LOOK at this Harvard study found here
THE "EMBOLDENMENT EFFECT" asked:
"Are insurgents in Iraq emboldened by voices in the news media
expressing dissent or calling for troop withdrawals from Iraq?
The short answer is YES!!! according to Radha Iyengar, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in health policy
research at Harvard and Jonathan Monten of the Belfer Center at the university's Kennedy School of Government.
STUDY ABSTRACT
Are insurgents affected by information on US casualty sensitivity? Using data on attacks and variation in access to international news across Iraqi provinces, we identify an “emboldenment” effect by comparing the rate of insurgent attacks in areas with higher and lower access to information about
U.S news after public statements critical of the war. (wouldn't you conclude the next president accusing the US military of methodically and systematically air raiding villages killing civilians.. dissent???) We find in periods after a spike in war-critical statements, insurgent attacks increases by 5-10 percent.
SO if a HARVARD study shows a direct correlation about statements like this from Obama..
"Let me be clear: There is no military solution in Iraq and there never was," Obama was expected to say in a speech Wednesday at Ashford University.
"The best way to protect our security and to pressure Iraq's leaders to resolve their civil war is to immediately begin to remove our combat troops. Not in six months or one year — now," the Illinois senator was to say.
Obama's ardent opposition to the war has been a central theme of his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, and he has used it to distinguish himself from leading rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
Sen. Barack Obama to Call for Combat Troop Withdrawal from Iraq by End of 2008 | Fox News
So HARVARD shows that Obama's speeches had direct affect of killing more US troops!