Obama said he would divert resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. To his everlasting shame, he has not broken this promise.
The real critique of the wars certainly goes beyond the numbers. It is good, however, to look at the figures. Most people in the country know that Obama hasn’t exactly ended the wars. I’m sure people say, Yeah, but Obama is ending the wars.
This claim is not obviously 100 percent false in every respect, perhaps. And so we need to be careful when we get into the details.
So, during the run-up to the ascension of Obama to the throne, he was critical of the Iraq war. He said things like This war’s lasted longer than World War I, II, the Civil War; 4,000 Americans have died (and of course Americans are the only people that matter in the war). More than 60,000 have been injured; we spent trillions of dollars; we’re less safe.
These were very sound critiques of the Iraq war. A lot of us made these kinds of utilitarian critiques. They’re almost utilitarian anyway. I don’t think they are the most important reasons to oppose the Iraq war, but they are important reasons; they are sufficient reasons on their own, certainly. And Obama did sound better on the Iraq war than Bush or McCain.
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