I’m sick and tired of hearing Sen. Obama hail his supposedly courageous and informed decision about the war. He keeps saying over and over and over again that he made the right decision and that Sen. Clinton and Sen. McCain made the wrong decision. Let’s dissect this for a moment.
1) Sen. Obama was not in the senate. He was not provided any access to the NIE or to any other classified materials about Iraq.
2) Sen. Obama did not have the weight of the defense establishment, the CIA, and our other intelligence gathering entities coming to bear on his decision.
3) Sen. Obama did not have the ability to ask any pointed questions of any public officials who were publicly and privately informing senators.
4) Sen. Obama did not have a decision to make which would have had lasting or consequential repercussions.
In effect, Sen. Obama did not make an informed decision. He made a flippant decision based on his gut and what he read about in the NYT. To say that the other senators “gave in to Bush” is to imply that senators should not believe the President of the United States when he tells them that the country and our allies are in immediate danger. Not believing the President and ignoring what informed people tell you because you want to be President one day is beyond stupid and partisan. It’s also traitorous and a clear dereliction of duty.
His logic is insane. It implies that any Senator who disagrees with the President on ideological grounds should refuse to believe him. That attitude would destroy the foundation of our government, a government founded almost exclusively on trust.
Sen. McCain and Sen. Clinton were told in no uncertain terms that we were facing a biological, chemical, and nuclear nightmare in Iraq. They made a decision based on that information. Whether the people who informed them were right or wrong is for history to tell. To imply, however, that they lack the proper judgment about Iraq because they chose to side with professionals who painted a dire and horrible picture is malicious; there was only one decision. What would have had happened had the NIE been right and they had refused the President the power he sought? Israel would be gone and we’d have a big mushroom cloud where many of the Shia countries used to be. They chose to protect America and her allies. There was no alternative.
Sen. Obama flipped a coin. He had a 50/50 chance, and it came up heads for him. It’s gratifying to learn that he’s willing to vilify people for making sound, rational decisions based on what professionals tell them. If he wins, I’m sure Mr. Uniter will listen very carefully and intently to those who agree with him. Clearly, they are the only people who matter.
I pray that McCain makes mincemeat of this man. Obama’s argument isn’t just naive. It’s the argument of a traitor.
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During the debate this past evening, the candidates were asked how they would react if a military pullout resulted in a full-blown civil war. Neither Democratic candidate had a satisfactory answer.
If we leave Iraq without a stable government in place, a government capable of fielding a police force and an army capable of repelling its enemies, there will be a genocide the likes of which we haven’t seen since Cambodia. The Shia and the Sunni and the Kurds will slaughter each other. The oil fields will be torched, and Iran will become a regional powerhouse.
We have a moral and ethical obligation to finish what we started. I’m not going to argue whether going in was a good idea or not. I’m not a big enough policy wonk to render that kind of judgment. However, I think it’s very, very clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the country will collapse into chaos if we don’t leave it with some kind of stable regime taking up our slack.
The fact that neither of these Democrats is capable of saying honestly that American blood and treasure are worth more than the blood of the Iraqis we “liberated” is telling. I would respect them more if they simply said what underlies their argument, namely, that we’re dying to help Arabs. It’s a bigoted and racist notion that the Iraqis should be left to their fate because they’re Arabs. We went in there to save them from Saddam. We’re obligated to live with the consequences of that action. The alternative, to pull out before we “win”, will lead to a genocide. I guess that’s ok for the two Democrats running for office.
Thats awesome!
[...] right thing to do was to invade Iraq. I think this is the question Barack Obama needs to answer, why did he vote no to the war. I think his answer will be very telling. We will either see that he got lucky and his lack of [...]
Well I didn’t have any access to top secret reports and I thought it was a bad idea. I felt that Saddam wasn’t going anywhere and if he did make a big move with chemical warfare our retaliation would be swift, effective and totally anhilate him in less than 24 hours. Bush rushed into war because Rumfield and Cheny wanted a strong US presence in that country.
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