He tries to come off like the big expert on this issue, and brags about the "success" of the Surge (i.e., escalation),but Steve Chapman nails him here:
The point of the surge was to catalyze rapid progress that would facilitate our departure. But now the Pentagon says that come July, we'll still have more troops than the 132,000 we had before. When Lt. Gen. Carter Ham was asked if the number will fall below 132,000 by the time Bush leaves office, he replied, "It would be premature to say that."
McCain says the current "strategy is succeeding in Iraq." His apparent definition of success is that American forces will stay on in huge numbers as long as necessary to keep violence within acceptable limits. We were told we had to increase our numbers so we could leave. Turns out we had to increase our numbers so we could stay.
Five years after the Iraq invasion, we've suffered more than 30,000 dead and wounded troops, incurred trillions in costs and found that Iraqis are unwilling to overcome their most basic divisions. And, no end is in sight. If you're grateful for that, thank John McCain.
Yes, folks, the Bush-McCain war grinds on day after day after day. And yes, it DOES matter who gets elected president on 4 November.
3 comments:
God, people like you scare me. Do you even remember 9-11? Maybe you'd like to return to those halcyon Clinton days when we had Twin Towers I, the Khobar Towers, the USS Cole, and the destruction of two embassies in Africa. They attacked us remember? This is not a 'police problem' like John Kerry wanted us to believe. Running and hiding will not solve the problem. In 1998 both Houses of Congress and President Clinton signed a bill calling for 'Regime Change' in Iraq. We might not have found any WMD's in volume, but after his arrest, Saddam Hussein admitted that he could and would restart those programs whenever he wanted. After chasing many Al-Qaeda leaders from the battle field in Afganistan, we found them in Baghdad. Surprise! Surprise! You Bush haters are worse and more dangerous than the Clinton haters of the 1990's. All they tried to do was destroy one president. I think you're trying to destroy our country.
Anonymous, people like you frighten ME. The terrorists who bombed the WTC in 1993 are all rotting in prison. The mastermind of the 2001 atrocity is still running free. Yes, it IS a police problem, as the British have repeatedly seen, as investigative work has smashed several major terrorist plots. The invasion of Iraq was a MISTAKE. It diverted desperately needed resources away from the Afghan war, plunged Iraq into chaos, and accomplished absolutely NONE of its stated objectives. NONE. In fact, research has uncovered more than 900 deliberate lies uttered by Administration officials in support of an invasion. Clinton signed a bill calling for regime change in Iraq; he wasn't stupid or reckless enough to launch an invasion on fabricated "evidence". BTW, every time Clinton did strike at terrorists in the 90s, rightwingers shouted that he was only trying to deflect attention away from his personal sins. NO ONE has advocated "running and hiding"; that's a right wing straw man, and I'm calling you on it. Also, there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded; we opened the door for that.
Oh, and for the ten millionth time: IRAQ HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH 9/11. If you want to know who did, go ask Bush's friends in the Saudi government; 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, as are a substantial percentage of the insurgents we are fighting in Iraq. The Iraq invasion has strengthened Iran immeasurably, drawn Turkey into the conflict, killed over 150,000 Iraqis, inflicted 35,000 U.S. casualties, damaged our standing overseas, and will cost, directly or indirectly, $3 TRILLION. It was a catastrophe, and two-thirds of the American people now see that. And one final thing: the true front in the war against the terrorists is PAKISTAN--you know, the U.S. ally that continues to give refuge to bin Laden.
Awaiting the response from anonymous.
Post a Comment