IF MCCAIN IS THE CANDIDATE WHO IS AN EXPERT ON MILITARY AND NATIONAL SECURITY MATTERS, HE BETTER GET HIS FACTS STRAIGHT
TWO TIMES IN THE WEEK OF MAY 24, 2008, HE MISLED THE AMERICAN PEOPLE BY USING FACTS THAT THE PENTAGON SAYS ARE WRONG.
IS IT SHORT TERM MEMORY LOSS OR IS IT INTENDED TO DECEIVE THE VOTERS?
John McCain twice in one week has misled the American people by falsely asserting that the surge has worked and validating his claim by insisting that number of troops on the ground is back to pre-surge levels.
"I can tell you that it [the Surge] is succeeding. I can look you in the eye and tell you it's succeeding. We have drawn down to pre-surge levels. Basra, Mosul and now Sadr City are quiet."
--John McCain, Town Hall meeting, May 28, 2008.
McCain got it dreadfully wrong and not only did it wrong once, he repeated his mistake and got it wrong twice with no recognition of any substance to apologize for his error.
Not only was he wrong about the troop draw down, he also was wrong about the condition of the cities of Basra, Mosul and Sadr City which just faced a series of violent occurrences the very week McCain was making his outlandish statements.
The figures McCain referenced twice this very week will not take place according to Pentagon officials until July, 2008. Knowing the accuracy of the Pentagon projections, I will believe it when I see it.
At present there are approximately 155,000 troops in Iraq compared to 128,569 troops there prior to the surge. In other words, McCain was also incorrect about the troops levels that are projected to take place in July; and further, the troop level in July will only decline by 15,000 according to the information released by the Pentagon this week
Therefore, after the proposed July draw down we will still have 11,431 more troops in harm’s way that prior to Bush’s call for the surge.
McCain seems to be clinging to the success of the surge as the only life raft he has to win the presidency even if it means deceiving the American voters.
The Republican presumed candidate for the presidency has been harshly critical of the fact that Obama last visited Iraq two years ago. Surely, McCain is not so naïve as to believe that his visits to Iraq gives him any valid information about the success of the surge, the state of nation or the condition of the country outside the confines of the Green Zone where he is comfortably houses and protected.
The Arizona Senator forgets (as he seems to do about many things) that the purpose of the surge was to reduce the violence so that the government could complete eighteen (18) specific tasks that Bush and the Congress requested to be completed within six months—a deadline they have already missed by a year. Three out of the eighteen may be completed.
What we do not need is another hawk in the White House who is willing to lie to convince the voters that his support of the surge has been victorious when it fact it has accomplished none of the political maneuvers for which it was intended.
Lies beget lies, beget bigger lies, beget the biggest lies of all—that is why we stand here over five (5) years after the start of a war that Bush and Cheney promised would last but a few short months with over 4,000 of our soldiers dead without a sign of flowers or flags hailing their landing, nearly 30,000 wounded (without medical facility adequate to care for the injured), the U. S. Government have spent according to the New York Times over $1.2 trillion dollars (the figure nobody really knows since Bush has never seen fit to include the cost of the war in the annual budget) from the U. S. Treasury, but originally projected by Cheney and his neo-cons to cast only $50 billion.
While McCain brags that “all is quiet” in the northern city of Mosul, two car bombs reportedly killed at least twenty (20) people and the local newspapers optimistically refer to Mosul as “the last urban bastion of al Qaeda.” The Pentagon does not seem quite so positive.
I think it time that the American people and the American press get one thing straight. McCain is simply another talking head for the military-industrial complex against which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American people in his farewell address in 1967.
We should never again place our country’s future into the hands of a candidate for the presidency with only military mindset. He grew up in a military family with this father and grandfather both naval Admirals, attended and graduated from Annapolis, went directly to Viet Nam where one year after arriving was taken prisoner for five and a half years.
McCain was trained to take orders, not to give them. He was trained to do what he was told to do not to do what must be done. He is not a visionary that can glean the needs of the people outside the needs of the military and he tends to view our foreign policy like a pit bull roaming free without a collar or a chain to restrain his tendency to attack.
Iran is high on the agenda of the next president. God forbid that a McCain would be the man to decide what this country should do.
Interestingly, George Bush shared the same tendencies that McCain exhibits and look where it has gotten us as a nation after eight years.
Our system of government placed the military under the control of the civilian government for the simple reason that democracy’s survival requires civilian oversight. You will note that President Bush constantly defers to the military to determine what this nation should be doing in Iraq.
SOME THOUGHTS TO REMEMBER WITH THE COMING FALL ELECTION:
When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent." ~ Isaac Asimov ~
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. ... The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home…If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be under the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." President James Madison
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