needs more action

there's plenty obama could say about iraq. but he aint talking. to be fair, i never though obama said "out of iraq" in a definite manner. it was alwasy that 2013 crap, and renewing the occupation one inch at a time...

and really i care more about the economy than iraq anyhow.

how do you feel?

As far as whether Obama has "flip flopped" on the issue, he hasn't. He's always talked about 16 months being a goal, but that he will listen to the advice of the Generals about what rate is safe, and what troop levels should be when the bulk of our forces have been withdrawn. He's never said every troop would be removed from Iraq in any scenario that I've heard.

My own take is that Obama will end the "war", mostly through changing the definition of our presence. Bush & the Neocons want us to view this as some gigantic battle, like the Cold War, with Al Qaeda being the new enemy, and try to sell this to the American people as being a "transcendent" battle with evil (Islamic fundamentalism), and that military action is the only solution. They also want to use it as an excuse to expand the power of the executive, and shred the constitution with wiretapping and Guantanamo.

Everyone else with braincells sees this as a complex situation that needs much more diplomacy than military presence, and wouldn't classify this as a "war", but instead as supporting a fledgling government while it builds the capability to defend itself. It's certainly not an existential struggle with a mortal enemy who has the slightest chance of defeating us.

I think Obama will cut the number of troops in Iraq dramatically, and will refrain from building permanent bases, but I'm guessing there will be some non-trivial number of troops (30,000 or so) left there for a long period of time (beyond 2013). As long as it stops being used as a bludgeon to violate the Constitution, and we stop spending ridiculous mountains of money with no effective benefit, I'll be satisfied, even if there are still troops in Iraq.

Obama's position has always been to end those two aspects of the war, and that's satisfactory to me.

As far as other issues go, I don't really see any issue as being in a vacuum. Economic problems affect me more directly, but economic problems are at least in part connected to the war; oil price and inflation are both likely tied to how we've run the Iraq war.

I'd still say my top issues this year are constitutional in nature -- restoring the impartiality of justice, restoring checks and balances, limiting domestic surveillance, and most of all, ending a policy of detaining people without trial while torturing them. Those don't currently affect me directly (as far as I know!), but they're crucial for the health of our nation. If those things aren't fixed, the experiment with Democracy here in America is truly over.

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