Obama: I need to earn troops’ trust

[CommunityEditor]

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama knows that to win the vote of current and former military members and their families, he has to prove himself.

“Precisely because I have not served in uniform, I am somebody who strongly believes I have to earn the trust of men and women in uniform,” Obama said in a July 2 interview with Military Times as he contrasted his lack of service with that of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, a Navy retiree and Vietnam veteran who has years of experience in Congress working on national security issues.

“I do not presume that from the day I am sworn in, every single service man or woman suddenly says, ‘This guy knows what he is doing,’” said Obama, a freshman U.S. senator from Illinois, in his most extensive interview to date on a wide range of military issues.

Earning trust, he said, means listening to advice from military people, including top uniformed leaders, combatant commanders and senior noncommissioned officers and petty officers. It also means standing up for the military on critical issues and keeping promises, Obama said.

The 46-year-old former community organizer and civil rights attorney will formally become the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee at the party’s August convention in Denver.

Obama said he hopes the military community will see him as “a guy looking out for us and not someone trying to score cheap political points.”

Military members and their families deserve better pay and benefits, he said, and although money might be hard to find for a generous increase, he supports increasing basic pay to keep up with inflation and private-sector salaries, and he believes housing allowances need to be increased so young service members and their families can afford adequate places to live.

He also wants to spend more to improve veterans’ health care and reduce the wait for a disability claim to be processed.

“I don’t know a higher priority than making sure that the men and women who are putting themselves in harm’s way, day in and day out, are getting decent pay and decent benefits — so that when they return home as veterans, they don’t have to wait six months to get benefits that they’ve earned, that they’re not winding up homeless on the streets, that they’re being screened for post-traumatic stress disorder, that if a spouse is widowed, the benefits are sufficiently generous,” he said. “These are just basic requirements of a grateful nation.”

Obama said he did not want to be more specific because he did not want to make promises he might not be able to keep. “I think we can do a much better job than we’re doing right now,” he said. But, he added, “I want to be honest: We are going to be in a tight budget situation. We’re not going to be able to do everything all at once.”

He also wants an end to stop-loss orders that extend active duty beyond separation or retirement dates, and he wants a deployment schedule that provides more stability and time at home for families.

One way to relieve this stress is to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps. Obama’s plans for a 65,000-person increase in the Army and a 27,000-person increase in the Marine Corps match plans already underway. He said he is not sure about personnel levels for the Navy and Air Force, but “I don’t anticipate a reduction” for those two services.

Troops in Iraq
Pulling U.S. combat forces out of Iraq would free up money for personnel programs and a host of other military needs, Obama said, citing the $10 billion to $12 billion monthly cost of military operations there. He did not mention that funding for Iraq has, so far, been emergency funding on top of the regular peacetime budget that would not automatically be diverted to other military programs.

Getting U.S. combat troops out of Iraq is a key Obama goal, and one where he said he is misunderstood. His campaign materials say Obama would begin withdrawing combat troops from Iraq, one or two brigades a month, as soon as he takes office. But he added in the interview that the start of the withdrawal also depends on the security conditions on the ground.

Obama said he wants to reduce combat troops, leaving forces to continue training Iraqi police and military officers, providing security for U.S. officials and facilities and for counterterrorism operations. Exactly when and how quickly this would happen depends on the situation in the field, he said, acknowledging that military commanders on the ground would play a key role in recommending what steps to take.

Obama said he would not order any “precipitous” withdrawal of combat forces. Instead, he said, his policy is that “we should be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless in getting in.”

“I have always said that as commander in chief, I would seek the advice and counsel of our generals,” Obama said. But, in the end, “it is the job of commander in chief to set the strategy.”

A strategic factor in the decision to keep forces in Iraq includes, for him, a question about the risk of not having enough combat-ready forces for other operations.

“If we have only one battle-ready brigade outside the Iraq rotation to respond to other risks, that’s not good strategic planning by the commander in chief,” he said. “If we have a situation in Afghanistan where we are seeing more and more violence in the eastern portion of Afghanistan, at a time when we’ve actually increased the forces down there and we’ve got some of the best battle-tested operations deployed there, and we’re still seeing increases in violence, what that tells me is that we’ve got real problems.”

Obama said he believes he would be a far better commander in chief than McCain.

“I believe that I have a better grasp of where we need to take the country, and how we should use the power of ... not just our military, but all of our power in order to achieve American security,” Obama said. “I think I have a better sense than he does of where we need to go in the future.

“As somebody who has worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on critical issues like nuclear proliferation ... as somebody who has traveled widely and grew up traveling around the world, I think I have a clear sense of the nature of both the transnational threats and challenges but also the opportunities that are going to determine our safety and security for the foreseeable future. And that’s why I think I can be an effective commander in chief,” Obama said.

Accountability in leadership
During the interview, Obama discussed the issue of accountability for military leaders, including times when, he said, he believes the Bush administration has blamed senior officers for things that were not their fault. He contrasted his own personal standards of accountability that he said would apply if he becomes president.

“There are times during the course of this war where I felt that the military was blamed for bad planning on the civilian side, and that, I think, is unfortunate,” he said.

He acknowledged, however, that sometimes it is important to hold military leaders responsible for their actions.

Obama also spoke of rocking the boat. In what seems certain to be one of his more controversial proposals for the military, Obama said he wants to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

Equity and fairness are part of the reason for lifting the ban on acknowledged homosexuals serving in the military, Obama said, but there are practical reasons, too — like getting “all hands on deck” when the nation needs people in uniform. “If we can’t field enough Arab linguists, we shouldn’t be preventing an Arab linguist from serving his or her country because of what they do in private,” he said, referring to the 2006 discharge of about 60 linguists for violating the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on service by homosexuals.

“I want to make sure that we are doing it in a thoughtful and principled way. But I do believe that at a time when we are short-handed, that everybody who is willing to lay down their lives on behalf of the United States and can do so effectively, can perform critical functions, should have the opportunity to do so.”

Asked how he would deal with opposition from within the Pentagon, Obama smiled and said: “Well, I’m a pretty persuasive guy.” But he acknowledged that pushing such a legal change through Congress would be more challenging. “We have to distinguish whether there are functional barriers to doing this and are people prepared for the political heat.”

Another potential boat-rocking issue involves the use of private military companies to do work once performed by uniformed troops. Obama said he would seek to limit military-related work in combat zones that is turned over to private contractors.

“There is room for private contractors to work in the mess hall providing basic supplies and doing some logistical work that might have been done in-house in the past,” he said. “I am troubled by the use of private contractors when it comes to potential armed engagements. I think it puts our troops in harm’s way.”

Obama also said he is troubled by the long-term effect of such a policy. “Over time, you are, I believe, eroding the core of our military’s relationship to the nation and how accountability is structured,” he said. “I think you are privatizing something that is what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is a monopoly on violence.”


Article: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20..._obama_070708/
Video: http://www.militarytimes.com/project...nterview_main/
Transcripts: http://www.militarytimes.com/news/20...ma_transcript/

I don't think Senator Obama is as geniuine as people paint his image to be. I believe that there are many undelying issues that he and his wife have that the media has not published yet. I believe in people establishing patterns of behavior that sometimes good and sometimes bad. With their participation in their church, and her comments of "for the first time in my life" comment, they are fooling the people who want to be fooled. I believe that a lot of negative anti-american sermons took place in their presence but since no one knew him or his wife, he was never seen listening and supporting his Preacher's Sermons. If he and his wife really meant to leave the church for the negative publicity, they should have left it 20 years ago. Another question, if his wife was not running for office, why did she leave the church also? By her staying, will it have had a negative impact on his campaign? I've often heard Sen. Obama say to "leave her out of politics". I think that she is in it right along with him, as a husband and wife should be. I think they are both faking the public by speaking eloquently but that college talk is fooling many people. I hear that he has focused on certain groups so they can vote for him; the Hispanics, African Americans, Women, Poor people, etc....he should have served in the military; maybe the Veterans would take him more serious. Senator McCain can do the same thing by trying to win over the ethnic groups. As a matter of fact, Senator McCain can go one step further in addition to maintaining his honesty and charisma as a natural born leader; he can concentrate on winning the vote of over 38 Million Veterans who are still alive and can all vote, that's almos as many personnel as any of the ethnic minority groups. He will definetely have the upper hand you know.

"Don't ask, Don't tell" does not prevent a homosexual from serving now. If they truly are private in their "affairs" and put the mission before self, then they are allowed to serve honorably. If Obama wants to allow them to serve openly, then they are placing self before mission. In this "it's all about me" generation, our warrior ethos will suffer and Obama will be the reason. I could never vote for someone who doesn't understand that.

His push for gay rights is a pay off to big money gay activists who don't care about the military. They only want to shove their agenda on the American people and will use any social engineering agenda to do it, regardless of its effects on our military. He can't point to any study that proves that our fighting men and women can better win our wars should this law be rescinded.

HEY OBAMA why DIDNT YOU SERVE IN THE FORCES GOD HELP US IF THIS PHONY WINS

A total empty suit that will say and do anything to get elected. His tax plan will bankrupt small businesses, most economists state his new spending will ruin the economy and him sitting in a church listening to hate speech for 20 years and is also friends with the aditted and unrepentant Bill Ayers is deplorable. Without a teleprompter he is pathetic as a speaker. This guy is a flake.

Obama does not have any more need or respect for the military that Bill Clinton did..Democrates do not have what it takes to tie the military to a national plan and look to the future..Obama needs to worry about gaining the trust of the non-military, along with the military..so far he has not done a meaningful job..it must be hard to come down from the tower when you think/believe you are so much better than everone else.. his preacher stories are not over..and we are to trust him to make judgements for us and our country..

You mean like Bill and Hill earned our trust with phoney bombings in Africa and intervention in the Balkans? This empty suit is the phoniest load of BS to infiltrate the perimeter since the Jimma Carter. The lesson of history is that Jimma and Bill's inaction in their repective terms got us where are today with outstanding young Americans now being killed and maimed in a war they could have prevented with little effort. What war will Barack Hussein Obama lead his successor into?

Check out Senator Obama's voting record before you vote...

Even after the House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to send our troops into harm's way, Senator Obama voted no on providing the funds necessary to fight the war and protect our troops -- all the while criticizing Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and President Bush for not providing body armor and armored vehicles for our troops.

Looking forward: If Mr. Obama gets elected, there won't be any money for beans, bullets, or spare parts. If you take all of the money from the military and divert it to his social agenda, there still won't be enough money to pay for it all...

[MtnMarathoner]

Osama bin Laden and Ahmadinejad would like to "earn our troops' trust" too, and are just as worthy of it. Barack apparently has been listening to Kerry and thinks our troops are dumb.

As long as he keeps saying he will "END" Iraq rather than he will "WIN" Iraq he shows himself as nothing more than a politician who would accept defeat instead of making the tough choices and gutting it out.
Until then, there is nothing worthy of trust.