Over the course of the last week, President Barack Obama has been overseas visiting foreign nations in order to make it clear that times have changed in America and the world. The nations visited include Turkey, England the Czech Republic, and France. The trip signals to the world that the Bush Administration is gone and the Obama Administration is now here.
After Obama finished up his stop in Turkey, he made a surprise stopover in Iraq. The main purpose of his stop was to thank the men and women in the United States military for their work. Furthermore, the trip also serves as a reminder of Obama’s plan for the War in Iraq.
Iraq is the main point that sets President Obama’s policies apart from those of former President Bush. Obama has been advocating the ending of the War in Iraq since the beginning of his campaign.
President Obama hopes to remove all combat squads from Iraq by the end of summer 2010.
Obama chose to visit Iraq over Afghanistan due to the trip from Istanbul to Baghdad being shorter. In addition, he wanted to reinforce his promise to end the Iraq War.
In addition, Obama realized that going to Afghanistan would have drawn attention to the growing issue there. Obama plans to bring in troops to combat the Taliban and al Qaeda.
It has been stated by many that Afghanistan and Pakistan will be to Obama as Iraq was to Bush. Only time will tell how this will play out for Obama and his legacy.
Bonus News Report-Kal Penn, who is known mostly for his recent role on the TV series House as Dr. Lawrence Kutner and in the Harold and Kumar films as Kumar Patel has been hired by the Obama Administration to be the White House’s Office of Public Liaison’s associate director.
I’m hoping you don’t see this as offensive but this sounds like the same ol’ Obama rhetoric.Obama is the same ol’ politician in a different suit and folks that voted for him are starting to figure that out.