50,000 US troops remain in Iraq, and they are still receiving combat pay. One soldier was killed in Basra just last Sunday, after the supposed end of combat operations, and the same day 5,000 men and women of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood were deployed to Iraq. Their mission will be anything but desk duty. Among other things they will accompany the Iraqi military on dangerous patrols, continue to be involved in the hunt for terrorists, and provide air support for the Iraqi military. They should be receiving combat pay, because they will be serving a combat role!

Of course the number of private contractors - who perform many of the same roles as troops, but for a lot more money - is expected to double. So this is a funny way of ending combat operations in Iraq. We are still meddling in their affairs and we are still putting our men and women in danger, and we are still spending money we don’t have. This looks more like an escalation than a draw-down to me!

Obama didn't keep his promise. He just renamed combat troops "advisers" and added a lot more private armed contractors to replace the troops he withdrew. Will any of Obama's knee-jerk supporters notice?

The President's popularity is NOT fading. All you talking heads have jumped on the Beck/Palin bandwagon to bash him and echo their particular brand of propaganda. This man has accomplished MORE in less than TWO (2) years than the "shrub" (Thank-you, Mollie Ivins!) ever imagined in his puny little walnut of a brain. Imagine how much more Mr. Obama could have done if he had a WILLING Congress behind him. I'm sick to death of Politics and talking heads and opinionated naysayers who second guess his every move. ENOUGH already! Considering what he was left to contend with, I think he's doing a GREAT job. We need to rally 'round this man and stature we enjoyed BEFORE the "Me Firsters" almost ran us into the ground. He CERTAINLY can't do it alone. Remember, the phrase is, "Yes, WE can!".

I don't think people notice Obama because he continued to keep the old time friend Gates, remembered him and the contra affair, and with Bush in the previous Regime, and continued to follow Bush. Iraq will always be controlled by the US, and troops kept there. The only reason some are being released is to fool the people because of the brewing war in Iran,--- thanks to the Zionist in Israel. Iran's oil pipe lines have already been struck, blamed on the Kurds and we know who is behind that.

Pakistan is destabilizing, thanks to our semi-covert war there (Obama's 'Cambodia'. Yemen and Somalia have been added to the covert side of our wars in the Muslim world. We're deeper into Afghanistan than ever before. He repackaged the role of 50,000 combat troops by call them 'advisors', and his administration cleaned up Blackwater's notorious record of gouging their no-bid contracts - and ignored their war crimes - so he could replace our troops with mercenaries.

And he did absolutely nothing about joblessness, except pour money into Wall Street and the banks.

"mission accomplished", yeah, right.

We learned nothing from Vietnam, except to upgrade our propaganda and stop counting the enemy dead. We learned nothing from this decade of war, except to outsource our wars to the private sector and call our combat troops something else.

I voted for peace and jobs and all I got were these bloody wars.

If this is the best that RSN can come up with, I think the premise of the website should be reconsidered.

Phil Bowler had it right on the Eisenhower citation. That was absurd. The ONLY speech that is remembered is the farewell address.

The rest of the article is dreadful. "A triumphal, 'yes I did' moment." !!! Are you serious. 50,000 troops—addition al mercenaries, a country looking more and more like a client state of Iran, violence, a continuing drain on terrible US economy. A parallel horror in Afghanistan, rumblings in Yemen and Pakistan. A triumphal moment.....Yes...in the tradition of "Mission Accomplished."

Please find better articles...

It was more like a "cut and run" thing.
The US military was a spent force in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan will be even worse.

Imagine, a rag tag army of insurgents bringing the end of a stupid military adventure in Iraq and a rag tag army of goat herders in Afghanistan about to do the same. President Omama should have kept to his word in Afghanistan but his advisers and the military frightened him into continuing the war and that will be his downfall.

This will be the old "Peace with Honor" speech, compiled and re-edited from Nixon's files and now dusted off and presented to an American public that is more polarized and less informed (which hardly seems possible since the inception of the internet).We are NEVER LEAVING IRAQ! This was an investment, paid for with American tax dollars and designed to benefit a handful of wealthy corporations. Remove the oil from under the ground in Iraq and we NEVER would have been there. Afghanistan likewise has precious oil pipelines running through it from the Caspian Sea and must not be allowed to fall into other hands. This is EMPIRE doing what it does best and has always done. Entering foreign lands,killing or buying off its people and leaders,command eering the resources of value that came to its attention in the first place,leaving a puppet government to do its bidding and then leaving the country in a state of flux, and more often chaos before declaring "victory" whilst never really leaving at all.

Nothing like the old carnival hand and shell game to convince an increasing war-weary public that the Iraq War is at last ending. Military officials confirm we are committed to intervention in that country for years to come, and our operations have in fact, changed minimally, if really at all.
50,000 US troops remain in Iraq, and they are still receiving combat pay. One soldier was killed in Basra just last Sunday, after the supposed end of combat operations, and the same day 5,000 men and women of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Hood were deployed to Iraq. Their mission will be anything but desk duty.

Of course, the number of private contractors-who perform many of the same roles as troops, but for a lot more money-, is expected to double. Then the State Department is laying plans to field their own army in an unprecedented experiment. Where do you think those monies are coming from?

First I learned the "W" questions - not questions re. George W. Bush, the low I.Q. puppet whore a.k.a. WORST PRESIDENT EVER, but rather the who, what, where, when questions that constitute good reporting. Then came an education on the hardest "W" question of all: WHY.

Avoid the 'why' question in civil matters, but know that it vital and often difficult to answer in criminal matters. That was the advice I received from my dear legal mentor. And today, in the U.S. of (greed and power) A.(ddiction), we the sheeple have an immense need to ask why: why all the spin, manipulation, distraction.

I fully expected another "balloon with child inside" incident as Pres. Obama's speech began, but none was apparently needed insofar as the pres. was obviously scripted - approved by our M.I.C.T.'ed (military/industrial/corporate/terror billionaire (a.k.a.villianaire)rul ers.

Why/when did Obama sell out? What now? Surely not a return to the Bushwhacked years! UNDO THE COUP!