How Obama lost Iraq

Sen. Obama and Gen. Petraeus in 2008. (DOD)

The recent news out of Iraq is reminiscent of the dark days of 2004 before President Bush’s surge largely pacified the country. Earlier this month, Israel’s Debka File reported that ISIS, the Iraqi al Qaeda affiliate, had captured the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi from government forces. Fallujah was proclaimed the capitol of a new Islamic caliphate. On January 18, CNN reported another in a series of bomb attacks. The latest bombings killed 19 people and wounded at least 74.

Iraq’s slide back into chaos has its roots in 2011 when the last U.S. soldiers left the country. The Obama Administration and the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had been engaged in months of negotiations in an attempt to reach a new status of forces agreement that would allow American soldiers to remain in Iraq to help support government forces. (The Bush Administration had signed a status of forces agreement that required U.S. combat troops to leave Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.) When these talks failed, the stage was set for President Obama to fulfill his campaign promise to remove U.S. forces and end the war in Iraq.

 

Read the full article at Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Tea Party terror

Some Democrats think the Tea Party is a terrorist group. (David Thornton)

Last week, in the aftermath of the debt limit compromise, it became fashionable in liberal circles to label conservatives, Republicans, and Tea Party members as terrorists.  A common theme among progressives refers to conservatives who are holding the country hostage in order to prevent Democrats from spending their way to an economic recovery.

 

Representative of many of the progressive musings was a blog on RealClearPolitics.com by Froma Harop.  Harop wrote:

 

“Make no mistake: The tea party Republicans have engaged in economic terrorism against the United States — threatening to blow up the economy if they don’t get what they want. And like the al-Qaida bombers, what they want is delusional: the dream of restoring some fantasy caliphate in which no one pays taxes, while the country is magically protected from foreign attack and the elderly get government-paid hip replacements.  Americans are not supposed to negotiate with terrorists, but that’s what Obama has been doing.”

Continue reading on Examiner.com Tea Party terror – Atlanta Conservative | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-atlanta/tea-party-terror#ixzz1UZczRXdS