| Ex-contractor: U.S. in Iraq 'permanently'
The United States likely will have a presence in Iraq forever, a former military contractor told a Battle Creek peace group on Monday. "There are four or five places over there that are picked out so that we can be there permanently," Wayne Young told 16 people gathered in the basement of First United Methodist Church for a regular Voices of Peace meeting. "That's Wayne's opinion based on meetings Wayne sat in over the last year talking about expansion." .
January 2008
The two were intolerably civil to each other, and neither said anything that struck me as remotely controversial. In fact, with each debate the orthodoxy of Obama's positions becomes more pronounced. We spent the first 40 minutes on health care, and I thought Hillary clearly won that portion of the debate. She understands how difficult any change will be, and more important she understands that not everyone wants change--that those with health care may actually fear it. If Obama holds a similar position, I could not discern it from what he said. On the war, they are both terrible. Hillary says, "we will end the war in Iraq and we will resolve the war in Afghanistan." The only rule for this debate seemed to be that neither candidate would dare use the word 'victory.' We know they want out of Iraq, but have we now conceded defeat in Afghanistan as well? Our conflict with the Taliban and al Qaeda is to be 'resolved'? When Tony Soprano says he's going to resolve a problem, we know what that means, but what on earth does it mean when Hillary says it? The low point for Obama came when he said that the NIE on Iran had shown that engagement and talking could lead to the Iranians changing their behavior.
It's a walkout!
When the United Auto Workers walked off the job at General Motors, one UAW local president told me he lost a bet. “I didn't think they'd walk out," says Art Baker Chairman of UAW Local 652 in Lansing. Given the progress that the two sides made since Friday (they came to a basic understanding on a big healthcare deal) you'd think Baker was the smart money. But in hindsight, here's another perspective. If this deal is really supposed to be the “historic" or “transformational" or “landmark" contract (feel free to fill in your own superlative description) that has been ordered up by every industry wag in Detroit, then a strike was a foregone conclusion. First, even if UAW President Ronald Gettelfinger can live with a slew of big concessions, he needs to strike up a bit of Kabuki to show his members that he hasn't just caved to management.
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