YouTube - Dear Mr. Obama
This has been viewed more than 11,000,000 times!
I agree with the sentiment!
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YouTube - Dear Mr. Obama
This has been viewed more than 11,000,000 times!
I agree with the sentiment!
Mark,
Have you served in the military? If not, how can you compare your sentiment to the sentiment of a soldier?
Brad
That was much more impressive before the Powell endorsement.
Maybe Powell just needs to take some Tums?Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottS
Obama giving some black Republicans 'heartburn' - CNN.com
Obama has never served in the military, and he is poised to be the commander in chief. If, according to you, we cannot even have an opinion on military issues without first having served in the military, how can you support a person who never served to be the commander in chief?Quote:
Originally Posted by icedog
Matt
Quote:
"Swill"? What will you do if Obama wins this election? I am guessing you will be upset. I wish I could watch your reaction.
Brad, If Obama wins, I will be glad to send you my picture along with my military record. How's that?:DQuote:
Originally Posted by icedog
I think because there is no comparison to a white collar pencil pusher and the experience and memories left from someone serving in the Armed Forces.Quote:
Originally Posted by mhailey
Sitting in the Oval Office is not that hard... its just a room,.... sitting in a Humvee getting shot at in another country by terrorisst with fully automatic weapons is quite a bit more dangerous.
He is stating that if you want to run and oversee the Military that you should have some experience to have a deeper understanding of what goes on... cause the military sure aint Bill Murray in "Stripes"
I have two combat tours as an infantryman, I am now discharged because my injuries nearly crippled me (I will probably need a cane to walk by the time I'm 50) and going to college full time and working full time. I vehemently disagree with this video. In essence, he's saying that it's wrong to call Iraq a mistake because that disrespects soldiers. Logic can't get much more flawed than that. I know you guys probably don't need it spelled out for you, but that is like saying all wars are OK, because soldiers sacrifice and are noble. HOGWASH.
FDR and Abraham Lincoln had no military experience, and they are widely considered our nations best presidents. Each of them led us through a very significant war.Quote:
Originally Posted by mhailey
Quote:
Originally Posted by twelvepbrs
Not true! Lincoln commanded infantry militia during the blackhawk wars, FDR was Asst Sect. of the navy WWI.Though being a bureaucrat doesnt make a veteran FDR was not a thorough amatuer.
There are the exceptions. However, to be commander in chief, you should have an understanding of that which you are supposed to be commanding.Quote:
Originally Posted by twelvepbrs
I did not know that about Lincoln. Learn something new every day if you are not careful.Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
Matt
The entire point of naming the President Commander in Chief of the armed forces is to ensure civilian control over the military. Further I didn't suggest you could not have an opinion. Please don't try to put words in my mouth.Quote:
Originally Posted by mhailey
Mark, I asked you a question. I am guessing by your snotty response that you did serve in the military. Is that correct?
Soldiers are just people, there's no rule saying there smarter then anybody else. My budy that was in marines says there's a lot piece of **** human beings in the military, just like there is everywhere else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ditch Doc
Amen and amen.
Sorry Brad! My response was meant in good fun, nothing else intended!Quote:
Originally Posted by icedog
As for my military career...well, we'll just have to wait and see if Obama is elected or not!:)
Completely agree. And I would note that having served in the military, or not has no bearing on being able to make a logically coherent statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ditch Doc
As far as whether a commander in chief needs to have understanding of what they command, yes and no. There are many different levels of understanding. A commander doesn't need to understand all the details - there's plenty of military professionals that are responsible for that.
What a commander in chief needs is a good judgment of the overall situation at present and whether a military intervention is necessary.
Most societies are well past the times when the best warrior was also the leader of the society. That's a good thing, because the two positions require different qualifications.
Lincoln was in charge of a militia group for one year that never saw any action. Asst Sect of the Navy is a civilian position. Although FDR's position carried substantial responsibilities, it almost proves my point again. He was appointed by Wilson to the position after being a NY state senator with no military experience, and yet he was fairly successful as one of the Navy's top civilian officers.Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
I agree completely. It's also a fact that not NEARLY all "soldiers" or people involved in the military would ever agree with this lacking video.Quote:
Originally Posted by nomed
If it is so important that the President to have served to be Commander in Chief of the armed forces, then maybe they should change the constitution to include that as a prerequisite.
Until such time, it really doesn't matter if the President served.
The following Presidents did not serve in the military, there are some good and some not so good;
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
John Quincy Adams
Martin Van Buren
Grover Cleveland
William Taft
Woodrow Wilson
Warren Harding
Calvin Coolidge
Herbert Hoover
Franklin Roosevelt
Bill Clinton
The following served in the Military, just as above, some good and some not so good;
George Washington - Commander in Chief of Continental Army during the American Revolution.
James Monroe - served in American Revolution
Andrew Jackson - American Revolution, War of 1812, First Seminole War
William Henry Harrison - Indian wars in the NW territory, War of 1812
John Tyler - War of 1812
Zachary Taylor - War of 1812, Black Hawk, Second Seminole, and Mexican wars
Franklin Pierce - Mexican War
James Buchanan - War of 1812
Abraham Lincoln - Black Hawk War
Andrew Johnson - Civil War
Ulysses Grant - Mexican War, Civil War
Rutherford Hayes - Civil War
James Garfield - Civil War
Chester Arthur - Civil War
Benjamin Harrison - Civil War
William McKinley - Civil War
Theodore Roosevelt - Spanish-American War
Harry Truman - WWI
Dwight Eisenhower - WWII General
John Kennedy - WWII
Lyndon Johnson - WWII
Richard Nixon - WWII
Gerald Ford - WWII
George Bush - WWII
James Madison
James Polk
Millard Fillmore
Jimmy Carter
Ronald Reagan - kept out of combat due to bad eyesight
George W. Bush
Seeing as the President has other things to do, I find it more troubling that some Secretaries of Defense have no military background (when their whole job revolves around the military and military issues).
Robert Gates- USAF/CIA
Donald Rumsfeld- USN
William Cohen- no military
William Perry- no military
Les Aspin- Army
Dick Cheney- no military
Frank Carlucci- CIA
Caspar Weinberger- Army
Harold Brown- no military
James R. Schlesinger- no military
Elliot Richardson- Army
Melvin R. Laird- USN
Clark Clifford- USN
Robert McNamara- Army
Thomas S. Gates, Jr.- USN
Neil H. McElroy- no military
Charles Erwin Wilson- no military
Robert A. Lovett- USN
George Marshall- Army
Louis A. Johnson- Army
James Forrestal- USN
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!
You betcha, it's all about the jobs, and the health care, and Putin flying airplanes in Alaska, drill bay drill:rock:Quote:
Originally Posted by nun2sharp
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
Quote:
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?:shrug:
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!Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrad02
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
Please explain what exactly his "shady involvement" was with Bill Ayers? Jeremiah Wright?Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrad02
I know Rezko (actually his wife) bought the lot beside his house so that he could buy his home from the owner who wanted to sell the house and the lot together.
As for Raila Odinga I've yet to see anything form any reliable/credible sources, not someone's blog.
Now lets go into guilt by mere associations;
-John McCain and William Keating.
-U.S. Council for World Freedom a right wing group that was associated with Nazi collaborators and death squads. It was also involved with Iran Contra.
-His known and continued association with a drug user that was involved in presciption fraud.
-His relationship with Vicki Iseman.
-His association with Rick Renzi.
-His association with Fred Malek (an anti semite from the Nixon days).
-He cheated on his injured wife
I doubt John McCain would make it into the FBI, CIA or many others too.
In honesty these matter just as little as those associations that you pointed out with Barrack Obama , except maybe the Keating Five issue where he may have broke the law, despite only getting a reprimand (the investigating officers wanted to pursue prosecution).
If one was to look into anyone's background there would be associations, either known or unknown, with people that have checkered pasts, postion that we wouldn't agree with or a criminal past.
Versus McCain who would not make it into the Naval Academy now:Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrad02
His father is no longer alive to pull strings
He is a fan of G. Gordon Liddy (a convicted felon who espouses the murder of Federal agents)
He was investigated by the Senate for is involvement with Keating...they absolvedhim of any criminal activity but said he displayed poor judgement
An organization he chairs gave over $800K to Rashidi - the same professor they give Obama a hard time about becasue he knew him in Chicago
McCain has just as many skeletons - if not more - as Obama...probably more, since he has been in DC longer.
Since we're Googling, Google how many planes McCain crashed, but still kept his wings becasue of "daddy" being an Admiral, or how he was not qualified to get into the war college, but again, strings were pulled....or how when he was a naval liason with Congress, he worked behind the scenes to get an aircraft carrier built tat the Navy did not want...but his buddies did.
Yep, he's just like us......
The media ignoring Mccain's ties to lobbyists? I have heard more about this by the media than anything about Obama's ties to unrepentant terrorists. Take a look at the number of telelvision shows, newspapers, media coprporations and other media outlets that have endorsed Barak Obama for President. Media controlled by the Right??? Are you kidding me? Sure, there are people like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity that lean towards the right but never have I seen such disrespect towards a candidate. Both John McCain and Sarah Palin have been called out and been unfairly attacked because Barak Hussein Obama is the chosen one that came down from the heavens to bring CHANGE to America.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nord Jim
It is unfortunate that his change will turn America into a Socialist country.
I was afraid this thread was going to die too soon but it just keeps on giving :rofl2:
Let us say that there is a connection with McCain and the above people. Nowhere can you site an instance where he defended the actions of these people, unlike OBama.
I find it ludicrous to suggest some moral equivalence with some mentioned illegal civil matters and cheating on your wife, which was their private business last time I checked with Bill Clinton:rofl2:, and people who bombed and killed American citizens and to this day still support such action. Sitting for 20 years in front of your spiritual lead that says "God D.. America" and is an outright racist, and then lying about it, is enough for most people to just consider someone else for US President.
Obama is a socialist, straight up! I do not have a problem with anyone stating their position and running on that but, not Obama, he lies about it.
Being against burning coal under any circumstances is fine if you state that position, not Obama he lies about it.
There are many other things that one could cover about Obama but this response is getting to long as it is. Suffice it to say that once again we are voting for the lesser of two evils for President and I will not vote for a socialist racebater who has delusions of Godhood! If he is elected he will try to squash all opposing views just like he did when he kick the newpaper reporters off the plane a coulple of days back. Pathetic, if that does not show you where his head is at, what will!
Later,
Richard
How have McCan't and Palin been "called out and unfairly attacked?" I'd especially appreciate you explaining how there is anything that has been said about them that is even remotely comparable to the McCarthyist nonsense that the Repugnican sewage machine has been spewing about Obama -- attacks that the "liberal media" parrot endlessly, regardless of the fact that they are without merit.Quote:
Originally Posted by rugrad02
I will also challenge you to come up with some evidence that Obama is a "socialist." You people seem to believe that his statement to "Joe" the "Plumber" that the American middle class should be able to keep a bit more of the money that they've earned by their labor is somehow evidence of "socialism." And if you're going to cite the seven-year-old radio interview in which he comments on civil rights efforts to effect fiscal equality through the courts (which he said were misguided), please get it right. I'd suggest listening to the whole interview, not just the out-of-context clips the wingnutosphere has been repeating, and then, if you still don't get it, read some of the legal commentary on what he was actually talking about. I would seriously suggest that you not rely on Limbaugh, O'Really, and Coulter on this one.
It's really easy when you're overcome with hatred of a political figure, to call him a "socialist." Doesn't make it so, and adds absolutely nothing to the discussion.
j
Oh, and you might stop referring to Ayers as "unrepentant." That's another one from the wingnuts. He actually repented of the violence, but defended the fact that he worked against the war. He said he should have "done more," but was not referring to the violence at the time.
This video is just more of the "if you aren't with us, you are against us" mentality touted by Bush and Cheney. It is the continuation of the aggressive nationalism of Hobbes and Strauss, the espousing of Machiavelli's maxim that "if no external threat exists then one has to be manufactured" (meaning while progress may be being made in Iraq, we need to keep the populace afraid to stay in or come to power), the desire to use foreign policy to fulfill a "nation destiny" (per Irving Kristol, one of the leading neo-conservatives), the appropriation of the references to God by the Founding Fathers to exclusively Christian interpratation, and the praising and encouraging of faith in their political base, while they themselves feel no obligation to follow or practice the same (Leo Strauss Strauss viewed religion as absolutely essential in government in order to impose moral law on the masses who otherwise would be out of control. He also felt that that religion was for the masses alone; the rulers need not be bound by it.)
I can not find anything in the GOP platform that is not tied to divisiveness, "them vs. us", the abrogation of individual rights and intolerance veiled in the guise of faith and religion, and the attempts to elevate that "faith" to a place of superiority over all others, violating the separation of church and state exhorted both by the constitution and by Christ himself (...Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. - Mark 12:16-18)
As much as I can research, my family has been Republican probably since the party was founded in the 1850's. The disillusionment for many started with Nixon and has not stopped. While GOP claims to be "of the common man", their policies ("trickle-down economics", etc.) have benefitted the wealthy at the expense of the working and middle class; while they claim to hate "elitists", they cling to the exclusivity that wealth provides with a grasping claw and will say or do anything to maintain this hold - even at the cost of American lives, treasure, prestige, and reputation.
I am not concerned with whom someone may have associated; I am concerned with those whom they would place in positions of authority. I am concerned with how they treat all segments of American society and if they seek to include everyone in this great undertaking we call the United States. If they seek to divide, to claim on class/belief/faith/creed is superior to another and those who do follow their choice are "un-American", if they claim to support the American worker but do everything in their power to line the pockets of the already wealthy, if they seek to obtain the support of veterans with one hand, while failing to support them on the other..they I will not and cannot support them. I also see it as an duty to speak out against them, an obligation; an obligation to my forebears of over 350 years on American soil.
"With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds."
There is nothing in the above quote in anything that has come out of the GOP in the last 2 decades, if not longer....despite the quote being from Lincoln.
Both parties have strayed violently from the ideals of Jefferson, Adams, Paine, Franklin, and Lincoln. We - the People of the United States - can never redirect the nation unless we are united.
"America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great."
"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."
- Alexis de Tocqueville
I'm in much the same boat. My great-great-great grandfather was a founder of the Republican Party in Monroe County, New York. To give you an idea of the difference between his Party and ours, he was also a stationmaster on the Underground Railroad. You see, back in those days, the Republicans were in favor of freedom and equality, not against it.Quote:
Originally Posted by WireBeard
But it didn't last long. By the 1880s, Frederick Douglass (whom my grandfather may have known) would lament that "the party of emancipation has become the party of money."
You're right -- Lincoln wouldn't recognize it.
j
I thought I would let the man in the youtube video a chance to speak for himself!
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:roflmao:roflmao Very good!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Chady
James.