Replicate this! Obama’s Promise Taken to the Bank (literally)

In October of 2007, Barack Obama said this: "I will promise you this, that if we have not gotten our troops out by the time I am president, it is the first thing I will do. I will get our troops home. We will bring an end to this war. You can take that to the bank. " (Emphasis mine)

Recently, I traveled to several banks trying to do just that.

Literally:

So today's New York Times Article that lays the groundwork for the unavoidable truth that U.S troops will still be Iraq in 2012 - breaking Obama's Dec. 31st pledge misses the larger point: contractors and CIA forces will still be there, to staff the larger than Vatican sized embassy with U.S. paramilitary forces until a date sometime after Armageddon, or as more gently put by the Times :

Even as the military reduces its troop strength in Iraq, the C.I.A. will continue to have a major presence in the country, as will security contractors working for the State Department. (...) In some ways, the debate over an American military presence is a rhetorical one. The administration has already drawn up plans for an extensive expansion of the American Embassy and its operations, bolstered by thousands of paramilitary security contractors. It has also created an Office of Security Cooperation that, like similar ones in countries like Egypt, would be staffed by civilians and military personnel overseeing the training and equipping of Iraq’s security forces.

Now that the troops are not coming out by the Dec. 31 deadline, perhaps we can shift our discussion to the larger question of just how unsustainable our blowback inducing, illegal, immoral and expensive foreign policy actually is.

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Dennis Trainor, Jr is a writer, performer, filmmaker, the host of the video series Acronym and serves on the steering committee of October2011.org.