The Huffington Post reports that on June 8, Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) addressed the graduating class of commission students at the Wasilla Assembly of God church. During that address, Palin portrayed the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a quest decreed by God, and said that U.S. soldiers were carrying out “God’s plan”:
" Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That’s what we have to make sure that we’re praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God’s plan."
During that speech, Palin also promoted a $30-billion natural gas pipeline project, stating, “God’s will has to be done in unifying people and companies to get that gas line built.”
Showing posts with label Iraq war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq war. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Monday, July 14, 2008
Straight talk on Iraq from Barack Obama
One of the main reasons that underdog, Barack Obama won the Democratic presidential primary was because he consistently opposed the war in Iraq.
Last week Republicans and their allies, like Senator Joe Lieberman, began to attack Obama, suggesting he had changed his position when he said that he would listen to the generals in Iraq about how to organize a U.S. withdrawal.
Would they have preferred that he not listen to the generals on the ground about how to sucessfully withdraw our troops?
Obama has been consistent on this issue-opposing the misguided war, arguing that it has diverted resources from the real fight against terrorism, overstretched our military, increased sympathy for terrorism throughout the middle east; squandered resources needed for domestic needs, and made us less safe.
In a clear editorial today Obama writes:
...on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began...
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.
It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.
Despite what McCain may believe, the Iraq war which has claimed over 4000 American lives and left over 30,000 of our troops wounded, is not a figment of our imagination. And opposing this war is not whining!
No flip flop! No whining! Just straight talk from Barack Obama
Read the entire piece.
Last week Republicans and their allies, like Senator Joe Lieberman, began to attack Obama, suggesting he had changed his position when he said that he would listen to the generals in Iraq about how to organize a U.S. withdrawal.
Would they have preferred that he not listen to the generals on the ground about how to sucessfully withdraw our troops?
Obama has been consistent on this issue-opposing the misguided war, arguing that it has diverted resources from the real fight against terrorism, overstretched our military, increased sympathy for terrorism throughout the middle east; squandered resources needed for domestic needs, and made us less safe.
In a clear editorial today Obama writes:
...on my first day in office, I would give the military a new mission: ending this war.
As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began...
Ending the war is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the Taliban is resurgent and Al Qaeda has a safe haven. Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been. As Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently pointed out, we won’t have sufficient resources to finish the job in Afghanistan until we reduce our commitment to Iraq.
In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.
It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.
Despite what McCain may believe, the Iraq war which has claimed over 4000 American lives and left over 30,000 of our troops wounded, is not a figment of our imagination. And opposing this war is not whining!
No flip flop! No whining! Just straight talk from Barack Obama
Read the entire piece.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Journal Sentinel buries ex commanders criticism of Iraq war
Yesterday the former top commander of American forces in Iraq, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, blamed the Bush administration for a "catastrophically flawed, unrealistically optimistic war plan” and denounced the current addition of American forces as a “desperate” move that would not be successful.
Why did the Journal Sentinel bury it on page 4?
Sanchez public criticism of the Bush administration's prosecution of the war is surely bigger news than the tragic deaths of four people at a horse show in Madison, the paper's lead story.
Here's the page 1 New York Times story.
Why did the Journal Sentinel bury it on page 4?
Sanchez public criticism of the Bush administration's prosecution of the war is surely bigger news than the tragic deaths of four people at a horse show in Madison, the paper's lead story.
Here's the page 1 New York Times story.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Iraq soccer star calls for US withdrawal!
Sport, at its best, captures the publics’ imagination, unleashes its passions and can be a force for progressive change.
When Joe Lewis knocked out Max Schmeling millions of Black Americans erupted with vindicated joy!
When the young African American, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals while setting three world records at the 1936 Berlin, “Nazi” Olympics he challenged Hitler’s claims of Aryan supremacy and inspired freedom loving people everywhere.
France’s 1998 World Cup victory undermined the growing influence of the anti-immigrant, xenophobic National Front that had criticized the team for not being white enough. Led by Zinédine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, who scored two goals in the 3-0 championship victory over Brazil, the multiracial squad included several players such as Thierry Henry whose families had immigrated from former French colonies.
Like Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson. Roberto Clemente, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Tommy Smith, John Carlos, Martina Navratilova, and Muhammad Ali before them, the victorious French team used the spotlight to promote human and civil rights.
Led by Ghanaian-born Marcel Desailly, the entire team appealed to the public to reject the presidential candidacy of the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen. They endorsed the re-election of President Jacques Chirac who won in a landslide.
Iraq’s national soccer team stunning 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup last month continues the rich tradition that links competition and political resistance.
It was Iraq’s first championship ever. The victory brought all Iraqis, Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, together in raucous celebrations across their war torn country.
The winning goal came on a corner kick by Hawar Mohammed, a Kurd, headed into the net by the team’s captain, Mahmoud, a Sunni Turkoman from Kirkuk. It was an inspirational triumph for a team whose players straddle bitter and violent ethnic divides. But the athletes’ elation was tempered by the reality of the on-going US occupation of their homeland.
Immediately after the game, Mahmoud, the team’s captain and final winning star, called for the United States to withdraw its troops from his nation. “I want America to go out,” he said. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon.
Goalkeeper Noor Sabri Abbas, a Shiite, played a central role in the Iraqi team’s progress through the tournament. He posted four consecutive shutouts, including the semi-final victory over South Korea where he blocked two shots in the final shootout after a regulation 0-0 tie, resulting in a 4-3 victory for the Iraqi team. During the tournament, Sabri’s brother-in-law was killed in a bombing. Two other team members also lost relatives during the tournament.
Coach Jorvan Vieira and Mahmoud wore black armbands during the post game news conference to commemorate the dozens of fans killed in Iraq during celebrations following their semifinal victory. “It’s very clear, from our arms, our respect to the people who died when we put Korea out of the competition,” Vieira said. “This victory we offer to the families of those people.”
Mahmoud, captain, star and opponent of the US invasion, said he would not return to Iraq. “I don’t want the Iraqi people to be angry with me,” he said. But “if I go back with the team, anybody could kill me or try to hurt me.” He added, “One of my closest friends, they came to arrest him, and for one year neither me nor his family knew where he is.”
Other incidents in the month-long tournament reflected the terrible conditions in the war-torn country. Mahmoud was detained at the airport in Bangkok, Thailand for 12 hours and nearly missed the opening game. The entire team wore black armbands for the final against Saudi Arabia to honor the memory of the dozens of fans killed by two car bombs during celebrations of the semi-final victory.
Iraq, whose only World Cup appearance was in 1986, dominated the Saudis, three-time Asian Cup champions. Now Iraq joins the United States, Brazil, Italy and host South Africa at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup along with the champions of Europe, Africa and Oceania.
When Joe Lewis knocked out Max Schmeling millions of Black Americans erupted with vindicated joy!
When the young African American, Jesse Owens, won four gold medals while setting three world records at the 1936 Berlin, “Nazi” Olympics he challenged Hitler’s claims of Aryan supremacy and inspired freedom loving people everywhere.
France’s 1998 World Cup victory undermined the growing influence of the anti-immigrant, xenophobic National Front that had criticized the team for not being white enough. Led by Zinédine Zidane, the son of Algerian immigrants, who scored two goals in the 3-0 championship victory over Brazil, the multiracial squad included several players such as Thierry Henry whose families had immigrated from former French colonies.
Like Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson. Roberto Clemente, Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King, Tommy Smith, John Carlos, Martina Navratilova, and Muhammad Ali before them, the victorious French team used the spotlight to promote human and civil rights.
Led by Ghanaian-born Marcel Desailly, the entire team appealed to the public to reject the presidential candidacy of the National Front’s Jean-Marie Le Pen. They endorsed the re-election of President Jacques Chirac who won in a landslide.
Iraq’s national soccer team stunning 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup last month continues the rich tradition that links competition and political resistance.
It was Iraq’s first championship ever. The victory brought all Iraqis, Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, together in raucous celebrations across their war torn country.
The winning goal came on a corner kick by Hawar Mohammed, a Kurd, headed into the net by the team’s captain, Mahmoud, a Sunni Turkoman from Kirkuk. It was an inspirational triumph for a team whose players straddle bitter and violent ethnic divides. But the athletes’ elation was tempered by the reality of the on-going US occupation of their homeland.
Immediately after the game, Mahmoud, the team’s captain and final winning star, called for the United States to withdraw its troops from his nation. “I want America to go out,” he said. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon.
Goalkeeper Noor Sabri Abbas, a Shiite, played a central role in the Iraqi team’s progress through the tournament. He posted four consecutive shutouts, including the semi-final victory over South Korea where he blocked two shots in the final shootout after a regulation 0-0 tie, resulting in a 4-3 victory for the Iraqi team. During the tournament, Sabri’s brother-in-law was killed in a bombing. Two other team members also lost relatives during the tournament.
Coach Jorvan Vieira and Mahmoud wore black armbands during the post game news conference to commemorate the dozens of fans killed in Iraq during celebrations following their semifinal victory. “It’s very clear, from our arms, our respect to the people who died when we put Korea out of the competition,” Vieira said. “This victory we offer to the families of those people.”
Mahmoud, captain, star and opponent of the US invasion, said he would not return to Iraq. “I don’t want the Iraqi people to be angry with me,” he said. But “if I go back with the team, anybody could kill me or try to hurt me.” He added, “One of my closest friends, they came to arrest him, and for one year neither me nor his family knew where he is.”
Other incidents in the month-long tournament reflected the terrible conditions in the war-torn country. Mahmoud was detained at the airport in Bangkok, Thailand for 12 hours and nearly missed the opening game. The entire team wore black armbands for the final against Saudi Arabia to honor the memory of the dozens of fans killed by two car bombs during celebrations of the semi-final victory.
Iraq, whose only World Cup appearance was in 1986, dominated the Saudis, three-time Asian Cup champions. Now Iraq joins the United States, Brazil, Italy and host South Africa at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup along with the champions of Europe, Africa and Oceania.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Hiding behind the troops is the last refuge of Iraq war sponsors!
If patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels as novelist Samuel Johnson said, hiding behind the troops is the last refuge of the Iraq war’s sponsors!
As Frank Rich writes in the Sunday Times:
It has been the war’s champions who have more often dishonored the troops than the war’s opponents.
Mr. Bush created the template by doing everything possible to keep the sacrifice of American armed forces in Iraq off-camera, forbidding photos of coffins and skipping military funerals. That set the stage for the ensuing demonization of Ted Koppel, whose decision to salute the fallen by reading a list of their names in the spotlight of “Nightline” was branded unpatriotic by the right’s vigilantes.
The same playbook was followed by the war’s champions when a soldier confronted Donald Rumsfeld about the woeful shortage of armor during a town-hall meeting in Kuwait in December 2004. Rather than campaign for the armor the troops so desperately needed, the right attacked the questioner for what Rush Limbaugh called his “near insubordination.” When The Washington Post some two years later exposed the indignities visited upon the grievously injured troops at Walter Reed Medical Center, The Weekly Standard and the equally hawkish Wall Street Journal editorial page took three weeks to notice, with The Standard giving the story all of two sentences. Protecting the White House from scandal, not the troops from squalor, was the higher priority.
One person who has had enough of this hypocrisy is the war critic Andrew J. Bacevich, a Boston University professor of international relations who is also a Vietnam veteran, a product of the United States Military Academy and a former teacher at West Point. After his 27-year-old son was killed in May while serving in Iraq, he said that Americans should not believe Memorial Day orators who talk about how priceless the troops’ lives are.
“I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier’s life,” Professor Bacevich wrote in The Washington Post. “I’ve been handed the check.” The amount, he said, was “roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning.”
Anyone who questions this bleak perspective need only have watched last week’s sad and ultimately pointless Congressional hearings into the 2004 friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman. Seven investigations later, we still don’t know who rewrote the witness statements of Tillman’s cohort so that Pentagon propagandists could trumpet a fictionalized battle death to the public and his family.
But it was nonetheless illuminating to watch Mr. Rumsfeld and his top brass sit there under oath and repeatedly go mentally AWOL about crucial events in the case. Their convenient mass amnesia about their army’s most famous and lied-about casualty is as good a definition as any of just what “supporting the troops” means to those who even now beat the drums for this war.
.
As Frank Rich writes in the Sunday Times:
It has been the war’s champions who have more often dishonored the troops than the war’s opponents.
Mr. Bush created the template by doing everything possible to keep the sacrifice of American armed forces in Iraq off-camera, forbidding photos of coffins and skipping military funerals. That set the stage for the ensuing demonization of Ted Koppel, whose decision to salute the fallen by reading a list of their names in the spotlight of “Nightline” was branded unpatriotic by the right’s vigilantes.
The same playbook was followed by the war’s champions when a soldier confronted Donald Rumsfeld about the woeful shortage of armor during a town-hall meeting in Kuwait in December 2004. Rather than campaign for the armor the troops so desperately needed, the right attacked the questioner for what Rush Limbaugh called his “near insubordination.” When The Washington Post some two years later exposed the indignities visited upon the grievously injured troops at Walter Reed Medical Center, The Weekly Standard and the equally hawkish Wall Street Journal editorial page took three weeks to notice, with The Standard giving the story all of two sentences. Protecting the White House from scandal, not the troops from squalor, was the higher priority.
One person who has had enough of this hypocrisy is the war critic Andrew J. Bacevich, a Boston University professor of international relations who is also a Vietnam veteran, a product of the United States Military Academy and a former teacher at West Point. After his 27-year-old son was killed in May while serving in Iraq, he said that Americans should not believe Memorial Day orators who talk about how priceless the troops’ lives are.
“I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier’s life,” Professor Bacevich wrote in The Washington Post. “I’ve been handed the check.” The amount, he said, was “roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning.”
Anyone who questions this bleak perspective need only have watched last week’s sad and ultimately pointless Congressional hearings into the 2004 friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman. Seven investigations later, we still don’t know who rewrote the witness statements of Tillman’s cohort so that Pentagon propagandists could trumpet a fictionalized battle death to the public and his family.
But it was nonetheless illuminating to watch Mr. Rumsfeld and his top brass sit there under oath and repeatedly go mentally AWOL about crucial events in the case. Their convenient mass amnesia about their army’s most famous and lied-about casualty is as good a definition as any of just what “supporting the troops” means to those who even now beat the drums for this war.
.
Monday, July 23, 2007
College Republicans support Iraq War but won't serve!
College Republicans support the Iraq War, but can't ("I have medical problems otherwise I would") or won't ("I have more important obligations") serve. They support the troops as long as they aren't one of them!
Guess they are following in their Commander in Chief's footsteps. I wonder if the Texas National Guard has any openings?
Guess they are following in their Commander in Chief's footsteps. I wonder if the Texas National Guard has any openings?
Friday, July 20, 2007
Olbermann: Bush administration's scapegoating of critics is unpatriotic
Keith Olbermann responds to the Bush administration's unprincipled scapegoating of the critics of the Iraq war: "You have set this government at war against its own people and then blamed those very people when they say, 'Enough.'”
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Michael Moore demands that CNN tell the truth!
In his first interview on CNN in three years, Michael Moore demands that Wolf Blizter and the station apologize to the American people for their failure to ask hard questions about medical care and the War in Iraq.
Saturday, July 7, 2007
Scotter Libby: a fallen comrade!
In a Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled “Fallen Soldier,” Fouad Ajami cited the soldier’s creed: “I will never leave a fallen comrade.” He went on to declare that “Scooter Libby was a soldier in your — our — war in Iraq.”
President Bush and his handlers need a strong dose of reality!
Over 3500 America soldiers have died. Tens of thousands have been wounded, many severely.
President Bush like most of his top advisers, including Vice President Cheney who "had more important things to do," avoided military service altogether.
Read Paul Krugman's latest piece; "Sacrifice is for suckers!"
President Bush and his handlers need a strong dose of reality!
Over 3500 America soldiers have died. Tens of thousands have been wounded, many severely.
President Bush like most of his top advisers, including Vice President Cheney who "had more important things to do," avoided military service altogether.
Read Paul Krugman's latest piece; "Sacrifice is for suckers!"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)