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Obama Makes Gaffe on Iraq and Afghanistan

blogs.abcnews.com — Obama: Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan. "We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan." Afghans: "Um, we don't speak Arabic. We speak mostly Farsi and Pashtu."

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  • jcm267, on 05/14/2008, -5/+15I can understand a slip of the tongue. This guy is speaking in public for hours every day. My issue is with the people who would point to Bush doing this as a reason to call him stupid while dismissing Obama's gaffe.

    Onto this:

    ""We need agricultural specialists in Afghanistan, people who can help them develop other crops than heroin poppies, because the drug trade in Afghanistan is what is driving and financing these terrorist networks. So we need agricultural specialists," he said."
    - Honestly, this is the best case I've heard for legalizing heroin and the politicians keep making it. You can't stop them all from growing poppies if that's where they'll make the best money and if you provide legal avenues for them to sell their poppies for medicinal purposes many will just continue to sell to the more lucrative black market.
    • card51short, on 05/14/2008, -3/+8well bush does it once a day...that isn't to say he isn't smart...he's just a horrible speaker.
      • jcm267, on 05/14/2008, -3/+4The man clearly can't make prepared speeches to save his life. I hear all the time that he's best off the cuff, and things like his speech at Ground Zero exemplify that. I am convinced that the man has dyslexia.
    • BohicaTwentyTwo, on 05/14/2008, -2/+6I can forgive the occasional verbal slip from time to time. Eight years of Bush have desensitized me (crap I'm agreeing with Card). What I cannot abide is Obama's constant re-hashing of fabricated left-wing talking points. The talking point he is trying to make is that the Iraq war is keeping us from winning in Afghanistan, but when he tries to come up with an actual example of this he FAILS TWICE.
  • Hillsfar, on 05/14/2008, -7/+13The foreign fighters (Saudis, Egyptians, Yemenites, etc.) who make up the core of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan use Arabic as a common language since they all know it natively or from their studies of the Koran.

    Now let's see if I'm gonna get dugg down for speaking the truth.
    • AtHomeBoy2000, on 05/14/2008, -10/+1you speak the truth. I dugg this topic as inaccurate.
    • keltin, on 05/14/2008, -2/+10Yes, there are foreign fighters, and they all aren't Arabic on the Baddies' side. Trying to give 'em a little wiggle room, are you? Obama - Appologist.
    • DanThePainter, on 05/14/2008, -3/+8At HotAir: >>....David Wright responds by noting a couple of other points that seem to escape Camp Obama. One, the only people speaking Arabic in Afghanistan are the people shooting at NATO troops. The people whom we want to engage to rebuild Afghanistan don’t speak Arabic. Second, the US usually uses locals as translators, so we didn’t rob Peter to pay Paul in translators by invading Iraq, despite Obama’s spurious claims.....>>
      http://hotair.com/archives/2008/05/14/obama-stumbl ...

  • AtHomeBoy2000, on 05/14/2008, -11/+2The terrorists speak Arabic. Hence why you need translators. To translate their intercepted messages.
  • bluevillage, on 05/14/2008, -7/+7He added immediately by saying that Arabic translators often speak Urdu or Pushtun and languages spoken in places like Afghanistan. Give the guy a break!
  • RawSense2004, on 05/14/2008, -2/+6Even I know this! Up north, they even speak another language, but I cannot recall it's name right now. Oh well. Maybe we could send some Taiwanese to Argentina? lol.. Nice catch.
  • runnerzwrld, on 05/14/2008, -1/+6He makes errors like this constantly. Recently he made a big mistake in talking about how WWII leaders were constantly getting together to have pow-wows which is not true. Obama seems too arrogant he doesnt even know when he is wrong.
    • IconoclastStill, on 05/18/2008, -1/+2Those who do not know history are bound to repeat it . . . and obie is eager to plunge headlong down the path blazed by such luminaries as Neville Chamberlain and jimmy jellyfish.
  • Pillage, on 05/17/2008, -1/+2If McCain had made this, it would be insta-front page. oh well.
  • BluNews, on 07/24/2008, -0/+0Not sure why AtHomeBoy2000 is being modded down. The recent increase in violence in Afghanistan is primarily attributed to an increase in the foreign fighters entering the country. The majority of those fighters/terrorists speak Arabic, so we need more Arabic translators. Of course, that assumes we are intercepting communications from them, but I would assume our military is attempting to do that.
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