most of the U.S. forces in the country operate, has increased by 40 percent so far this year compared to the same period last year.
 
Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told The Associated Press on Saturday that after intense U.S. assaults there, al-Qaida may be considering shifting focus to its original home base in Afghanistan, where American casualties are recently running higher than in Iraq.
 
Obama also has expressed weariness with efforts by Afghanistan’s neighbor, Pakistan, to go after militants in its territory. That frustration may strike a chord with Karzai, who has accused Pakistan’s intelligence service of supporting the Taliban insurgency – a claim Pakistan denies.
 
But Obama also has chided Karzai and his government, saying it had “not gotten out of the bunker” and helped to organize the country or its political and security institutions.