Thread: Dear Mr. Obama

I'm a cop kid and a former soldier. somehow, i missed going to iraq (god prolly didn't want an international incident that i most likely would have caused), but every soldier that i talked to that was there had something that he didn't, emotion. he didn't write those words and i wonder if he believes them. now i'm not saying that he doesn't feel those words, but he wasn't expressing it.

@ Hutch, very good compilation! Thanks! Also @ Hutch, Sarah says hi!you maverick!

Originally Posted by nun2sharp

@ Hutch, very good compilation! Thanks! Also @ Hutch, Sarah says hi!you maverick!

You betcha, it's all about the jobs, and the health care, and Putin flying airplanes in Alaska, drill bay drill

We can agree with the sentiment without having served. He is professing his belief in this country and what it stands for.

AND I AGREE WITH HIM!

Each American pays for freedom every day of our lives to a lesser or greater extent.

Later,
Richard

I thought I'd annotate the transcript - I agree with the blue and disagree with the red, my comments are in italics

Dear Mr. Obama,
Having spent 12 months in Iraq theater.
I can promise you, this was not a mistake.
What is 'this'? He being there? It's a personal choice and only he can decide for himself if it was a personal mistake or not. If he means 'the war' the statement is a non-sequitur.
I witnessed first hand the many sacrifices made for the people of Iraq.
Those sacrifices were not mistakes.
The Iraqi people are like us.
They want a chance to live in a secure world.
Free from tyranny. Free from terrorism.
Free to prosper. Free to raise their children and pass on a future.
Are they better off today than they were in 2002?
You bet!
Only Iraqis can decide whether they are better off - there is no consensus among thems.
Seeing many men sacrifice their lives for the Iraqi people, they died for a purpose.
Not a mistake.
They died giving hope. They died promoting freedom.
Do you rescue a fireman just as he is about to rescue a child?
When you call an Iraqi war a mistake, you disrespect the service and
the sacrifice for everyone who died promoting freedom.
Illogical statement.
Freedom carries with it a price.
Because you do not understand nor appreciate these principles, sir.
Illogical statement, derived from the previous one.
I am supporting Senator John McCain for president.
He, too, made a huge sacrifice promoting freedom.
Because he understands the fundamental truth.
Again, lack of logic - no supoprt for the statement.
Freedom. It is always worth the price.
I disagree - in my view freedom is not always worth any price, and most humans will agree with me.

Using his logic I guess there never has been or never will be a bad war, because to be critical of a war is a dishonor to those that chose to join the military or in other times, those that were forced into the military.

Having been in the military, it's just like any other segment of society, there are very smart people (at all ranks) and very dumb people (at all ranks). An opinion from a person that served in the military needs to be examined just like one from any one else.

Just because one disagrees with the political agenda thats gets one into a war, has nothing to do with the people that have to go fight the war. No ones contribution to a war is diminished by the refusal of the politicians to send more soldiers to get killed.

I can understand his statements, put your self in his shoes, you go to war, you get wounded and lose your leg, you'd want there to be a purpose for your loss. I don't agree with it, but I can understand it. Unfortunately what he went to war for was to save us from the weapons on mass destruction, which didn't exist. Nobody gave a rats butt about the Iraqi people, or how Saddam treated them, if they had they would have went in in 1988 when he gassed the kurds in Halabja on March 16. So rather than be mad at Obama he should be mad at George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld who lied to start a war.

This is more GOP smoke and mirrors, divide and conquer...if you don't support the war, then you are against the troops and are un-American.

The Iraq War was sold to the American people under the guise of fighting terrorism...retaliation for 9/11, and looking for WMDs. These things have since been shown to be false.

There is no one in full possession of their faculties who would condemn the service or sacrifice made my the military personnel in Iraq. I get upset every time I see news about another casualty - it's another soldier who will not be coming home, another mother crying, another death based on a lie. If anything, the soldiers in Iraq deserve greater respect, given the facts that have come to light since the war was started - a war started using a policy which the same administration has condemned when other countries used it.

Condemning a war does not equate to condemning the soldiers - no matter how much the GOP tries to make it so.

As for the benefits of in Iraq - Saddam is gone, that's great...and ironic....considering which party supported him in power (I love the photo of Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam back in the 80's), Iraq may someday have a free and open republic, but it would be the first time in the region's 4000+ year history. There was no "terrorism" in Iraq prior to our involvement (other than from Saddam) - Saddam was feared by groups like Al Queda. I am sure there have been benefits for the Iraqis since Saddam's fall...but that has nothing to do with why the war was started. Bush should have just said he was going in to finish what his daddy started.

This video is propaganda and sadly, poorly produced propaganda. It would have been better if they had let him use his own words. I would hope he would look at McCain's voting record for veterans before he votes...not exactly stellar.

McCain's Voting Record: He Does Not Support Our Troops and Veterans

Veterans in this country are treated like crap...the yellow ribbons and flags are all very nice...but where is the health care? Where is the proper equipment for the active duty forces? Do you REALLY support the troops or is it just a yellow magnet on your car to make you feel good? If you really support the troops, then let see some tax money go for this:

- Veterans with honorable discharges should have free education and discounted health care;
- Combat vets and families should have both for free for life; families of those killed in action should have free education and free healthcare (spouses - until they remarry or kids - until they turn 18);
- VA hospitals should be revamped and staffed with the finest medical perosnnel and equipment possible...if necessary to achieve this - all Congressional and Cabinet officials must use VA hospitals.
- Combat veterans and their families should get free psychological counseling, prescriptions, physical therapy,etc. No BS forms, just a statement form the branch of service regarding the injury and the discharge paper.
- Vets with combat injuries should not pay any income tax on the first $175,000 of their income and should have discounted property taxes.

Just a little more involved than sticking a magnet on the car......

The young man in the video doesn't say so but I am willing to bet he is not the son of a politician.

If Barak Obama were to apply for a job with the FBI, CIA and many others, he would be turned down due to his involvement with individuals like William Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and especially for his support of the Kenyan Raila Odinga (google him if any of you are uninformed of his acts of ordering murders)

Yet the majority of the American public want him as Commander in Chief?

Isn't it funny how the biased, leftist mainstream media has mistakenly left out Barak Obama's shady involvment with all of these people? Oh...... wait, that wasn't a mistake?

Originally Posted by rugrad02

If Barak Obama were to apply for a job with the FBI, CIA and many others, he would be turned down due to his involvement with individuals like William Ayers and wife Bernadine Dohrn, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Tony Rezko and especially for his support of the Kenyan Raila Odinga (google him if any of you are uninformed of his acts of ordering murders)

Yet the majority of the American public want him as Commander in Chief?

Isn't it funny how the biased, leftist mainstream media has mistakenly left out Barak Obama's shady involvment with all of these people? Oh...... wait, that wasn't a mistake?

Oh, puh-leeze!

The so-called "leftist mainstream media" have been covering these things ad nauseum, while they ignore all of McSame's ties to lobbyists and corporations. Fact is, with painfully few exceptions, the mainstream media have been controlled by the right wing for some time now. Why else do you think they take any bit of sewage from the extreme right wingnutosphere and cover it as though it were real news -- things like Ayers or Rezko, which have been discredited long since. They take Obama's seven-year-old discussion of Constitutional Law, misquote it, and make it an "issue." And all the while, they totally ignore anything negative from the other end, preferring to concentrate on Palin's wardrobe. Do you see lead stories on Palin's gathering scandal up in Alaska? No, it's buried on page 3. Or on the not-infrequent incidents of McCain's obvious mental confusion in public places? Only when he's actually on live TV, as he was on Meet the Press last week, does that get coverage.

Your speculation on whether Obama would be eligible for a federal job is just that -- speculation. I've been through that process, and frankly, I don't see anything that would disqualify him at all. The federal government does not act the same way as the wingnuts, assuming that mere exposure to another idea necessarily pollutes someone's mind. The federal government, including the FBI, believe in the First Amendment -- the same provision that Palin evidently doesn't even understand.

j