Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Obama's right and wrong at the same time...

Barack Obama has managed to be both right and wrong at the same time.

On the one hand, he is correct - we don't get "do-overs" in time of war. On the other hand, he wants to cut and run. In essence, he'd be telling Iran, Syria, and al-Qaeda that if you keep racking up spectacular attacks that grab the headlines and kill innocent people and the occasional American soldier, America will quit.

That is not the message I want to send to Bashir Assad, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or Osama bin-Laden. We only get one chance to send the right message. I want it to be, "Piss us off, and you will be lucky if you end up like Saddam", not "We're wimps."

Stephen Ampbrose had a wonderful phrase in his book, D-Day that describes what we are dealing with: The poison of pacifism. The Democrats have taken a massive dose since the Vietnam War. We even have one of their candidates claiming the war on terror is a bumper sticker slogan. I wonder how the victims of the 9/11, Bali, Madrid, and London attacks would feel about that.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Obama is right. And he had the integrity to stand up for it even when his position is not popular.

Hillary??

First Hillary authorized the war, now she wants to de-authorize it, in between this monumental lack of judgment by Hillary, thousands of America soldiers have been sacrificed and billions of dollars wasted.

Hillary lacked the requisite judgment to be our commander-in-chief.
I strongly believe that the issue of experience is one of the important issues that must be addressed in the presidential race. Hillary Clinton does not have the experience to lead the United States at a critical time like this. She lacks the experience to make sound judgment that is required of our commander-in-chief. She failed the test with her vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq.

Obama’s experience on the other hand gave him the foresight for sound judgment. This is the experience that we require from our commander-in-chief; the experience that helps a leader in making the right judgment, like standing up against the Iraqi invasion in 2002, and outlining most of the possible consequences and unfortunately came true.

Obama is the most experienced of the Democratic bunch. He has the experience that leads to sound judgment. I bet Obama would have been able to persuade Congress in 2002 to stop George Bush from invading Iraq had he been in the Senate then.

Hillary is like George Bush, who was a two-term Governor of huge Texas but lack the foresight and wisdom of the possible impact of send our troops to invade Iraq. George Bush became president because of his father and Hillary now wants to be president because of Bill.

Hillary has 15 years in Washington, but just like George Bush, lacked the foresight to make the right judgment when it mattered most. Her and George Bush’s type of experience is actually bad for America; it has cost us thousands in lives and billions of dollars.

Who needs scores of years in Washington or Texas experience that could not make the right judgments in the White House for another 8 years? I don’t, how about you?


"But I believed then, and I still believe, that being a leader means that you'd better do what's right and leave the politics aside, because there are no do-overs on an issue as important as war," Obama said.

"The single most important judgment that a president or member of Congress can make is the decision to send our troops into harms way," he said. "There are no good options in Iraq. There are bad options and worse options. That's why you make good decisions on the front end." (Chicago Tribune - July 10, 2007.)