Boy, it must absolutely suck to be the neo-con blogosphere or Senator John Warner today.
The other night in the debate, Barack Obama passed on a story from an Afghanistan veteran, who detailed the severe issues our troops over there have with shortages in artillery and equipment and force levels. It took no time for the right-wing blogs to spring into action, saying there's no way such issues could happen -- not under President Bush's superb leadership! Senator John Warner got into the act, saying he was shocked -- SHOCKED -- to hear this story, and implied that Obama was peddling a false story that could never have happened, especially not with Senator Warner on the Armed Services committee.
Well, turns out that it is true, and has been true for a long time. ABC verified the story. Not only that, but over at VetVoice.com, story after story from Afghanistan veterans have started to be posted, with similar stories. Keep going to VetVoice.com for more.
Then, in a major story in the New York Times that followed troops in Afghanistan, posted today, a soldier in Afghanistan repeats an identical feeling to what Obama had talked about:
And they felt eclipsed by Iraq. As Sgt. Erick Gallardo put it: "We don't get supplies, assets. We scrounge for everything and live a lot more rugged. But we know the war is here. We got unfinished business."
Indeed, the war IS there. That's where Osama bin Laden is. That's where al Qaeda is growing in strength, plotting more attacks. And this administration, and Senator John McCain, are not taking the threat seriously, at all. In fact, they're coming close to waiving the white flag, by committing the overwhelming majority of our forces and equipment to Iraq, not Afghanistan.
Back to Senator Warner. I find it pretty amusing that he says he never heard of equipment issues in Afghanistan before. We've been trying to tell Senator Warner that it's an issue for a long time now. In fact, in May 2007, we ran an ad featuring Mike Breen, who served in Afghanistan. In the ad, Mike talks about not having the air support that he needed, because the equipment was in Iraq.
We ran this ad in one state and addressed one Senator. You guessed it -- in Virginia. Addressing Senator Warner.
Far be it from me to give advice to the president's supporters, but maybe they ought to stop holding their ears and refusing to listen to the troops. Maybe Senator Warner and the rest of them should start taking troops at their word, and pressuring the president to fix the problem.