McCain picks a pro-choice, NRA member, drill, drill, drill, 44 year old, mother of five, including a down syndrome child, former beauty queen . . . as his running mate? Before being governor of Alaska for almost 2 years, she was mayor of one of America's smallest towns. Her husband works in the oil industry on the north slope. This is the best pick for a job where the primary responsibility is that you are a heartbeat away from the presidency. And McCain would be our oldest president elected to a first term (nearly four years older than Reagan). He has reoccuring melanoma skin cancer, bad colesterol numbers. Not really the picture of health. Can you see this vice president assuming duties of the presidency and conducting the war in Iraq, staring down Vladimir Putin, making decisions about America's economy, health care, and education? There is no one more qualified? Did all the decent people see it as a lost cause and turn him down. No Romney? No Huckabee?

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Democratic National Convention was like nothing else I have ever seen in the way of conventions. Night after night it was mesmerizing with brilliant speeches and a clear unified purpose. Last night's production in the stadium was a masterpiece. It is impossible to put on a show like that. The film introducing Barack Obama was just amazing. Did you hear the opening music and make the association with the music in Cast Away, of Tom Hanks standing at the crossroads, looking one way and then another. Could you hear the unspoken question--America at the crossroads, which way do we go?

Wow.

And what a speech. Depend on John McCain's judgement? Well probably not. It's Obama time. Now let's turn over the senate too and get some work done.

I was concerned that McCain seemed to be so close in the polls to Obama. Obviously he wasn't that close because this is clearly a desperate move. All the eggs are in one basket and that's picking up disaffected Hillary voters.

What follows is a comment posted in the Washingtonpost.com on the article "Analysis: Why the Home Debate Matters." It is interesting because Obama would actually help this person, providing tax relief, reducing the national debt, thus freeing up money for the mortagages and small businesses. This guy is another representative of the 28%ers--people who still support the Republican Party point of view and George Bush 44. The article has many comments with similar invective.

"The Democratic Party is extremely misguided - they are deceiving themselves into believing that they can make up for history by voting for Obama - what a joke.

The democrats want to nominate a black so badly - Jim Crow happened, slavery happened - voting for an underqualified cocaine snorting empty suit slimy fish Obama is not going to help race relations.

If ANYTHING, Obama's campaign tactics have HURT RACE RELATIONS IN THIS COUNTRY. Obama is not even a descendent of slaves. Obama is simply trading off the REAL SLAVE DESCENDENTS - Obama comes from a BLACK MUSLIM SOCIALIST FAMILY.

The Democratic Party is jumping and gushing at Obama who has no experience in running anything not even a dog catching department and no economic experience except for buying cocaine -

Can anyone please explain this CLEAR DELUSION?

The democrats have not noticed yet that Obama is a Black Muslim whose father was a Socialist and Obama is probably a great deal closer to being a Socialist himself than most people imagine."

A time table is a time table. Since Mr. Bush declared that it would be surrender to announce a time table of withdrawal to our enemies, I guess he is finally surrendering. It means nothing of course, except that that pressure from Barack Obama is forcing the change in policy, just as it forced high level meetings with leaders of Iran. So Bush is now a surrender monkey.

Mr. Obama will shorten the time table. Mr. McCain will keep us there 100 years.

Ms. Downey,

Thanks for your reply. Industry and Education are fundamentally different types of organizations. No business requires one employee to work with substandard raw material while the person at the next desk gets to work with excellent raw material. Education does. You can't resolve this problem when considering merit pay. Saying lawyers have merit evaluations or journalists have merit evaluations and educators will have to do it too is a cop out. If your raw material is bad you cannot produce a good product. What's more, of the dozens and dozens of parent-teacher conferences that I have attended, I've never seen a single case where a student was doing well in all their classes except one. Uniformly at those conferences every teacher addresses the same issues with the parent and the student. Pay attention in class, turn in your homework, use the study guides to prepare for tests, come for extra help before or after school if you are struggling with anything. But the same students, skip class or go to sleep, chat with friends constantly when awake, fail to turn in any work, never ask a question or come for help, and fail miserably. Blaming the teacher is not logical.

Teachers are already evaluated on the basis of their organizational skills, their adherance to the curriculum, their classroom management, their cooperation with colleagues and administrators. If they fail in any area, they don't keep them on board. My experience has led me to believe that giving administrators merit pay as an additional weapon will drive more of the good teachers into industry and out of education. It is just the last straw. I was an excellent teacher. I had remarkable credentials and success in the classroom. I would have received every possible merit pay increase. I am totally against merit pay.

When I was young I played racketball. I loved the game and really worked on my game. I played at the Norfolk YMCA and the players there took racketball and handball seriously. I remember playing with one of the more expert players and he told me, "Son, it takes five years to learn how the ball bounces." As odd as that sounds, I noticed that after five years, my judgement of where the ball was going came to be flawless. It really took five years to learn the basics of the game. Teachers are not currently averaging five years in the profession before they leave to do something else, anything else. They leave because they are assaulted by students, administrators, parents, and members of the press. I'm telling you the teachers are not the problem. Sure you can find a teacher who is worn out and hanging on for retirement and another who is incompetent and has been protected by someone so they still have a job, and you can point at them and say, "Ooooo, bad teacher." But generally, teachers are doing okay. Money is the problem.

I'm convinced that there is a national Republican Party strategy to reduce funding to public schools at the state level and break the back of public education. In the name of "school choice" these people want tax support for parochial, segregated, education, just like it was in the old days. It is not an accident that Governor Sonny keeps reducing the program budgets of schools and it is not related to the economy. It is a Republican Party strategy. Personally I don't think the schools need a little more money. I think they need twice as much money. Thirty thousand dollar starting salaries, that do not increase until the 4th year of teaching, drive sane people to do other things. I taught for ten years and each year I saw more regulations piled on teachers, more cover your ass paperwork, larger class sizes, less administrative support, less money for copy machines, paper, and supplies. Workbooks--forget about it. Lab equipment--not a dime. Software to support the curriculum--if you can raise the money privately. I've seen defeated schools. There a lot of good teachers working there, but they are overwhelmed. We need more money in those schools. They need 3 or 4 more security people, several more discipline administrators, more in school suspension teachers. They need twice as many teachers in those schools. The break down of discipline in the hallways and the classroom breaks the spirit of the teachers over time. The principals can't solve it either. Clayton County is a disaster area. South DeKalb is a tragedy. And there is no miracle cure like the we see in the movies.

But money absolutely solves the problem. Smaller class sizes, more supplies, up to date equipment and texts. Sonny Purdue and the Republican legislators want to make sure this doesn't happen because their consituents want public schools to fail. If you really want improvements, there have to be some forums to study the problems and demand solutions from our politicians. A good project for the AJC I think. I'll be there to add my voice. Let me know when to come.

I actually think we'd have better schools the moment we allowed collective bargaining by teachers. If you want to compare educators to businesses, why is it illegal for teachers to unionize and strike? Georgia teachers unions are a total joke. And why is the law written so that teachers have to pay social security but then can't receive social security? Another horrible consequence of being a teacher. Why did I sign a blank contract every year that I taught?-- A contract that guaranteed no salary, no grade level or subject. Indeed a contract that was meaningless if the county wanted to rif me, but was used as a bludgeon against me if I wanted to change jobs. Teachers are treated like crap in Georgia.

You may feel that I am messing with you here--that I'm getting in your kitchen on this stuff. But I've been thinking about it for a long time and I have ideas. You could lay off the teachers in your column. I think they are just an easy target and that if you went after Sonny Perdue and the Republican legislature your job would be in jeopardy. But hey, I'm going to evaluate YOU negatively until you do something besides jump up and down on teachers. They are getting beat up enough without you.

Subject: Re: Report cards on teachers
From: mdowney@ajc.com
Date: Fri, 22 Aug 2008 16:19:37 -0400

Mr. G,

Many of your comments about the shortcomings of teacher evaluations and the shortcomings of the administrators who do them apply to other industries as well. (I could say virtual the same things about journalism. My friends make the same complaints about law and advertising.) Yet, somehow all these other industries conduct performance-based evaluations and measure employee merit and have been doing so for decades. And it has worked. As a longtime education writer, I can tell you that public schools in Georgia are facing a serious threat from vouchers. If public education does not change, I think we will see vouchers eventually - and I fear that will undermine any chance of reform or more financial aid to schools. I will also tell you that many superintendents complain to me about teacher quality. It is a concern of more than just journalists. By the way, I want more for my children, your children and everyone else's. I visit many schools and I can tell by walking through the halls and visiting a few classes whether the belief system is that the students - no matter how poor, no matter how many came to school without breakfast, no matter how many come from single-family homes — are capable of great things or if the belief system is that it's hopeless. The difference rests entirely with the principal and the staff. Between undergrad and graduate school, I taught high school. I know the challenges. But I also know that teachers have to be seen and treated as professionals, and that means meeting the same sorts of evaluations that other professionals meet.

Maureen Downey.

Ms. Downey,

I read your comments on the editorial page and I find that I believe your opinions are not only wrongheaded but damaging to public education. You have repeatedly lobbied for merit-based pay for teachers and your latest essay entitled “Report cards on teachers needed,” reinforces your position as one who wants to evaluate teachers because teachers are “the problem” with public education. (I take a different view. I believe that teachers are doing an adequate job and “the problem” is that less and less money in real dollars is being allocated to student education. In fact, a doubling of the amount spent on education would be just about right. It’s money not teachers that should be your focus.) The truth is teachers are already among the most evaluated of all employees anywhere. They spend four or five years being evaluated by professors in specialized programs to prepare them for teaching. The incapable, the disinterested, the unrealistic, are removed from the programs. Prospective teachers repeatedly take part in practicums and are evaluated. If their abilities are substandard, they are asked to repeat the experiences, or retake the class. Furthermore, having graduated with a degree in education is not enough, then there is standardized testing administered by the state in order for a hopeful teacher to be certified as a professional. When teachers begin teaching, the only thing they lack is experience. In addition to all this evaluation, when new teachers are finally placed in the classroom, they are mentored, have 4 formal evaluations the first year, and usually have numerous drop-in evaluations by grade-level chairs, lead teachers, or administrators. You expressed in your recent article that you have seen teachers removed from the system. This is an example of the system working.

I think there are a number of logical fallacies in the positions that you have taken. A problem that you ignore in both the merit-based pay essays and in Report cards for teachers, is that because of differences in raw material, measuring one teachers ability against another is both unfair, and pointless. Teachers tend to get pigeon-holed in a certain grade level and a certain skill level, because basically, each level is a different experience. They don’t get random students every year. Rather, they get students at a certain level each year. Those learning disabled students go to the same teacher each year because he or she has the experience to work with them. The same teacher has the low scoring students year after year because they are willing to accept and teach those students. So a teacher with lots of patience and little ego will accept the principal, lead teacher, or counselors' office loading their classes with low achieving students. So of course comparing their student achievement scores with the scores from the teacher of the high achievers’ class will reveal that one teacher is more “successful” than the other. If you have been dissatisfied with some of your own children’s classes, it may be that the make up of the class is largely responsible for the lack of performance by the children. Some classes are less disciplined, less mature, more needy, or economically or emotionally disadvantaged. Not to mention that one year’s class may end up two or three weeks behind a seemingly identical class from the year before. No two groups are the same. I’ve had classes that allowed me to teach as fast as I possibly could. They could keep up and follow no matter what. I’ve had classes that totally stopped me from teaching. Some students didn’t want to learn and they didn’t want me to teach anyone else either—they were little anti-education revolutionaries. I was the same teacher in both classes.

A second fallacy in your ideas about evaluating teachers is that you think teachers can be adequately evaluated by administrative staff. I’m sure that in your mind, that is the administrator’s job. You may imagine administrators as super teachers, understanding the techniques and ready to aid in instruction no matter the subject. Alas, they are not. They are not even close. Great teachers never become administrators. Good teachers rarely become administrators. What can administrators evaluate? Administrators are able to measure classroom control. They can measure teacher organization. They can see if students are engaged in a learning process. They can look at the records and see who comes in early, who stays late, and who volunteers for extra duty. Above all, administrators want calm waters. They want control and no surprises. They don’t want parent complaints, they don’t want inter-departmental jealousy, they don’t want new ideas and innovations, they don’t want challenges to their ideas, even when, or especially when their ideas are wrong. Point out to your administrator that they are doing something illegal and you’ll likely get fired or at least transferred to another school. Your evaluations will suddenly be inadequate.

What’s more one good teacher and another good teacher, while achieving similar end results, may go about the practice of instruction completely differently. When I first realized this I was astonished. Here was a teacher who did nothing that I did. His process was completely different. At first I thought he was just wrong in what he was doing. The end result however, was almost exactly what I would have hoped for. He had learned to do it in a different manner and he was terrific at it. It is difficult then, even for one professional in the field to evaluate another.

I understand your point of view I think. I’ve been a parent of two children. And I understand something of teaching. I was considered a “successful” teacher for 10 years. My experiences lead me to classify you as one of those parents who “wants more.” No matter what your school provides, you want more. You want more freedom to choose your child’s pathway. You want more subjects taught. You want the best teacher. You want the best classroom. You want your student to be in class with his or her friends. You want a biography of all the teachers so you can choose which teacher you child gets. How could we ever hire a new teacher? No one would choose to be in their class.

If there were a way to have all teachers work with the same raw material, then and only then could you compare them. But there is no way to do that. Merit-based pay is a bad idea precisely because of the lack of any reliable instrument of measurement. Merit-based pay also hands the principal even more power than they currently have. Principals are dictators in their little kingdoms. Some are benevolent. Some are evil.

There are circumstances under which I would think that some part of pay raises should be based on merit. But I’ll go ahead and tell you, these are not practical ideas. Expert teachers, master teachers, could be hired out of retirement as consultants to evaluate in the same subject and grade area that they themselves taught in. They could do extensive evaluations, living in teacher classrooms for days at a time, maybe sitting for several days without making a comment or a note. Real experts would be able to rank teachers in a school in a certain area. This ultimately is impossible because guess who would choose the expert evaluators? Right. Administrators. They’d pick their friends and they’d pick bean counters. “Messy desk, tsk, tsk. How can you be doing your best?” What’s more the real expert teachers would see the futility of the process and refuse to participate.

My public school would strive for adequate teachers at all levels. Great teaching can emerge under certain circumstances: when discipline can be maintained, when supplies are adequate, when building and grounds are adequate, when parental support is present. But great teaching is a bonus. By definition the great ones are few and far between. What we strive for is a school of professional teachers, doing their job, and getting paid like professionals.

If you were able to get to the end of my essay, I challenge you to immerse yourself in discussions with friends of education—teachers, parents, administrators, community members—to discuss the needs of education. Have you done that? Has their been a forum on education sponsored by the AJC, an ongoing series of discussions around town discussing things like class size, funding, red tape, curriculum, discipline, merit pay, etc., etc. If there has been such a thing I have missed it. And I would gladly participate and add my comments and questions. I long for Maureen Downey to express something different and really meaningful about education. I challenge you to hear from more circles of thought before proclaiming yourself in the newspaper. In my opinion, you keep asking for things that someone on the inside would know are just not workable and not desirable. I expect more from the person who writes about education for the AJC. Do better.

Wow! I missed the coded message. But millions did not. When John McCain called Barack Obama "The One" in a recent television advertisement, followed by footage of Charlton Heston as Moses, parting the waters of the Red Sea. He was not saying "Obama thinks he is a messiah figure." Rather, he was referring to the series of books Left Behind, which appeal to rightwing fundamentalist Christians who interpret the book of Revelations as a prophecy about how the world will come to an end and how Jesus will return to earth to reign. Now the book of Revelations has absolutely nothing to do with any of that. It is a coded book of history about things that were going on in the first century. The things have already happened and are over. But the fundamentalist wing of millinnialism has the future all mapped out and they use their "interpretations" of Revelation to make their plans. Sects of these guys are the people who every year or so gather on hillside waiting to be taken into heaven on someone's prophesy. They go home disappointed. The Left Behind books feature an evil character, the Anti-Christ, and guess what he is called--"the One." He is the leader of an evil world religion that promises to heal great divides.

So McCain called Obama "The One" and then played back speechs of Obama where he speaks of healing the nation.

The message. "I'm with you, fundamentalists. Obama is evil. He may be the embodiment of evil. He may be Satan himself." But I'll protect you.

Well I'll say this. If Obama is the anti-Christ, he'll win for sure. No worries.

When asked to differentiate between the middle class and the rich, John McCain said this week that those making $5 million a year were rich, but any less than that were middle class. So if the wife and I are only bringing down $2 million a year each, we should be safe from tax burdens because we are middle class.

What could I possibly add to make the point that McCain is totally out of touch with America and Americans.

Make war. Be tough. It is the American way.



John McCain, in an effort to portray himself as a military leader made the statement this week that "we are all Georgians." In the absence of any presidential leadership, McCain is assuming the mantel, hoping that by pretending to be a tough guy he can win more votes. He even sent envoys, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham to Georgia. McCain slandered Obama by saying that Obama was willing to lose a war to get votes. Well McCain is willing to start a war to get votes.

Senators do not send envoys nor negotiate peace accords. McCain will use equally poor judgement as a president.

He also claims to be a Teddy Roosevelt Republican. But he better look at Roosevelt again. Roosevelt was one of America's first and best conservationists and returned campaign contributions from oil companies. McCain's "drill here, drill now," comments were clearly an appeal to oil companies and they promptly responded with millions of dollars of campaign contributions.

Why give away more public land to oil companies that already own 68,000,000 acres of oil leases on land that they are not drilling on. Don't be mistaken, they think there is oil on that land or they wouldn't have leased it. They just aren't drilling. Why. To keep oil prices high. Sixty-eight million is an unfathomable number. They are allowed to drill in 95% of the artic, so of course, they want access to the other 5%. Sad.

I'll add my voice to the calls for a Manhattan project for alternative fuels, especially hydrogen which seems to already be working but only lacks a delivery system, i.e. hydrogen stations. We could use the money that we have been giving in subsidies to the oil companies, or tax the record profits they have made on the hardships of Americans.

I have very strong recollections of buying "back to school" clothes one year when I was a boy. We were shopping in an old Belk Gallant store in Decatur. I think I was about 7 or 8. Mama and Daddy were there with me and I had tried on clothes. I'm pretty sure I was growing a bit and had grown out of most of my clothes, but I can't remember that part. We had bought jeans and shirts, t shirts and underwear. I was thrilled with the clothes. I wore a lot of hand me downs from my cousins, but this was all new stuff. I remember it being piled on the counter and the clerk beginning to ring it up on the cash register. I'm really clear on the next part and I think this is why I remember this image so strongly. The total came up to $26 and change, and I was horror struck. I knew that we didn't have that kind of money and I immediately grabbed some of the pairs of jeans to go put them back in the stacks. What was I thinking? Thinking that I could buy all those clothes? But my mother stopped me and told me it was all right. And my dad took out money from his wallet and paid that enormous bill. I was shaken by the cost.

Who would think that I would feel disconnected from evangelical Christians? My parents didn't select their churches based on whether they were rightwing fundamentalists or not, because we were members of a right wing church and then a moderate church. It was based on the worship style and the youth programs for my sister and I. The evangelical right wing base which was highly influential on my life as a child and teenager is today a stranger to me. I can't figure out their issues. I can't figure out why they think it is okay to lie and cheat to try to hold on to their position. Why is it important to them that Darwin's theory of evolution be false? Why would they take their child out of school where evolution is taught? Darwin didn't even believe in his theory. He said that if it were true then the geological strata would be filled with missing links and they are not. It is a theory and all. The natural selection part of it seems clear enough. Everyone can see that. The species jumping part is more problematic. Maybe such a thing happens. Maybe it doesn't. Who cares?

How did abortion get to be such a big issue? It wasn't an issue at all when it was a crime. Yes we did have piles of kids in orphanages, dropped off unwanted. Yes we had girls who died by the thousands from back alley abortions--girls who couldn't risk going forward with a baby. So they died taking a chance on living. And lots of married ladies died during pregnancy because of complications that today are solved by abortion. Too bad for all those women and unwanted orphans. But they had no advocates. They didn't get in the newspaper. They inspired no protestors.

How did gun ownership become such an issue? Are we really concerned that if they government knows about our guns that they will come and take them from us? Do we need secret guns? Do we need machine guns? Do civilians need armor piercing bullets? Isn't it funny that the political party that advocates for guns has largely destroyed the check and balance system of government and moved us three giant steps toward fascism and away from democracy. I find that ironic anyway.

How can 25% of the country still think that invading Iraq was a good idea? The same people are glad the preznit made a speech this week telling Russia not to invade Georgia. What are you Russians thinking? What would it mean to "win" the Iraq war? Couldn't we just say we won and come home? Why aren't we trying to catch Osamma Bin Laden?

There are actually people, evangelical Christians mostly, who believe George Bush 44 will go down as one of America's greatest presidents.

I think it's possible that I never knew these people, I just hung out with them for awhile as a kid.

You know, I have a lot to say about the political process that is going on in our country right now. Both the death throes of the Bush administration as he continues to thrash about creating hardships for people and the attack ad policies of the Republican party. If you want to know what McCain stands for, well, he stands for making fun of Obama. He's elite, he's an empty-headed celebrity, a Paris Hilton clone, he's arrogant and thinks he's the Messiah, he's not ready to lead.

Obama ads on the other hand talk about what Obama wants to do. There is nothing about McCain's changes in position, about his age and countless mental lapses as he struggles along the campaign trail. Nothing like "Well at Harvard, they have a mandatory retirement age of 70." Why do you think those colleges have those mandatory retirement ages for their scholars? Is there a reason? I'm 56, but I'm afraid there is a reason. Obama talks about his ideas. McCain talks about Obama. Does McCain have any ideas?

Apparently yesterday or today he made remarks about the Republic of Georgia to the media and it turns out he was quoting from Wikipedia. Seriously. A presidential candidate, a member of the United States Senate, hears about the crisis in Georgia, and he Googles it to formulate what to say.

It might be time for him to drop out and let them pick someone else.

There is no reason to talk about George Bush and his administration right now. But, the time is coming when the investigations will take place. Bush and Cheny are criminals. They are war criminals. They have aided and abetted theives. They have made a run at destroying our system of checks and balances. They have given away the treasury. The investigations will begin soon. The attorneys general firing scandal should put a number of people in jail.

I just can't bring myself to go into the travestry of this administration. The election is coming.

My Plan for Iraq
By BARACK OBAMA
CHICAGO — The call by Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki for a timetable for the removal of American troops from Iraq presents an enormous opportunity. We should seize this moment to begin the phased redeployment of combat troops that I have long advocated, and that is needed for long-term success in Iraq and the security interests of the United States.
The differences on Iraq in this campaign are deep. Unlike Senator John McCain, I opposed the war in Iraq before it began, and would end it as president. I believed it was a grave mistake to allow ourselves to be distracted from the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban by invading a country that posed no imminent threat and had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Since then, more than 4,000 Americans have died and we have spent nearly $1 trillion. Our military is overstretched. Nearly every threat we face — from Afghanistan to Al Qaeda to Iran — has grown.
In the 18 months since President Bush announced the surge, our troops have performed heroically in bringing down the level of violence. New tactics have protected the Iraqi population, and the Sunni tribes have rejected Al Qaeda — greatly weakening its effectiveness.
But the same factors that led me to oppose the surge still hold true. The strain on our military has grown, the situation in Afghanistan has deteriorated and we’ve spent nearly $200 billion more in Iraq than we had budgeted. Iraq’s leaders have failed to invest tens of billions of dollars in oil revenues in rebuilding their own country, and they have not reached the political accommodation that was the stated purpose of the surge.
The good news is that Iraq’s leaders want to take responsibility for their country by negotiating a timetable for the removal of American troops. Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, the American officer in charge of training Iraq’s security forces, estimates that the Iraqi Army and police will be ready to assume responsibility for security in 2009.
Only by redeploying our troops can we press the Iraqis to reach comprehensive political accommodation and achieve a successful transition to Iraqis’ taking responsibility for the security and stability of their country. Instead of seizing the moment and encouraging Iraqis to step up, the Bush administration and Senator McCain are refusing to embrace this transition — despite their previous commitments to respect the will of Iraq’s sovereign government. They call any timetable for the removal of American troops “surrender,” even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government.
But this is not a strategy for success — it is a strategy for staying that runs contrary to the will of the Iraqi people, the American people and the security interests of the United States. That is why, on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces. That would not be a precipitous withdrawal.
In carrying out this strategy, we would inevitably need to make tactical adjustments. As I have often said, I would consult with commanders on the ground and the Iraqi government to ensure that our troops were redeployed safely, and our interests protected. We would move them from secure areas first and volatile areas later. We would pursue a diplomatic offensive with every nation in the region on behalf of Iraq’s stability, and commit $2 billion to a new international effort to support Iraq’s refugees.
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq.
In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.
It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.