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February 13, 2007
Obama Restructures a Remark on Deaths
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
DURHAM, N.H., Feb. 12 — Senator Barack Obama of Illinois said Monday that he had misspoken when he suggested that the lives of more than 3,000 American soldiers killed in Iraq had been “wasted.”
As he arrived in New Hampshire, Mr. Obama said he would “absolutely apologize” to military families if they were offended by a remark he made in Iowa while criticizing the Bush administration’s Iraq policy.
“What I would say — and meant to say — is that their service hasn’t been honored,” Mr. Obama told reporters in Nashua, N.H., “because our civilian strategy has not honored their courage and bravery, and we have put them in a situation in which it is hard for them to succeed.”
A New Hampshire reporter asked Mr. Obama whether he regretted the remark, made at a rally on Sunday that “we ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.”
“Even as I said it,” Mr. Obama said Monday, “I realized I had misspoken.”

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Oh well… I was starting to like him. If he’s capitulating like this the DAY AFTER he jumps into the race he won’t be able to say anything without back-peddling for the media. Why does it seem wussy and Democrat are synonymous? I don’t think you need to apologize for saying those 3000+ lives were wasted… if that is what you believe. I see nothing wrong with this statement “we ended up launching a war that should have never been authorized and should have never been waged, and to which we now have spent $400 billion and have seen over 3,000 lives of the bravest young Americans wasted.” The only possible “problem” is the use of the word young… many of those that have died are not young due to W calling up anyone he can.

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Why does it seem wussy and Democrat are synonymous

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Because they are?

Chazman,

I think you need some senstivity awareness classes. You don't think that this sort of leftist rhetoric will alienate any moderate person whose kids died? Sure a leftist intellectual (I know that is redundant) can parse each word himself (like that depends upon what the definition of "is" is) to justify that sort of hate speech, but that average Joe voter will just see another Demohater putting his foot in his mouth, especially after the GOP spinmeisters start repeating that language to their core.

I don't know... If the war was about curbing global terrorism, which by all measures I'm aware of has only increased since we started these wars, or eliminating WOMD, which seem not to have been there,then I guess you could call that wasted.

If, OTOH, the Iraq invasion was about ousting a regime that held anti-US views in the goal of establishing a more pro-Western government which would provide the US with more stable access to the region's oil reserves, and thereby continue to provide the sort of global business climate where large US corporate interests could thrive in a changing energy economy, then I guess all is well.

After all, in the deepest thinktanks in the nation's capital, what do you suppose they say poses the greatest long term risk to our way of life and the health of our economy - Bin Laden or $300/bbl oil?

That's not the point.

By using the lefty rhetoric, right or wrong, Osama (sic) is going to alienate potential voters. Hence the retraction. If he followed Chazman's logic, he would be another Calvin Coolidge. But at least CC was President once.

I for one think he showed character by sincerely admitting that he chose an inappropriate word, and did not try to dance around the apology. That earns respect more than coming up with some damned excuse. If you're wrong, admit you're wrong, and move on.

RR

Well if hundreds of thousands of lives (no I don’t believe god values American soldiers lives more than anyone else’s) and all our other expenditure was worth getting rid of Saddam then those live weren’t wasted. I might agree if we were doing better than he was over there, but so far we’re not. I’m not saying we aren’t trying. But the reality is that our methods of war and keeping peace in foreign countries kills far too many civilians which results in those civilians being against us rather than appreciating us.

Another problem is that far too much of the money that should have helped rebuild Iraq has gone to Bushes “political business partners” including the Iraqi ones, and there is very little to show for it.

You might say that most of the lives have been lost after “the war” while we have been trying to help the country. In that sense you might say our soldier’s lives have not been wasted. If Obama clearly explained it this way I might accept it, but a blanket statement that those lives have not been wasted doesn’t hold water with me.

Finally the argument I hear from the right that obviously the war has worked because Alkaida hasn’t attacked us again is simply nonsense. Alkaida didn’t attack us the year before 9/11 or the year before that. It seems more and more obvious that our presence in the Middle East really is about oil.

In the end it seems difficult for me to feel the war was a waste but not the lives lost in it, and I do not see how anyone running for president will be able to say otherwise and be entirely believable. A Democrat may get away with it only because we as a whole want change from what is now happening.

Two years ago, Representative Murtha called for an immediate redeployment from Iraq and was vilified by the Republicans and the war mongering right. What has happened during those two years?

I've written before that I don't buy that argument. If we were there for the oil, we've done a terrible job getting it. Production is still low, and we never put enough troops in to secure it.

Plus if you read about the neocons who pushed this war, it seems to me that most of them were true believers. I think Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, and Rice thought they were really bolstering American power by taking it to Saddam and going to transform the Middle East. Cheney may have mixed motives (who knows what goes on in that brain), but I think if it really was all about oil then maybe those folks wouldn't have screwed it up so badly.

Again, apologies for the thread drift.