It seems that Obama's plan for Iraq is to leave nearly 200,000 troops (public and private forces in Iraq after his "withdrawal" as well as keeping strike forces of combat troops in surrounding countries. He plans to keep tens of thousands of non-combat troops and 140,000 civilian troops or private security contractors (mercenary troops such as Blackwater Worldwide)in Iraq.

Clearly, he is less and less of a peace candidate. Recently, he endorsed Reagan, Bush I and JFK -- those three get credit for starting Iran-Contra, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Vietnam quagmire, and Gulf War I -- which was the root of the sanctions and then the current Iraq quagmire.

With Pennsylvania so high stakes in the primary an anti-war/anti- militarist foreign policy protest would get a lot of attention and have an impact. Obama needs to know he cannot run toward the Republican/conservative-independent traditional pro-militarism position without being loudly criticized. He evidently thinks he has won the Democratic nomination and is now free to run toward the center-right.

For those who fear a protest will hurt Obama and like him, in fact, this will make him a better candidate. He needs to move toward the two-thirds
majority that believes the war was wrong, cannot be won and needs to be completely ended -- not re-worked. He'll do better if he sides with the
super-majority of Americans that are with the peace movement.

Here is a recent interview with Obama which aired on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman, March 18, 2008

UPDATE: OBAMA'S POSITION ON IRAQ

www.democrac ynow.org/ 2008/3/28/ amy_goodman_ questions_ sen_obama_ on

GOODMAN: Senator Obama, quick question: 70 percent of Iraqis say they want
the US to withdraw completely; why don't you call for a total withdrawal?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I do, except for our embassy. I call for amnesty
and protecting our civilian contractors there.

AMY GOODMAN: You've said a residual force-

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Yeah, but-

AMY GOODMAN: -which means [inaudible] thousands [inaudible].

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, no. I mean, I don't think that you've read exactly
what I've said. What I said is that we do need to have a strike force in the
region. It doesn't necessarily have to be in Iraq; it could be in Kuwait or
other places. But we do have to have some presence in order to not only
protect them, but also potentially to protect their territorial integrity.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you call for a ban on the private military contractors like
Blackwater?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I've actually-I'm the one who sponsored the bill that
called for the investigation of Blackwater in [inaudible], so-

AMY GOODMAN: But would you support the Sanders one now?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Here's the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors
right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those
with US troops, we can't draw down the contractors faster than we can draw
down our troops. So what I want to do is draw-I want them out in the same
way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops. Alright? I
mean, I-

AMY GOODMAN: Not a ban?

SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I don't want to replace those contractors with more
US troops, because we don't have them, alright?