From the Los Angeles Times April 9, 2008
"When you have finite resources, you've got to define your goal rightly and modestly." - Barack Obama
"The U.S. must reject, as we did in 2007, the calls for a reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces at the moment we are succeeding." - John McCain
"It's time to begin in orderly process of withdrawing our troops and rebuilding our military and focusing on other problems." - Hillary Clinton
The three quotes above are from our three main Presidential candidates' responses to the report by General David Petraeus concerning the Iraq situation.
I see two responses that are carefully worded. I see two responses that indicate the tone of fear and surrender. There are two candidates willing to leave a nation to the wolves (Iran) in order to serve their own self-interests. These two responses are representative of candidates who will say what they believe is what the majority of people want to hear.
The other response outlines a more difficult path, one that sticks to the principles of our nation even if it goes against the grain. This is leadership.
Funny you told me you were against the war in Iraq. I guess you are a flip flopper too.
ReplyDeleteAh, no. First of all, this has nothing to do with who is "for the war" or "against the war". Since we are at war, it's about what to do from here. Two of the candidates want to leave Iraq to fend for itself against the likes of Iran and Al Qaeda. The other wants to do the right thing.
ReplyDeleteThat's what I stated in my post. To be fair, Hillary Clinton in last night's debate gave the best argument I've heard so far concerning withdrawing troops. She stated that the Iraqis, as long as we are their safety net, will develop a co-dependency and never be fully independent. I actually agree with this but since General Petraeus stated that the recent gains in Iraq are fragile, it's too soon to withdraw.
Barack Obama scares the living shit out of me when he talks about foreign relations.
As far as me saying I'm against the war, you are misstating me. I never said that. I, for the most part haven't posted much about the war and have never expressed my full opinion of it. What you may have heard me say (not write) is that I'm against the way we have handled the war. I do not believe Bush exercised the right judgement in the manner in which we went to war - namely the brash, gung ho invasion-type method we used. Something needed to be done about Saddam Hussein, I just don't agree with the way we chose to deal with him.
But again, whether or not we should have made war in Iraq is no longer the matter at hand. Where we go from here is.