Senator John McCain absolutely lights up President Obama. I mean, he lights him up. McCain, referring to Obama’s withdrawal of troops in Iraq: “History Will Judge His Leadership With The Scorn And Disdain It Deserves”…
Where was this John McCain when he ran for President?
The Weekly Standard has the transcript but here’s a bit:
“All I will say is that, for three years, the president has been harvesting the successes of the very strategy that he consistently dismissed as a failure,” McCain said referring to the surge which then senator Obama opposed in 2007. “I imagine this irony was not lost on a few of our troops at Fort Bragg today, most of whom deployed and fought as part of the surge.”
“Over 4,000 brave young Americans gave their lives in this conflict. I pray that their sacrifice is not in vain. I hope that their families will not mourn the day that their sons and daughters went out to fight for freedom for the Iraqi people. Unfortunately, it is clear that this decision of a complete pullout of United States troops from Iraq was dictated by politics, and not our national security interests. I believe that history will judge this president’s leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves.”
December 15, 2011 at 6:54 pm
So instead we stay in Iraq for years, waste more lives, and create more anger at our foreign policy? No thanks, NeoCon. How very unCatholic of you.
December 15, 2011 at 7:05 pm
But, wait, Santorum said quite the same yesterday!
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/12/14/389136/santorum-obama-credit-bin-laden/
SANTORUM 2012.
December 15, 2011 at 7:07 pm
No worries Pedro. I'm still a Santorum guy. I think it's just surprising for McCain who wouldn't lay a glove on Obama during the campaign finally took off the gloves and went all Hansen brothers on Obama.
December 15, 2011 at 8:07 pm
I beg to differ. My friend did not waste his life there. He believed wholeheartedly that he was doing a good thing. Boots on the ground, he had first hand knowledge. I believe him. He lost that life in Iraq. And, his legacy and the legacy of all the men and women whose lives were lost live on in the children of that country. The children who were helped tremendously by our country's military.
December 15, 2011 at 8:27 pm
I want our guys out of there and I want Obama out of office. How is it good if they stayed there longer? I don't understand? How long do we need to have occupation in a foreign country before we tip-toe out and let the native people either defend their newly purchased freedom or in their shame allow another dictatorship into power?
December 15, 2011 at 9:39 pm
@KC:
I am very sorry for your loss. Never believe that was in vain. It was not. He knew because he was able to see the difference he was making in the lives of individuals precious to God.
I've personally put my life on the line and been ready to die for what we were doing there. If I had checked out, it would have been okay with me. It would have been worth it. By pulling out now we loose the best chance for peace in the Middle East that maybe there has even been in history.
We abandon people to whom we have a responsibility and an obligation formed in blood – regardless of whether or not you support the reasons for going in there this is true.
We leave a vacuum for Iran to fill. The great new Persian Empire. And they will, and they are. (And oh that is bad for us.)
Meanwhile we replaced a hideous scourge on the Iraqi people with a CHANCE for peace. But we are leaving behind the innocent Iranians to be slaughtered at camp Ashraf.
We replace hard won stability with the pending chaos.
Americans: Have fast cars and fast food spoiled our sense of the future and the past so much? China makes plans that take a thousand years. For us, we actually put a TIMETABLE on morality?! 10 years is too much time? Why? Because it's hard? So what? Because it is costly? What worthwhile thing isn't? Would you give your life for your baby? They why not for some other baby? Why not for some Iraqi? My brothers (and sisters) have.
We should be there until we don't need to be. We owe it to them.
When communists slaughtered the Catholics of Indochina and we fought there to save them, we did the same thing: Fought +/- 10 years, then called it quits. What happened? 3 million dead after we left. Yeah what's the point.
Nice. (Well put, McCain.)
December 16, 2011 at 12:14 am
I must have missed the part of the Gospel where Christ taught us to kill our enemies and their children and occupy their lands and steal their oil forever.
Or is that from the Magisterium?
Yeah, that's going to bring "peace" to the Middle East.
December 16, 2011 at 12:50 am
If we're stealing their oil, why is gas so expensive right now?
December 16, 2011 at 1:06 am
KC – I'm sorry that your friend died in vain for USA Inc., spreading it's child-killing, homo-marrying culture throughout the world.
He may have believed he was doing the right thing, but that doesn't mean he was doing the right thing.
Americanism is a heresy.
December 16, 2011 at 2:34 am
Anyone who is tempted here to vomit their hatred for this country: please spend a year in Pakistan, Iran, China or North Korea and learn some gratitude.
That's what the Occupy movement has illustrated for Americans… what a stunning lack of gratitude people have for our freedoms and liberties, and how ignorant they are about conditions around the world.
Kev. My God, man. Invest in a shirt and someone might take you seriously.
December 16, 2011 at 7:19 am
I think that good people can disagree over whether it was the right
thing for us to do when we occupied Iraq.
However, I absolutely agree with Senator McCain in what he says–
this president is pulling out our troops not because he believes it to
be the best thing to do for this nation, but because by his political
calculations it's the best thing to do for himself. It's a cynical, self-
serving decision that benefits neither the security of the US nor that
of Iraq. What won't this president stop at if he thought it might gain
him a point or two in the polls?
December 16, 2011 at 9:37 am
Gas is expensive because corporations that own the politicians are setting the price after using the US military to "safeguard "American interests" (other peoples oil). The US ruling regime (and government is a myth, we are ruled by gangs that cultivate an illusion of popular support using MSM and educational indoctrination) cares nothing about us, last weeks passage of the draconian bill gutting the Bill of Rights proves it. US citizens can now be snatched, "disappeared" without due process indefinitely by our Holy Corporate State because they have deemed the US a "battlefield…and that makes the people THEIR enemies. It is in the open now, "We, the People" are the enemy anytime a thug in power says so. I'm so grateful to all those 18 year olds in the Middle East "protecting my freedoms". Oligarchs own the pols, the only one speaking truth, who gives a hoot about this country or the people is Ron Paul, who sleazebags like Hannity and Mark Levin smear. Speaking of freedoms at home, been paying any attention to the de-population of Louisiana so Big Oil can operate without troublesome fishermen or eco-whiners? It is going on, and is very probably the reason why that BP leak was allowed to pour out for months.
December 16, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Gas is expensive because corporations that own the politicians are setting the price after using the US military to "safeguard "American interests"
Yeah, pretty much everything you've written is an uninformed screed. I know it's fun to get on the internet and spew a bunch of vague, conspiracy-sounding "facts" that you've cribbed from some obscure website, but you're glossing over important things like market dynamics, global supply and demand, currency volatility, and other factors. But why worry your head off about actual price drivers when you can get on a soap box and rant?
December 16, 2011 at 11:52 pm
@Anonymous 7:14 "You shall not stand idly by while your neighbor's life is at stake."
@Anonymous 4:37. Gut the Bill of Rights? Any change must be ratified by two thirds of the states. Two thirds of the states had to ratify the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. Teach civics 101 in grammar school and our people will be free, or at least have a choice.
December 17, 2011 at 2:34 am
You should know "creeds". You haven't refuted one thing I've posted, just smeared. With the Fed and the state "managing" the economy don't try and blame "market dynamics". Currency volatility is the Feds bread and butter and you Neocons love the Fed, you couldn't finance your glorious little murder fests in other countries without the Fed printing paper and forcing trillions in debt on everyone and their children. Supply and demand?? Explain how you separate THAT out from all the bureaucratic regulations created to control, influence and manage what people buy and when. Don't like ….ooooooo….gasp!…… "conspiracy theories"? Then you disagree with the official story that 19 hijackers conspired to fly planes into the Twin Towers?
December 17, 2011 at 2:38 am
Anonymous at 6:52:
I refer to The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, S. 1867, passed the Senate on December 1. It GUTTED the Bill of Rights.
http://catholicview.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/goodbye-liberty-so-long-habeas-corpus-catch-ya-later-constitution-howdy-indefinite-detention/
December 17, 2011 at 12:19 pm
You haven't refuted one thing I've posted,
There's nothing to refute because you haven't actually said anything substantive. You've just ranted and raved and made absolutely no connection to anything you've said to the market price of oil and gas. All you offer are vague abstractions and laughable talking points about being a neocon. So when you actually demonstrate some knowledge of the industry, maybe then I'll take you seriously.
December 17, 2011 at 3:12 pm
You have not addressed the MSM continually beating war drums, promoting warhawk candidates, ignoring and demonizing truth and controlling information, the righteousness of attacking oil rich countries and effecting "regime change" to steal their oil, the passage of the National defense authorization act which is an attack on sovereign US citizens reducing us to enemy combatants whenever we offend the ruling elites, the Fed looting us through counterfeiting and bailing out banks and other cronies. You have simply smeared and refused to explain how I am wrong believing that simply proclaiming it makes it so. Transparently sloppy thinking.
December 17, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Furthermore, to claim that "market forces" (ie, the old liberty, "free markets are causing the problem" lie) are the cause of high gas prices is ludicrous in the face of the current plethora of taxes, regulation,war profiteering, Fed manipulation and corporate fascism that is running not only the oil industry but every facet of our lives. We have not had a free market or anything close to it for about a century. Now scoot on back to Krugman for more faux economics.
December 17, 2011 at 5:09 pm
You have not addressed the MSM continually beating war drums, blah blah blah neocon blah blah blah
Dude, seriously, you're so far gone that you're just basically saying random stuff and hoping somehow to make sense. Prozac, look into it.