"HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS"

By Victor M Adamus


The announcement I’ve been waiting to hear for more than five years arrived this past week when President Barack Obama promised to end the war in Iraq by removing all troops by year end. I couldn’t be more excited. A war which Obama said was “a dumb war” when he ran for a councilman position in Chicago years ago, who would have ever guessed the same person would be standing in the rose garden calling an end to the war himself?

Chief Master Sgt. Gerald Delebreau who is in Iraq, according to Florida Today, is helping with the transition of troops back to Patrick Air Force Base here in Brevard County, Florida. This announcement to end the war keeps a brokered agreement made between the U.S. and Iraq by former president George W Bush. It’s quite unusual for Republican hopefuls to call foul ball at this historic moment. It was Bush, a Republican President, and Dick Cheney, Vice President, who set up the time table to draw down the troops.

Secondly it will stop the billion dollar a day expense to fund the troops in Iraq and help to stabilize our economy here at home. Something again, the Republicans in control of the House don’t care about, that and creating jobs. Obama is the only adult in the room. He is doing anything and everything to continue to improve American lives while the Congress sits on its’ hands.

One of the most outspoken Republicans to slam the President’s decision is John McCain (R-AZ) who lost the Presidency to Obama in 2008: "Today marks a harmful and sad setback for the United States in the world," McCain said in a statement Friday afternoon. "I respectfully disagree with the President: this decision will be viewed as a strategic victory for our enemies in the Middle East, especially the Iranian regime, which has worked relentlessly to ensure a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq."

The outcome, of course, for the government in Iraq has been a stalemate between those that want Iranian control by the Mullahs in the South and in central Iraq a moderate group that is encouraging a democratic government. The Kurds in the North are at war with Turkey. Whatever was going to happen would have happened years ago but for the fact that Americans had boots on the ground separating those two factions.

Now Iraq can do and be what it wants. It would be that way even if the U.S. stayed another nine years but what’s the point? I’m happy to see the end is near and all the dollars we save from supporting a sinkhole in Iraq are needed here to help the U.S. American families who are unemployed.

Vic you could not be more right on the money with this comment.  I would like to see all of our troops come home and let the rest of the world live in the "mess" that they have created.  The US can no longer be "big brother" to the rest of the world.  Since 1950, the US has sent troops into 30 countries, resulting in very little change in the world as a whole, except for the construction and engineering companies that were sent in afterwards to rebuild.  It is almost like the US intentionally went to war so it could get rich rebuilding.

My concerns are will those soldiers coming home be able to find jobs?  Will the monies not spent the war effort be diverted into paying down the debt or will they remain in the hands of the military?

McCain might be right that our enemies will see this as a victory; but we should care as much about that as wanting to keep the gas that is created inside us after eating 12 bean soup.  We should sit back in our chairs and put our feet up on the table and point the soles of our shoes in the direction of all the middle eastern arabs.  Give them back their countries and all the sand and oil that goes with it...

America should start doing what's right for America not for the rest of the world.  Bring all our troops home; let those young men and woman have a chance to die on American Soil and not on dirt from somewhere else.