Cats and people at our house all gathered around the TV last night to watch the first presidential debate. The consensus here - and among undecided voters in the polls immediately afterward - Obama won!
We thought he won because he showed his smarts, his calm command of the facts of complicated scenarios, and because just having visited a country does not make you right about what to do in foreign policy. I've been to the vet more times than I'd like to remember but that doesn't seem to make me an expert on veterinary medicine.
Why did we go to Iraq?
One of Barack's finest moments in the debate was when he listed the things about Iraq which John McCain was wrong about.
- There were no weapons of mass destruction
- We were not greeted as liberators in Baghdad
- Saddam Hussein was not connected to the terrorists behind 9/11 attacks
- There is not greater stability in the Middle East today
So we went to Iraq for all the wrong reasons. But what to do now? More than 4,000 Americans have been killed over there. It is very sad. McCain made the comment last night that we had to stay longer to somehow achieve some (undefined) victory in Iraq to make those American deaths mean something. But everyone here had to agree with Barack's response: When an American dies following the orders of our military commanders, that is never in vain and is inherently honorable. To say otherwise, as McCain does, is to allow us to parse the list of dead soldiers and decide that some died for nothing and others died for a good reason, that some are bad and others good. What a horrible thing to say to the families of fallen soldiers and to veterans of foreign wars.
Veterans
And speaking of veterans, McCain made an emotional plea at the very end about how he loved veterans and they knew he would care for them. There was no time left to rebut this comment but its no secret that quite a few veteran's organizations give McCain very poor grades on his support for and caring about Veterans.
The Disabled American Vets give McCain 20% and Obama 80% based on their voting records. McCain did not support the GI bill and other legislation supported by veterans. Despite opposing the war, Obama has always voted for troop financing with one exception where a troop financing bill did not contain language about troop withdrawal. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave McCain a "D" and Obama a "B" for their voting records. In addition, VoteVets.org has information, polls and commentary on military community's opposition to the Iraq war that McCain supports.
The Los Angeles Times took McCain up on a comment earlier this year to look at his record on veteran's affairs. They wrote: "Here is how he has stood on recent legislation supported by major veterans organizations:
* On Webb's GI Bill, he expressed opposition, and he was AWOL when it was time to vote on May 22.
* Last September, he voted against another Webb bill that would have mandated adequate rest for troops between combat deployments.
* On a badly needed $1.5-billion increase for veterans medical services for fiscal year 2007 -- to be funded through closing corporate tax loopholes -- he voted no. He also voted against establishing a trust fund to bolster under-budgeted veterans hospitals.
* In May 2006, he voted against a $20-billion allotment for expanding swamped veterans medical facilities.
* In April 2006, he was one of 13 Senate Republicans who voted against an amendment to provide $430 million for veterans outpatient care.
* In March 2004, he voted against and helped defeat on a party-line vote a $1.8-billion reserve for veterans medical care, also funded by closing tax loopholes."
Strategy v. Tactics
We cats thought McCain used rude and snide behavior when he probably was trying to be tough but his most outrageous statement was to rail that Obama does not understand the difference between strategy and tactics and then to go on to discuss a TACTIC, the troop surge, and say it was a STRATEGY! We were so glad to hear Joe Biden later in the evening point that out. What a blunder!
Obama's Plan for Iraq
Although McCain's best statement of the night was about looking forward, not back, where Iraq is concerned. He can't get much traction with that statement, though, because Obama has a forward thinking plan which he has been clear about for a long time. Obama’s plan would call for a phased recall of troops, having all of them home by summer 2010. That would mean that the war would have gone on for more that seven long years. Obama's Plan would also call for just a few troops to stay and eliminate the groups of al Qaeda that have spread to Iraq, thanks to our invasion. You can read the entire plan at www.barackobama.com/issues/iraq.
“Here is the truth: fighting a war without end will not force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. And fighting in a war without end will not make the American people safer.
So when I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on day one: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden- as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.”
—Barack Obama, Clinton, Fayetteville, North Carolina, March 19, 2008
Obama's plan adopted?
When Obama went to Iraq earlier this year, he discussed his plan with the Iraqis who endorsed its key ideas. Since that time, the Bush Administration negotiations with Iraq seemed to this cat to have followed pretty closely to Obama's plan. Just this week, though, in a television interview Iraq's prime minister said that they had stopped saying that the US withdraw of troops would happen by 2010, as Obama's plan stated, but 2011 instead. The reason? US domestic politics. Isn't that a subtle way of saying that Bush and McCain didn't want it to seem like Obama had paved the way for an agreement so they've used semantics to make the plan sound different? Or are we keeping US troops in Iraq longer than needed to help McCain's bid for the presidency rather than any military reason?
That stinks worse than my litterbox.
- Midnight
www.cats4obama.com
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