Obama would keep troops in Iraq to fight al Qaeda!
News Flash: Obama would keep troops in Iraq… although he doesn’t realize it just yet.
Here’s my thinking on this:
From Reuters:
Obama said during the debate with Clinton that once he withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq, if al Qaeda were to form a base there, “then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.”
“I have some news,” McCain said. “Al Qaeda is in Iraq. It’s called Al Qaeda in Iraq. My friends, if we left, they wouldn’t be establishing a base, they’d be taking a country and I’m not going to allow that to happen.”
… Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell, who told U.S. lawmakers Wednesday that Al Qaeda in Iraq had suffered major setbacks last year and although still “capable of mounting lethal attacks,” the group had suffered hundreds of members killed or captured.
<snip>
“I have some news for John McCain, and that is that there was no such thing as al Qaeda in Iraq until George Bush and John McCain decided to invade Iraq,” he said to cheers.
So let’s boil this down:
- As president, Obama would send troops into Iraq to fight al Qaeda
- Obama concedes al Qaeda is in Iraq (although he blames Bush for their existence… which seems somewhat moot at the moment)
- Therefore… Obama would need to keep troops in Iraq to fight al Qaeda
By the way, why is it bad that we have a place to fight al Qaeda that is not on US soil? Although I do not buy into the theory that al Qaeda was not in Iraq until the war, let’s assume that is true… isn’t that a good thing that our enemy was willing come to the place where we already had our troops in place to fight… seems like it’s working out pretty well. First choice should always be to not have a war, but if we are in a war, seems like it’s better to fight it over there instead of over here… even better than fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Stumble it!