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- ThsGuyRightHere, on 11/03/2008, -0/+2Also speaking as a veteran - I respect and appreciate Captain Wade's service as well as sevenMM's. But I disagree on several points.
First, everyone likes to say Obama never stood up to his party. What would he stand up to them about? The democratic party isn't the party that has put the nation in the straits we're in. It's an indictment to say that McCain went along with the Republican party (and numerous democrats who were deceived by the Bush Administration) with the invasion of Iraq. It's a vote of confidence to say Obama voted primarily along party lines - the democrats didn't screw the country up.
CPT Wade is of the belief that McCain stood up to Bush regarding the surge, but I don't see it. The only issue related to the war in Iraq where McCain stood up to Bush was the issue of torture. And that's a dialog we should never have to have as a nation in the first place.
Regarding Obama and the surge - His logic was, and still is, this simple question: how many more Americans need to die before we can say that we "won"? You can say Obama was wrong on the surge, but he was right in saying we never should have gone into Iraq in the first place. There was no indication that the surge would be successful, and the only reason it has been to any degree is because we've learned a completely different kind of warfare, and outfitted our soldiers and marines accordingly. Read that, we've done the things we should have done before entering Iraq as an occupying force. If you want to talk about who was wrong about Iraq, where does the "greeted as liberators" line fit in?
Regarding Saddam and WMD's - the Bush administration was wrong, and McCain was backing them before anyone even coined the acronym "WMD". If Saddam had intentions of restoring his WMD program (no telling what state he was in when he said that) that's hardly grounds for invading a sovereign nation. And if he really had weapons, we would have found them. In all likelihood Saddam's bluster about weapons was intended to keep Iran at bay. I refuse to believe that, with all of the boots we had on the ground along with surveillance satellites combing the region, Iraq could have smuggled WMD's out of the country without us catching it.
As a veteran, I take it as an affront that our armed forces are in Iraq because of Bush's personal vendetta ("He tried to kill my dad") or because of PNAC's pre-existing goal of long term American presence in the middle east. Our badass military should be hunting for bin Laden and those who aided him in Afghanistan. Not occupying a country in which we have no business.
And my vote will go to the candidate who has the judgment as commander in chief to direct the military to find, know, and never lose the enemy with a sense of urgency and tenacity. - sevenMM, on 11/02/2008, -0/+0As a veteran, I am perplexed that so many U.S. citizens continue to support the political party that has shown it true colors. They have done so by playing political GAMES with national, and global.security issues.
McCain did take a firm stance against Rumsfeld et.al. So far, he has been proven correct ---- and Obama was wrong, wrong, wrong, though he can scarcly bring himself to admit it --- and only then, once it became obvious that his posturing was hurting him politically. No mea culpa, no, it was more like spin. And under reported "spin", at that.
I realize that many think of our involvement in Iraq as "Bush's war", but that's not actually the case. Not in entirety. This one, was about dozen years in the making...
On Dec. 16, 1998, the then sitting American President announced in a brief address that the policy of the Executive branch of the U.S., had switched from one that insisted that Hussein comply with UN inspections, to one aimed at "regime change"in Iraq ---- to quote the exact wordsused by President Clinton.
. He backed these words by giving the order to launch strikes within Iraq.
Some 67 targets were hit by U.S. aircraft and cruise missiles. The reason given by President Clinton for this military operation (Operation Desert Fox) was that Hussein was leading the world to believe that his regime was still clandestinely operating WMD programs.
I do not fault Clinton for doing this, though many cynically referred to his doing this, as a "wag the dog" scenario. Clinton inherited the trouble with Saddam, from the previous Admin. Bush inherited it from him. Then those who wished us death and destruction upped the ante...
So we took it to Hussein. He was supportive in word, deed, and financing of such who's aim it was to hurt us, and/or our allies.
--- after Desert Fox, we couldn't let that festering wound upon the middle East that was Saddam, continue to exist.
The Europeans, and Saddam Hussein were pushing for the UN trade sanctions to be dropped, since many of them were making some big money trading with the Baathist regime, in spite of the sanctions.
We simply could not let Saddam to remain in power, unfettered, and it looked to soon be --- well funded also.
Even Hussein himself (later) admitted that he was fully intending to go full-bore on re-instituting his WMD programs.
Now about the missing materials. My guess is much of it may have gone to the Bekkea Valley, in Hamas controlled Lebanon.
One of Saddam's former Air Force generals Georges Sada, claims to have recieved testimony of such from Iraqi pilots who were there and witnessed it. This info matches the intelligence (and even the mainstream news articles of the time), in that there were a suspiciously large number (more than 50) flights to that area (onstensibly "relief" flights to help with an area which suppossedly suffered from "mudslides") shortly before our invasion of Iraq in the Spring of 2003.
How come a former Second Class Petty Officer such as myself can pay ayttention, and connect the dots ---- and so many other seems to suffer from some bizarre type of amnesia???
The answer ---- because it SUITS THEIR POLITICAL AGENDA.
If you are reading this, have I just described YOU? I just described large portions of the democrat party, and it's supporters!
I' would DEARLY LOVE to "vote against" republicans, in general, but you folks WON'T LET ME.
Gore? Then Kerry? (Halp us Jon Carry We R Stuck Here In Iraq! google that!)
And now, Barack Hussein Obama, the "one" whom studiously avoids telling us much about his own political philosophy. Yeah, right, and Ayers was just some guy who lived in his neighborhood. *****. The man's lies have been found out! But the democrat lemmings stick their fingers in their ears and say, "la-la-la, i can't hear you".
I guess it's all to subtle, and a bit too complicated for some (many?) to understand.
There is a lot at stake here. We cannot afford more "games", anymore than Congress has already "fixed" Social Security!
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