For one thing, any foreign policy/military commitments in a platform are easily ditched by an administration on the grounds that “conditions are different”, they don’t want their “hands tied”, etc. The rights you all put good work into articulating precede and should outlast any particular mil/fp situation; they’re fundamental to who we are as a country.

Second, Obama already has a pretty clear position on Iraq and Afghanistan (and a strong desire for no one to bring up Somalia, I’d bet). We don’t like the position very much, but there it is. Electing better members of Congress and ramping up the non-electoral pressure on January 21, 2009 is going to be more effective than any platform plank.

Third, it’s just the reality of where we’ve been pushed to over the last eight years: there are so many areas of need and concern that it’s pretty much impossible to treat them all adequately. And all the more so with the funnelling technique the campaign is applying to these sessions.

If there’s one important principle to get in there, it’s restoration of our rights/accountability for their abandonment, which are absolutely two sides of the same coin. That is, no rights will be genuine if there’s no cost to their being abandoned.

Good on ya.

I’ll add what’s turning into a lengthy postscript about the “dog that didn’t bark” yet. IIRC, I was the only person who brought up Iraq to any major degree in the roundtable discussion, and no language about Iraq got into our consensus platform. (I argued that it and the FISA, MCA, torture issues were of a piece in a “do we intend to abide by the rules we set for ourselves” way, and “do we intend to limit the executive branch (even though we’re here via a presidential campaign)?” But Iraq was not what brought those people (or me, to be clear) to that meeting, other things were.

I’ve been +/- accused of (paraphrasing) is that people like me are short-shrifting Iraq/peace concerns as we tilt at impeachment/etc. windmills. (Local peace activist guy, local conversation at the pool one time.) Among the many things I did not say that day, in favor of “Huh. Well, talk to you later.”, were:
a) I don’t think it’s necessary for everyone to do every thing or only the “most important” thing,
b) I see the impeachment/FISA/etc. and war issues as connected — one impeachment issue is the deceitful case for the war, and underlying both is the “commander in chief”-itis afflicting the country, and
c) I do try to show up for Iraq things — demonstrations, writing, bringing Iraq plans to a congressman’s office.

At this meeting, the structure was such that I felt I had to kind of pick one thing and stick with it; others may have felt similarly. Probably everyone there cared about Iraq, and probably most want us out by a time certain, sooner rather than later. But everyone probably felt “someone else will bring it up and push it, so I’ll stick with my other thing.”