Jul 26 2008
Iraq And Our Fallen Heros – Updated
Senator Obama has made it very easy on John McCain. First off, Obama has flip-flopped on so many issues has he has dumped his liberal base and moved to the center he has take the strategy of becoming an echo of McCain (and Bush) on a host of issues. Here are some prime examples:
(1) FISA: The Holy Grail topic of the liberal left, the years long effort by the SurrenderMedia to disable this nation’s protections on the fear of a second coming of Nixon. When the vote finally came to make semi-permanent the FISA fixes – and give telecom companies immunity – Obama threw out all his promises to fight the bill, throwing out the threat of a filibuster. But then he did more – he voted FOR the bill.
(2) Campaign Finance: Another darling of the left is the effort to take campaigns away from the people by limiting donations. Obama promised to use public financing – then threw that promise away once he started hauling in the money. Funny thing is, for all that money he has not gotten very much return.
(3) Hand gun control: If liberals could decimate conservatives their targets are religion and guns. Obama’s remarks about bitter Americans running to their bibles and guns still haunts the man. And yet, when the Supreme Court came out and overturned the DC handgun banÂ
More examples here. The only prime issue issue Obama has staked out a stand far left of McCain on is Iraq – and that is a gift to McCain. As John Hindraker noted yesterday, McCain clobbered Obama on his obstinate stance on The Surge and our victory in Iraq.Â
We both knew the politically safe choice was to support some form of retreat. All the polls said the “surge” was unpopular. Many pundits, experts and policymakers opposed it and advocated withdrawing our troops and accepting the consequences. I chose to support the new counterinsurgency strategy backed by additional troops — which I had advocated since 2003, after my first trip to Iraq. Many observers said my position would end my hopes of becoming president. I said I would rather lose a campaign than see America lose a war. My choice was not smart politics. It didn’t test well in focus groups. It ignored all the polls. It also didn’t matter. The country I love had one final chance to succeed in Iraq. The new strategy was it. So I supported it. Today, the effects of the new strategy are obvious. The surge has succeeded, and we are, at long last, finally winning this war.
Senator Obama made a different choice. He not only opposed the new strategy, but actually tried to prevent us from implementing it. He didn’t just advocate defeat, he tried to legislate it. When his efforts failed, he continued to predict the failure of our troops. As our soldiers and Marines prepared to move into Baghdad neighborhoods and Anbari villages, Senator Obama predicted that their efforts would make the sectarian violence in Iraq worse, not better.
And as our troops took the fight to the enemy, Senator Obama tried to cut off funding for them. He was one of only 14 senators to vote against the emergency funding in May 2007 that supported our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. …
Three weeks after Senator Obama voted to deny funding for our troops in the field, General Ray Odierno launched the first major combat operations of the surge. Senator Obama declared defeat one month later: “My assessment is that the surge has not worked and we will not see a different report eight weeks from now.” His assessment was popular at the time. But it couldn’t have been more wrong.
By November 2007, the success of the surge was becoming apparent. Attacks on Coalition forces had dropped almost 60 percent from pre-surge levels. American casualties had fallen by more than half. Iraqi civilian deaths had fallen by more than two-thirds. But Senator Obama ignored the new and encouraging reality. “Not only have we not seen improvements,” he said, “but we’re actually worsening, potentially, a situation there.”
If Senator Obama had prevailed, American forces would have had to retreat under fire. The Iraqi Army would have collapsed. Civilian casualties would have increased dramatically. Al Qaeda would have killed the Sunni sheikhs who had begun to cooperate with us, and the “Sunni Awakening” would have been strangled at birth. Al Qaeda fighters would have safe havens, from where they could train Iraqis and foreigners, and turn Iraq into a base for launching attacks on Americans elsewhere. Civil war, genocide and wider conflict would have been likely.
Above all, America would have been humiliated and weakened. Our military, strained by years of sacrifice, would have suffered a demoralizing defeat. Our enemies around the globe would have been emboldened. …
Senator Obama told the American people what he thought you wanted to hear. I told you the truth.
Combine this delusional stance with his rebuff to our injured soldiers in Germany and McCain has his signature issue to win in November. As long as Obama stands pat, McCain should hit him every day on what kind of fool it takes to prefer defeat at the hands of al-Qaeda (who WERE in Iraq and fighting us at the time) in a dangerous world. As McCain said from the link above:
Senator Obama said this week that even knowing what he knows today that he still would have opposed the surge. In retrospect, given the opportunity to choose between failure and success, he chooses failure. I cannot conceive of a Commander in Chief making that choice.
Neither can 90% of America. My bet is Obama is afraid to admit The Surge worked, and so he will continue to claim it was better we lost, and it would have been better that all those injured soldiers he turned his back on sacrificed in vain. Right now I cannot see how any amount of money can save Obama.
Update: The liberal media is starting to report on this – no less from The Tingle-Network (MSNBC):
n his official capacity as a sitting US senator, Obama has every right to stay in touch with America’s men and women in uniform. According to Pentagon officials, the problem was that Obama’s request to visit Landstuhl included two members of his campaign staff — retired Major General Jonathan S. Gration and Jeff Kiernan. US military officials in Germany informed the campaign the two political operatives would not be permitted on base.
Pentagon officials say Gration was the campaign’s point of contact at Landstuhl in arranging Obama’s visit and “got torqued” when he was told he would not be permitted to join Obama. It was Gration who later suggested to reporters that the Pentagon short-circuited Obama’s visit.
Are there some in the Pentagon or military resentful because Gration has climbed on board the Obama campaign? Did Gration overreact? As a former policy director for the US European Command, he would surely be disappointed — if not offended — by being excluded from the visit. It’s also been my experience that even retired generals do not want to hear the word “no.”
Look, a former general should damn well know better. He is not a general now, he is a political campaign operative and he KNOWS the difference. No general worth his salt would be confused and few would try to exploit the wounded for political or personal gain. The news media may start to uncover this unforgivable act of Obama’s campaign. Â
More here. What happened? Obama lost control of one of his “generals” who torpedoed the trip and Obama on the grounds he was not being fawned on enough. Obama IS weak and clearly cannot lead this nation. He can’t even control one egotistical general.
Update: Allah Pundit noticed how the McCain Campaign jumped on this Achille’s Heel for Obama – which will keep him in the good graces of the far left, liberal media AND slam a wedge between him and the majority of Americans:
Â
My view is that Obama can’t move off this limb he put himself on. My guess is the liberal elite leadership and moneybags for the Surrendercrats have mandated this is the issue he stays pat on. And given how he bowed to a couple of irate campaign aids when he turned his back on our injured troops, I get the feeling The Messiah has zero backbone and will stay on this limb as McCain and the GOP saw it off over the following months. Only a truly delusional person stands by a plan for defeat, even in the face of victory (more on that in the next post).
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And if I were a billionaire under Obama’s tax plan, I would simply cash in all my chips, place all of my money into cash or hard assets that generate no income and sit on it. I would still be rich, but I would pay no income tax because I would have no income. My net worth would be static.
Taxing the rich is stupid anyway. The income of the poor derives from the investment of the rich. Every dollar you take away from the rich is about four dollars taken out of the economy and away from lower income people. That is a dollar that can not be invested to create economic expansion, can’t be paid directly to an employee, can’t be banked and lent for a mortgage, etc.
Tax spending, not income. Exempt retail groceries and medicine. Then all the hookers, drug dealers and under the table employees pay their fair share of tax too.
In 2000 it was estimated that the illegal drug economy was over $160 billion dollars a year. I would venture that the majority of that money came from government programs as the people who spend the most on drugs can’t hold good regular jobs. So I would say that a sizable portion of US social spending is really a subsidy for the drug cartels. And when you look at cocaine and heroin, most of that money leads back to communists in Latin America and the tribes in the border region of Pakistan. So we spend our money on one front fighting them, and on another front, we are supplying them with the cash they need.
If government social programs were ended and families and neighborhoods looked after their own, there might be a lot less money flowing into narco-terrorism.
dang spam trap!
Allah has a post up at Hot Air about Obama’s latest flip flop. He will keep about 50,000 troops in Iraq, and their withdrawal will be condition based. The nerve of the guy. McCain says that 16 months would not be a bad idea if conditions were right for withdrawal and Obama and his supporters {which is most of the press} say this is a flip flop and now he is talking about keeping troops on the ground in Iraq until conditions warrant a withdrawal. what a hypocrite.
Yeah, terrye, I posted about that but the spam trap ate it, I think I had two links in there and it doesn’t like that.
Speaking of your new Messiah: Barack HUSSEIN Obama (PBUH)(SWT)(SAW):
Here’s an interesting story from today’s UK Telegraph, where in the very first sentence, it says the Obama’s do not give “Christmas” nor “Birthday” presents to their children?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/uselection2008/barackobama/2460299/Barack-Obama-does-not-give-birthday-presents-to-children.html
Interesting, isn’t it?
What kind of “Christians” ban Christmas presents to their children?
I know, I know, Jehovah Witnesses, correct? Do you have evidence that Obama and family, suddenly converted to The Watch Tower group?
Huh?
Obviously, Jews don’t celebrate Christmas, but I doubt that’s the Obama’s excuse, especially since they’ve belonged to a patentedly Anti-Semitic “Church” for 20+ years!
There is one other “group” in America however, that neither celebrates Christmas nor Birthdays, but which has approved the giving of “Seasonal Gifts”; which is what the Obama’s now do; read about it here:
http://www.masnet.org/askimam_runsess.asp?id=247
Interesting, isn’t it?
Can you say: “Taqiyah”?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya
Ray
You wrote: Links? The link you provided had this to say:
‘January 2001: George W Bush becomes
US President. Pledges tough line with
China on arms sales’
That was just the start.
Then there was the regular overhead spying, plus the ramming of a Chinese intercepting jet.
YO DA!! The link was to an article about the collusion of the US EP-3 and the Chinese fighter jet. That was what I pointed you too.
YO DA The US has been spying on China for decades and they spy on us!
The Chinese boarded that EP-3 surveillance plane. I think it is safe to say they gave that plane a REAL good going over. In other words, they were spying!
Do you recall this?
US missile in Kosovo campaign mistakenly hits China embassy in Belgrade.
It happened in May of 1999. It was the bullet right above your quote if
‘January 2001: George W Bush becomes
US President. Pledges tough line with
China on arms sales’
Note the date was PRIOR to President Bush taking office.
Do you suppose there was a valid reason for Bush to make such a pledge? What was Clinton’s policy on this issue?
crosspatch wrote:
“being the “leader of the free world†is still more important than spending money on social services – like other free countries have been doing for decades.â€
And are quickly learning is a gigantic waste of money. Canada is now admitting that socialized medicine was a great mistake. The British hate their healthcare system, Japan’s system is nearly bankrupt.
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It works wonderfully in Australia and other places.
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It is not the role of government to “take care†of the people. It is the role of government to create an environment whereby people can take care of themselves or not as they choose.
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It is the role of government to take care of the people who need help most, and the voters in most countries (the people who are paying for it) have ensured that it stays that way.
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Spending on “social services†is generally a waste of money and gets abused. It is basically corruption … bribing people with services for their votes.
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I see – “bribing people” with their own money which they contribute as a percentage of wages. Is that some sort of smoke & mirrors thing?
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Government is not a charity. Opening the government coffers to charitable causes always results in bankrupting the government because the politicians can not resist the temptation to offer more and more money in exchange for votes.
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You seem to think it’s “government money” but in reality it’s the citizens money, and they, in places where they have an adequate say in the matter, control what the government hands out.
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Our own social security act was really a sham designed to pay for the New Deal. We offered a “pension†that only kicked in at the age of average life expectancy. The average “pensioner†in 1938 drew social security for 24 months before they died.
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It was the same in other places too, but you know what they say about lies, damned lies and statistics, and you also know about the other pensions that were not associated with age at all.
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Social Security was designed to take in a lot of money, pay out a little, and lend the rest to Congress. They never anticipated a baby boom that was going to be on social security for 20 years after retirement. That charity is going to bankrupt America in about 10 years time.
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They’ve had half a century to think about it.
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Social Security would need to set a retirement age of 78 years old to be equal to what it was originally envisioned. Global life expectancy in the early 20th century, by the way, was only 10 years longer than it was during the Roman Empire.
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It doesn’t matter what the retirement age is in countries that have their act together, because people of ANY age who are genuinely in need of assistance, get it. In this country for example (Australia) there is no such thing as a desperately poor person. Some people do of of course waste the money or benefits they receive, but at least they get it.
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Every citizen here who genuinely needs assistance for the essential things like housing, medical, medicines, hospital, dental, legal, funeral or basic living costs is entitled to it.
Ray
ordi wrote:
[…..]
The Chinese boarded that EP-3 surveillance plane. I think it is safe to say they gave that plane a REAL good going over. In other words, they were spying!
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Under Chinese law it wouldn’t have been spying, nor would it been classified as spying under international law.
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Do you recall this?
US missile in Kosovo campaign mistakenly hits China embassy in Belgrade.
It happened in May of 1999. It was the bullet right above your quote if
‘January 2001: George W Bush becomes
US President. Pledges tough line with
China on arms sales’
Note the date was PRIOR to President Bush taking office.
.
Let me see, you somehow equate a very obvious accident with aggression?
Ray
“It works wonderfully in Australia and other places.”
Uhm, no. Australia’s system is MUCH different from Canada and the UK. Australia has a two-tier system where they offer subsidies for private insurance. The HillaryCare plan put forward in the Clinton administration would make the US like Canada and the UK where private healthcare would be outlawed. It would be against the law for a doctor to provide services outside of the government service and private insurance would be abolished.
Australia provides a system where people still choose their own provider. It is not government health care so much as it is government assisted health insurance, there is a HUGE difference.
What we really need to do in the US is get rid of this linkage of health insurance with one’s employer. I should be able to have the same health insurance over 30 years and 4 or 5 employers without my premium going haywire every time I change jobs. Health insurance needs to be decoupled from the employer.
Surrender, Socialism, Taxes: Vote Obama ’08
crosspatch, agreed! Private Group Health Insurance!
AJ, Terrye, crosspatch, merlinos, and all
Gallup has Obama 9 point lead after his world trip.
How long do you think this bounce will last?
Then he goes on vacation for one week.
Karl Rove thinks Obama will announce his VP selection once he comes back from vacation…just before the DNC.
Karl said McCain should not announce his selection until after Obama has.
Will Obama get another bounce after his VP announcement and after the DNC?
crosspatch wrote:
[Ray]: “It works wonderfully in Australia and other places.â€
Uhm, no. Australia’s system is MUCH different from Canada and the UK. Australia has a two-tier system where they offer subsidies for private insurance.
Yes, the subsidy for having private health cover was introduced several years ago. It got a more people to get private insurance. It didn’t seem to have much impact otherwise. What I mean is people haven’t been talking about it much at all in the circles I move in.
If you can afford private cover you pay it – otherwise you don’t.
A lot of people aren’t bothering with Private Hospitals like they used to, because Public Hospitals in some areas have become so good.
crosspatch wrote:
“What we really need to do in the US is get rid of this linkage of health insurance with one’s employer. I should be able to have the same health insurance over 30 years and 4 or 5 employers without my premium going haywire every time I change jobs. Health insurance needs to be decoupled from the employer.
Yes, it sounds like people are dependent on employers. Ultimately they’re paying it themselves anyway, so why not just pay for insurance directly.