You don't get to have it both ways. Either Obama's latest attack on a foreign, sovereign nation was a declaration of war, or the war in Iraq never really ended.
For the last three years, we've been hearing Obama's cheerleaders loudly proclaiming that thanks to Obama, the "Iraq war has ended."
Jed said it right here on the front page of Daily Kos. And thousands of Obama defended have said the same thing, repeatedly over the last few years.
As Obama said, the economy was falling off a cliff when he took office. It took several months to stop the bleeding, but since unemployment peaked in October, 2009, things have been getting better: the auto industry is back, more than 4 million private sector jobs have been created, the Iraq war has ended, and Osama bin Laden has been brought to justice.
Here's Ian Reiforwitz saying the exact same thing:
The Iraq War has ended, and we will be getting out of Afghanistan. We must do everything in our power to give President Obama another four years. Volunteer, donate, and vote!
I could cite this quote, word for word, repeatedly, for pages.
Now, it appears, the same people who've been championing Obama's fake image as a "peacemaker"(Hahahahahaha), are completely unmoved by this new bombing campaign, as though Obama didn't just declare a new war on a sovereign nation we were supposedly at peace with.
Of course, Obama didn't just declare war, did he? He just continued the old one. Otherwise, so many liberals, who are super seriously opposed to war, would be typing angrily things like, "Hmmm, I would like better if Obama weren't bombing brown people again."
But everyone has always known that the Iraq war never really ended. That was all just bullshit, with tens of thousands of US troops stationed there, and many more mercenaries doing the Fascists' bidding.
But the cheerleaders, oh they loved to declare the Iraq war over and credit that lie to Barack Obama.
But it was always a lie. Even to the extent that the war did end somewhat (meaning main combat operations) under Obama's presidency, it was done under an agreement negotiated and signed by George Bush.
Even Obama's White House confirmed this fact:
“This deal was cut by the Bush administration, the agreement was always that at end of the year we would leave.."
But what's really obnoxious is that, not only did Obama defenders try to take credit for a deal that was cut under Bush, but the Obama administration spent 2 years trying to GET OUT OF THAT DEAL AND STAY IN IRAQ LONGER.
U.S. forces to stay in Iraq into 2012, says Leon Panetta
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Iraq’s government has agreed to extend the U.S. military presence in the country beyond 2011 — but Iraq quickly rejected the claim.
Hahahahahah.
Panetta, acting on orders from Obama, thought he had the Iraqis on board with an agreement to void the original mandate to leave Iraq by 2011, and instead stay in Iraq for at least another year.
Then the Iraqis told him to fuck off. In public.
For those of us who, you know, actually pay attention, and who were opposed to Obama's flip flop on his promise to pull troops out of Iraq, this was some funny shit.
But in Obama Ponyland, none of this ever even happened. And in 2011, Obama magically "ended the war in Iraq."
So, which is it? Did Obama just start another war in Iraq? And if so, have liberals become so de-sensitized to the bombing of brown people, that it doesn't even warrant a recommended diary?
Or is everyone now admitting that our occupation never really ended, Iraq hasn't really been a sovereign state since 2003 but just another of the Empire's colonies, and bombing colonies is really no big deal in the New America?
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And for the New Liberals, who are strangely hawkish all of the sudden, former US diplomat in Iraq Peter Van Buren, who wrote critically of the "reconstruction" operations in Iraq so the Obama and Hillary tried to punish him, schools Obama and Co. on why bombing Iraq, yet again, is so fucking stupid. Via Common Dreams
1. Sunnis are not confined by the borders of Iraq and this is not a chessboard. U.S. actions toward Sunnis in Iraq (or Syria, or wherever) resonate throughout the Sunni world. There is no better recruitment tool for Sunni extremists than showing their fight is actually against the Americans.
2. Precise, Surgical Strikes: Sure, just ask those wedding parties in Yemen and Afghanistan how that has worked out.
3. Air strikes will not resolve anything significant. The short answer is through nine years of war and occupation U.S. air power in Iraq, employed on an unfettered scale, combined with the full-weight of the U.S. military on the ground plus billions of dollars in reconstruction funds, failed to resolve the issues now playing out in Iraq. Why would anyone think a lesser series of strikes would work any better? We also have a recent Iraqi example of the pointlessness of air strikes. The Maliki government employed them with great vigor against Sunnis in western Iraq, including in Fallujah, only six months ago, and here we are again, with an even more powerful Sunni force in the field.
