I am not the least bit surprised by this announcement. I have been saying
for a long time now, that the USA does NOT want to leave Iraq. It wants to
maintain some form of permanent presence there for reasons which we have
already discussed previously on a variety of occasions.

I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that even Obama was aware of
this agenda before he actually became the new president.

All that was lacking, was finding a seemingly legitimate excuse which could
be sold to the American public, so that they would be willing to accept an
even longer stay in Iraq. Having the corrupt Iraqi government say "We want
the Americans to remain after 2011" may just be the excuse they need,
regardless of what common Iraqis really want to happen.

Let's face it: Without America's presence in their country, those corrupt
Iraqi politicians might not even be able to remain in power. Furthermore, I
still see civil war occurring at some point, if the Americans were to
totally leave the country. Kurds, Sunnis and Shi'ites would be at each
other's throats.

However, as this article notes, pulling out of Iraq was one of the key
pillars of Obama's presidential campaign. If he backtracks on his pledge, he
could very well become a one-term president; especially if he continues to
beef up American forces in Afghanistan as well, and if the American economy
continues to do poorly.

The point is, the American public is tired of being talked into wars by
America's crafty politicians -- especially when it is their sons and
daughters who are dying in said wars, or coming back home maimed, or
psychologically screwed up from the wars.

But if you read this news articles carefully, you'll notice that it is also
saying something else; and it is something which we have discussed before as
well.

I am referring to the fact that America stuck out the carrot, and Iraq
grabbed it, and it doesn't want to let go of the carrot now. What am I
talking about? Plain and simple, I am talking about the fact that the U.S.
Government has acquired another rich customer for its weapons of war. I've
said before that this is America's biggest export, and it brings in billions
of dollars to the American economy every single year. More than anything
else, America exports weapons and military technology. America exports the
ability to wage war and to kill and destroy. No other American export earns
the country as much profit. Period.

I can just imagine what kind of cozy arrangement the Americans and the
Iraqis must have with their weapons and their oil.

In short, Iraq has become the new Saudi Arabia, me thinks.  :)

Blessed are the peacemakers, and NOT the warmongers!

Following is the full New York Times article.


U.S. and Iraqi Interests May Work Against Pullout

By TIM ARANGO - NYT

August 10, 2010


BAGHDAD -- In a recent speech President Obama took credit for delivering on
his promise to end the official combat mission on schedule, and vowed to
meet America's next deadline of moving all American forces off Iraqi soil by
the end of 2011. "As agreed to with the Iraqi government, we will maintain a
transitional force until we remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of
next year," the president said.

The reality in Iraq may defy that deadline, because many American and Iraqi
officials deem the American presence to be in each nation's interest.

"For a very long period of time we're going to be on the ground, even if
it's solely in support of its U.S. weapons systems," said Ryan C. Crocker,
who was the American ambassador in Baghdad until 2009 and helped to
negotiate the agreement that tethers the two countries and mandates that all
American troops leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

Even as that deadline was negotiated, he said, a longer-lasting, though
significantly smaller, presence of American forces had always been
considered to be likely.

At the moment, five months after national elections, there is still no Iraqi
government to begin talking about what any post-2011 arrangement might
entail. But many Iraqi officials deem it quietly necessary on a number of
fronts: Iraq is buying more and more sophisticated American weapons, like
tanks and warplanes, and will need Americans here for training and
maintenance. At the same time, training is intensifying for the Iraq Army to
learn not only how to battle internal insurgents, but also how to protect
its national borders -- a project that will take many years.

And many Americans, most notably Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., have
long argued that it is not in America's interest to withdraw completely --
even if Mr. Obama rose to national prominence opposing the Iraq war and ran
for president promising to end it.

The decision will bear directly on the payoff America could yet reap for all
its spent blood -- more than 4,000 American lives -- and treasure, in the
form of a democratic ally in a combustible region that would be a check on
Iranian power and offer American access to Iraq's vast oil reserves.

A sustained American presence, at relatively low cost, could prevent Iraq, a
country with a long and violent history of coups and tyranny, from slipping
back into civil war.

But the decision could be politically perilous for both sides. For Mr.
Obama, a deepening commitment to a conflict he opposed could alienate his
supporters who helped win him the presidency, especially as his party slowly
abandons him on the war in Afghanistan.

Iraq's leaders face a public that wishes to be free of the American
military's grip, but the deficiencies of the country's armed forces are
obvious.

"Our country will not be able to defend against foreign aggression for a
long time," said Hoshyar Zebari, Iraq's foreign minister. But he demurred on
the question of whether the Americans should stay: "It's up to the
government to decide if they see a need for it."

When the security agreement was negotiated in 2008, it was politically
essential for Iraqi officials to establish the sovereignty of their country
by setting a deadline for an American exit, even as it was widely
acknowledged that the agreement could be amended later.

"The current running through the latter phase of 2008 was the Iraqi refrain
that there will be a need for an American military presence for an extended
period of time, but that Iraqi politics required us to drive a stake through
the occupation," Mr. Crocker said.

Even though Iraqi soldiers and policemen are still dying at the hands of
insurgents, the focus of the American advisory mission will shift toward
preparing Iraq's national defenses. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died in
the war with Iran in the 1980s.

"What we're doing over the next 17 months is, you'll see significantly more
training on the capabilities we think they need to protect externally," Gen.
Ray Odierno, the top United States military commander in Iraq, said
recently. In addition to the tanks, the Iraqis have purchased M-16 rifles,
and Navy vessels, and are seeking to acquire F-16 fighter jets from the
United States..

At the least, the purchases are likely to require contingents of American
troops and private contractors to remain in Iraq beyond 2011 as trainers and
advisers.

Amid the searing heat at an Iraqi Army base in south Baghdad in an area once
called the triangle of death, a small unit of American soldiers are training
Iraqi soldiers in a mission that will be far from complete by the end of
next year: preparing the country to face foreign enemies.

"The I.A. is transitioning from a counterinsurgency fight to a national
defense army, like a normal army, to defend from external threats," said Lt.
Col. Edwin J. Fiske, of the Third Infantry Division's First Brigade, using
the abbreviation for the Iraqi Army.

Colonel Fiske is the officer in charge of an American unit that is training
Iraqis to use American Abrams tanks, weapons whose destructive capability
was seen firsthand by Iraqis during the invasion in 2003. The Iraqi
government has bought 140 of the tanks for about $200 million, and the first
few recently arrived in Umm Qasr, in southern Iraq.

Beyond the 2011 deadline, Colonel Fiske said, "I can't foresee them not
asking for some sort of assistance from us."

American forces continue to leave here, to reach the president's goal of
being down to 50,000 troops by Sept. 1. It is a process that has played out
during the summer against a backdrop of political paralysis and the
recognition by Iraq's political class that Mr. Obama is increasingly
invested in the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the war's legacy and the United States' future relationship with
Iraq is unsettled.

"Everybody considers 1 September, we're abandoning Iraq," General Odierno
said. "We're not abandoning Iraq. What we're doing is changing our
commitment from a military-dominated commitment to one that is more
civilian-led. Which is what I think they need more."



Jeff Snyder, SysOp - Armageddon BBS  Visit us at endtimeprophecy.org port 23
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