http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/running-with-devils-by-digby-glenn.html

Let's be clear. Obama doesn't have a plan to withdraw from Iraq. He has a goal and a timeline. At most he has the outline of a plan. I wonder if he understands this. If he did, I don't think he'd be talking about it.

The plan will be created by Gen. Petraeus. Obama will sit down, not with the Joint Chiefs (I don't know where he got that idea from), but with The Chairman and CENTCOM and tell them to come up with options to be briefed to the NSC. He will select one of Petraeus's options and tell him to implement it. And it will become Petraeus's plan to achieve Obama's objectives.

And all those people who've been idolizing Petraeus will be put in a very awkward position. Do they do an about face and condemn his plan?

Does you understand Obama's Iraq position?
…But that pledge also has been laced with loopholes all along, caveats that the mainstream media and his opponents [excepting Bill Richardson] have ignored or avoided until now. As I pointed out in Ending the War in Iraq [2007], Obama's 2002 speech opposed the coming war with Iraq as "dumb", while avoiding what position he would take once the war was underway. Then he wrote of almost changing his position from anti- to pro-war after a trip to Iraq. He never took as forthright a position as Senator Russ Feingold, among others. Then he adopted the safe, nonpartisan formula of the Baker-Hamilton Study Group, which advocated the withdrawal of combat troops while leaving thousands of American counter-terrorism units, advisers and trainers behind.
That would mean at least 50,000 Americans, including back up forces, engaged in counter-insurgency after the withdrawal of combat troops...

Jim,
Petreaus will be gone if Obama wins. Petreaus idea was the surge, Obama opposed the surge and said it clearly would not work. Therefore it clearly hasn't worked.

Petreaus was proven wrong and Iraq has sunk deeper into civil war with terrorists at every falafel cart.

Iraq has gotten so bad they are killing more coalition forces in Afghanistan now because we don't have Iraqi interpreters there.

Obamas position is quite clear...Iraq is having a bloody civil war and thousands of terrorists are flocking there because our presence makes things worse.

So the best thing to do is get out as fast as possible and send thousands more troops to Afghanistan, especially those that speak Farsi.

Fight the lies!!

I can't vote for McCain, because he hasn't shown any more indication of understanding the difference between strategy and tactics than your standard Republican troll, and I just don't think we can trust somebody like that as a wartime president.

Neither Obama nor McCain has enough reliable information to set a 2010 withdrawal date in stone, this far in advance.

Although it's unspeakably taboo for Obama to say so, Bush is a proven liar who cannot be trusted. White House and Pentagon statements about Iraq are unverifiable because the place is too dangerous for a critical, independent press. Reporters dare not venture out and informants dare not speak on the record.

Therefore, it's impossible for Obama to fix a 2010 withdrawal date in stone, this far in advance. Only the President has access to the information required to make that decision.

This makes it critically important to elect a good President, who we can trust to make the best decision he can, based on the facts as best he can learn them.

So who do you trust: McCain? You've got to be McKidding.