As the first American bombs fell on Baghdad nearly nine years ago, I was glued to my television. Like most progressives, I was more shocked than awed at the missile fire igniting the night sky, heralding the dawn of a war of choice that would be followed by a prematurely triumphant claim of "mission accomplished" and a difficult decade for both our troops and America's global standing.
However one felt about the Iraq war, we were all transfixed by how it began, and now should dedicate equal attention to how it will end.
President Obama wisely opposed the Iraq war from the start, proposed in the Senate a plan for how it could end, and promised as a presidential candidate to follow through on that plan. We worked hard to give him the chance to make good on his word, and as our commander-in-chief, he's delivered: the last of our brave troops are on their way home from Iraq right now.
As this brutal war was wounding our warriors and our reputation, President Obama saw that it was also monopolizing and misdirecting our attention. Every dollar, minute and young life spent in Iraq meant we had fewer resources to dedicate to the real places where al Qaeda had developed the blueprints for the 2001 terror attacks.
After all, the president reminded Washington and the nation, responding to the 9/11 attacks was the core reason we'd asked our sons, daughters and spouses to risk their lives in the first place. It's why we've asked so many families to sacrifice while their loved ones serve half a world away, fulfilling every mission they're given.
The president saw that our efforts distracted our focus in the Middle East, so he promised to responsibly leave Iraq and redirect our attention to our real priorities: disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
He's kept his word. The president sent troops into Afghanistan to reverse the Taliban's momentum and train Afghans to secure and defend their own country. Enemy-initiated attacks fell dramatically, more than half of al Qaeda's leadership has been eliminated and Osama bin Laden was brought to justice. It wasn't an open-ended commitment, but a strategic decision; as soon as our servicemen and women did their jobs, the president began bringing them home from Afghanistan as well.
This focus and follow-through -- staying true to priorities and promises -- is consistent with the kind of leader President Obama has been at home, too.
President Obama saw middle-class workers and families being increasingly squeezed, income inequality widening, and our debt and deficits exploding -- thanks in large part to the unpaid -- for wars he inherited. For decades the household bills we paid have grown larger, but our paychecks haven't risen to match them. The costs of college, health insurance and many mortgages went through the roof. And while those at the top of the top tax bracket were let off the hook, exempted from doing their part, Wall Street's unchecked greed endangered our entire economy.
So just like he did for our national security, President Obama has again shifted our focus, this time to reclaim the economic security the middle class has lost. He took a series of steps -- like saving us from a second depression and saving the auto industry -- to address the immediate crisis he confronted upon taking office. But he has now also laid a new foundation of fairness, one that recognizes that hard work should again pay off in America and we should reward responsibility, not recklessness.
It's a foundation for an economy built to last, one that supports important investments like education and infrastructure and is grounded not in outsourcing, but in out-hustling the world. And he's kept our sacred trust with our veterans, helping them pay for college, find a job and get the medical care they need for wounds visible and invisible alike.
As the president said strongly last week in Kansas, the lesson of the last decade is that we cannot succeed until we refocus on building an economy where everyone -- from Main Street to Wall Street -- plays by the same rules, does their fair share and has a fair shot at success.
America is safer, stronger and more respected in the world because President Obama ended the war in Iraq. We will be even stronger when we achieve his vision of economic fairness here at home.
President Obama has kept his word and kept us focused, and that's why we need to keep him in the White House.
Follow Andy Stern on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AndyStern_DC
How about Obama bailed out the large banks and did zilch to bail out middle-class individuals. Go ahead, I am sure that you apologists have a response ready even for that to deflect the blame to someone else. I am sure that you can blame GOP, congress, the bogeyman and the weather for that as well.
It is no secret that the Obama administration relishes in insulting and dissing its base. How else can one explain the extension of the Bush tax cuts, \going against women's rights on plan B etc. However, the reality is that of all the stakeholders in the Democratic party's base, labor has received the most step motherly treatment by this administration. And, despite that, this article by Stern truly reveals how much Stern cares about labor.
too busy peddling small pox vaccine to taxpayers for $443 million. I realize that corruption is
epidemic in D.C., but Stern's Siga Tech contract is every bit as disgusting as Watergate. However,
as usual, no one is likely to hear about the disgraceful scandal from the MSM.
What I do doubt, seriously, is that the republican powers that be will allow all eligible voters to cast a vote, will allow the popular vote to count, and will not buy the election for their flawed candidate, whoever that may be.
The voter suppression efforts are a disgusting affront to our free and fair elections.
They are a blatant power grab, a cry that unless you support the Republicans, you have no right to a voice.
Next up - $1 Million, 1 Vote.
"Train & Lead Members to Occupy State Buildings & Takeover Banks "
http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/12/17/seiu-job-description-train-lead-members-to-occupy-state-buildings-takeover-banks/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
This is what the public sector does with our money.
(facepalm)
Because police, prosecutors and politicians build their careers and empires on it. Because industries like alcohol and pharmaceuticals don't want the competition. Because other interests like the drug treatment/testing industry and the prison industries depend on it for their life's blood. Because many shaky corporations couldn't exist without the laundered money. And because government uses marijuana prohibition as a means of controlling minorities and the poor.
Finally, of course, the TRILLIONS of dollars made by the drug gangs have not been buried in the ground. They have been invested in legitimate business, causing another huge support of this persecution of millions of innocent people.
For a good view underneath the iceburg, see Catherine Austin Fitts' excellent article: "Narco Dollars For Beginners." - keeping in mind that while Fitts employs cocaine because it best suits her metaphor, FBI statistics show marijuana sales comprise 80 percent of all "illegal" drug transactions.
http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/narcoDollars.html
It's time to dismantle the marijuana-prohibition-industrial-complex! It's clear their power is of such magnitude, they are pulling Obama's strings.
Let's consider the promise Obama made to "base policy on science - not politics."
Every major government commission, including President Nixon's 1972 Shafer Commission, concluded marijuana is less "addictive" than coffee and FAR less harmful than alcohol. The reports of all these major commissions can be read here:
http://www.druglibrary.org/SCHAFFER/Library/studies/studies.htm
The DEA's own administrative law judge, Francis Young, concluded after an exhaustive review of the evidence: "Marijuana, in its natural state, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."
Alcohol directly kills more than 100,000 Americans every year. Indirectly, many thousands more in highway deaths and from alcohol-induced violence. The preponderance of the research shows marijuana consumption is NOT a signficant cause of auto accidents.
NO ONE has ever died from ingesting marijuana - in all of recorded history. - That makes it safer than aspirin, safer than coffee, safer than peanuts!
Not only was Obama an enthusiastic marijuana consumer, he stated as late as 2004 that marijuana should be decriminalized. -- Yet, with all the science, and all Obama's experience, and all Obama's promises, he has continued this horrificly un-American persecution of millions of innocent Americans who prefer near harmless marijuana over addictive, very harmful alcohol.
No one should be surprised that the agreement was followed. It was the agreement.
'America is safer, stronger and more respected in the world because President Obama'. America is a joke to those that actually matter which is those that wish us ill will. but then again, that is the whole basis of the left's agenda. so i suppose 'opposit truth day' is ever day for progressives
Say something about, say, Obama an it attracts the opposite spectrum like moths to a flame. They're not here to prove the article wrong; they are simply here to smear the President and make themselves feel good about it regardless of whether or not the article is true.
I mean, it's not as if their candidates are doing a particularly invigorating job of it. The GOP doesn't want the flip flopping quasi-liberal Republican Romney and the whole world is scared of Newt getting the go ahead.
from the article above:
"President Obama wisely opposed the Iraq war from the start, proposed in the Senate a plan for how it could end, and promised as a presidential candidate to follow through on that plan. We worked hard to give him the chance to make good on his word, and as our commander-in-chief, he's delivered: the last of our brave troops are on their way home from Iraq right now."
Obama had nothing to do with the plan that lead to the troops leaving Iraq. obama voted against the surge that led to a major turn around in iraq. the armed forces status agreement that has brought our troops home was negotiated by Bush, not obama. Obama actually was trying to get the iraq government to extend that agreement keeping our troops in iraq indefinately. The only reason the troops are coming home is because iraq wouldn't extend the agreement. obama had nothing to do with any of it
ROFL... no one familiar with the facts on the ground thinks that. Only stateside stooges parroting Fake Nooze.
"Report Finds Little Progress On Iraq Goals"
-- Karen DeYoung and Thomas E. Ricks
Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report....
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/29/AR2007082902434.html?hpid=topnews
______________
"The Surge Has Failed in its Objective"
-- Jessica Tuchman Mathews, President, Carnegie Endowment
"The surge the president of the United States launched last January has failed. By tacitly conceding that there has been no political progress in Iraq since then, Mr. Bush admits as much, but asks for more time...."
http://carnegieendowment.org/2007/09/11/surge-has-failed-in-its-objective/3d4
____________
"....negotiated by Bush"
Nonsense. Bush "negotiated" nothing. It was drafted and voted on by the Iraqi Parliament and then imposed on Bush, and he had no choice but to accept it... as is.
Yup. You think we should have stayed in Iraq?
"he kept Bush's promise of lower taxes on the wealthy; "
Because it was only way at that point to also get lower taxes and extended unemployment benefits for the struggling middle class. You would throw them under the bus?
"he kept Bush's promise to maintain our concentration camp at Guantanamo."
WRONG. He ordered it closed, but Congress—including Democrats, refused to fund prisoner transfer.
" As for his campaign promises, they've proved to be mostly empty. "
Wrong again.