@BarackObama's First Tweet Was Anti-War
On April 29 2007 @BarackObama, which is currently run by Organizing for Action, tweeted its first tweet:
@BarackObama is one of the most followed accounts on Twitter, with 42.1 million followers at the time of writing.
The tweet came a few days after the Senate passed a funding bill that would have set a date for American combat troop withdrawal from Iraq. From a press release about the bill from then-Sen. Obama:
I believe that my plan for a phased withdrawal with the goal of removing all combat brigades from Iraq by March 31st, 2008 is still the best way to pressure the warring factions to reach a political settlement necessary to end this war. This similar plan responsibly redeploys our troops from Iraq while protecting our interests in the wider Middle East. It ensures that we are as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in.
During his 2008 presidential campaign, Obama made sure to highlight the fact that—unlike another Democrat seeking the presidency, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton—he was an early opponent of the war in Iraq.
As Reason's Ed Krayewski pointed out in September 2012, President Obama did not end the war. The agreement to withdraw American troops from Iraq in December 2011 was negotiated between American and Iraqi officials in 2008. In fact, Obama wanted American troops to stay in Iraq after 2011. The troops left then anyway because of that agreement signed by his predecessor—and so, as The Huffington Post explained, "the president ultimately had no choice but to stick to candidate Obama's plan."
More from Reason on Iraq here.
