Today, VoteVets.org is debuting a new television ad that starts airing this week -- challenging John McCain to give America some straight talk, and tell us all the things that his plan for endless war in Iraq will make the American people sacrifice.
The ad features, for the first time, a female Iraq veteran and her small child. Rose Forrest served 12 months in Iraq, and gave birth to her little son, when she came home. In the ad, Rose challenges John McCain to tell the truth about what endless war means for her child, and all of our children. Senator McCain needs to give us some straight talk about how much endless war in Iraq is going to cost. We don't have an endless pot of money, or an endless supply of troops and equipment.
So what are Americans going to have to sacrifice if he has his way on Iraq? Health care? Decent jobs? Border security that all those National Guardsmen in Iraq could be performing? Rescue and cleanup after disasters like Katrina and tornados in Kansas and Tennessee? Are we going to have to sacrifice our chance to cripple Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan? We can't do it all, but John McCain seems to pretend that we can.
We're airing this ad in the hopes that Senator McCain finally gets honest with the American people. We're putting it out there so that the media and power-brokers start to ask the same questions. Endless war in Iraq means drastic sacrifices for Americans in their everyday lives, and in terms of our own security.
It's all about priorities, and on this question, the wheels are falling off the Straight Talk Express.
This is just the beginning. In the coming months, we'll be on an all-out offensive, to expose the strategies that hurt us here at home and abroad in our fight against al Qaeda. We're going to challenge our leaders to get our global strategy right. You can count on us leading the way, but we cannot do it without you. So please, view our ad and pass it along to all of your friends and family. Together, we can change America's course.
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the
comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the
comment you replied to
Good ad. As a vet I do not comment on other vets service record. Something the swiftboat liars should have done.
Maybe we could get all the campus republicans to join the army. Of course only those who are not fighting the culture wars.
War is sweet to those who have no experience of it. But the experienced man trembles exceedingly in his heart at its approach.
Greek poet Pindar, 518-438 BC
Half the Republican voters don't want government to do any of the things you say we can't afford, and the other half bought the Reagan voodoo economics that says we can have all the government spending we want, especially on military defense, without actually having to tax anybody. The neat part is that the crushing burden of paying off all this deficit won't land on the American people until many of those now touting these insane priorities are in the ground. In some ways, you can't blame McCain; no one ever got elected president of the United States by telling the voters truths they didn't want to hear. Neither Hillary nor Obama are laying out the whole truth either, and since I dearly want a Democrat in the White House, I beg them to keep it up. Someday we will have to face the consequences of these years, and I hope we can find it in ourselves to accept our own portion of the responsibility for the feckless policies of the executive and legislative branches of our government. If we voted for liars, it was in part because many of us begged our candidates to lie to us, to tell us what we wanted to hear and believe instead of the hard truths we needed to know.
The debt for war is in the hands of China,
Saudi Arabia and other countries. They are buying
the formally privately held banks and loan
companies with the cash they get through free
trade deals. Unfettered capitalism was adopted by
Reagan, but not fully instituted, until now by
Bush. If it continues, Americans can expect an
eventual police state to evolve. It's "shock
doctrine" economics straight from Milton
Friedman.
You are not a Veteran, who happened to agree with extreme left of Democratic Party
You are a memeber of extreme left who happened to be a Veteran.
You serve our country and for that you have mine and the entire country thanks. However, you keep shilling for Moveon.org and trade on your service by claiming to represent all vets. Be honest and state yor real goal - help Democrats even if it means attacking a war hero...
Why is John McCain a war hero? He was a legacy at the academy, too stupid to get in on his own, much like the current moron living in the White House. He finished 5th from the bottom of his class. He wrecked several USN aircraft, and in the end, got shot down. That doesnt make you a hero, that makes you stupid. The fact that he spent several years in a pow camp is laudable, but hardly makes him a hero, unless you mean "Hogans Hero." He is a coward that was against torture before he was for it. I guess he can be that way now that his own sons are out of harms way. No real man is ever for torture.
Bravo. Jon has already exposed himself as an extreme leftist. I met a few during my 26 years of active duty, but they were generally avoided by the majority of GI's as foul balls. Jon couches his posts as pro-GI, but in reality they are anti-GI, as the GI cannot be separated from the Military in which they serve, particularly as the Force is all-volunteer. Nor do they wish to be held separately.
I cannot get my computer to bring up the ad he wishes to get out. Don't know why, but it is probably more of the Left's drivel.
Semper fi
Why is the military having such difficulty
recruiting for this all voulnteer army, if so
many people agree with Bush, Chaney and McCain
policy? Why did so many American companies, oil
and others, get no-bid contracts for starting
companies immediately? Contractors such as
Hallibuton have since moved out, without finishing
projects, but getting their money. Why are those
coming home from Iraq not re-inlisting in record
numbers, if they also agree with policy?
Regardless of Jon's political leanings, as a veteran he has earned the right to state his opinions, without some gung-ho jarhead questioning his loyalty.
When you say Semper fi, is that fidelity to a commander in chief who dodged the draft before he led us into an illegal war and occupation based on lies?
Our military troops deserve better than what the GOP has forced upon them.
Your semper fi jibber-jabber is also called enabling.
Semper fi is to the Marine Corps and to America. Jon's half-truths are half true, no doubt, but what he leaves out are the other half, which are not true. Universal health care is not a Right, and is not something the government should be in. It's called Personal Responsibility. Get a job... get two jobs. Get rid of the luxuries. Buy the necessities, like health care, on your own. Don't ask me to pay for you or yours.
Semper fi
While I agree with what you wrote - I am not sure that Iraq is that big of a voting issue right now with Americans.
As the economy softens and housing continues to falter - and lets face it - with no draft only people who at this point volunteer will be stuck in Iraq, I am afraid that 2008 may find the Iraq issue being a voting issue but only among the top 5 or top 10 - not 1, 2 or 3 as it should be.
I hope that I am wrong and that Iraq does take center stage as it is a potent issue for the Democrats to run on.
what's too bad is that people don't seem to be equating the iraq war with the weak economy. surely pumping $10 billion into that shithole every month can't be helping.
mccain doesn't care what WE have to sacrifice. He'd gladly send us all to war to fight over and over. So, we don't need..... Health care? Decent jobs? Border security that all those National Guardsmen in Iraq could be performing? Rescue and cleanup after disasters like Katrina and tornados in Kansas and Tennessee? Are we going to have to sacrifice our chance to cripple Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
*fight them over there* mccain will have us all over there.
I agree. McCain is unbalanced and, in my opinion, is still fighting in Nam. He always talks about not "surrendering", We must "win"..Saying that his people surrounding him are all "honorable men." (They are all lobbyists). I don't think so and I hope he never, ever gets to park his rump in my White House.
I just became aware of a very important speech delivered today by the chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he argues that a sustainable political settlement in Iraq is essential to avoid complete failure in Afghanistan and to ensure that the moderate majority in Pakistan is capable of being a real ally against extremism.
I know y'all won't want to miss this - talk about connecting the dots...no one does it better!
To be fair, I'm not sure that Senator McCain is actually in favor of "endless war in Iraq", though his "plan" would, undoubtedly, result in the continuation of the war without an end in sight. And, I would have a question or two for him on this subject.
I would like to know what his strategy is for a political solution in Iraq and how he would go about implementing it. Of course, I am making a pretty big assumption that he actually HAS a viable political solution...or that he even knows that one actually exists already and that it has attracted support from all corners...just waiting for a dash of presidential leadership to be acted upon. Because, even if one agrees with him about the marvelous success story that "his" surge has been, the question would still remain, 'For what?!...What comes next?'
Of course, I could ask the same questions of Senators Clinton and Obama, too, and get much the same answers, I am sure.
Someone should do a lot more research on his military career especially about the disaster on the USS Forrestal in which a missile from McCains plane struck another plane which caused a fire which resulting in the loss of 130 lives. All most of us know is that he was in a prison camp after his plane crashed in enemy territory.
You mean he pressed the wrong button?
Wow!
Thats lots worse than pushing the wrong button in the State Legislature.
You don't think he could make that mistake with Atomic warheads if left to run loose in the White House do you?
You have it backwards. The missile came off an F-4 Phantom, bounced across the deck, and rammed through the belly tank on McCain's a/c. If the fuse had worked and the missile gone off, McCain could not have survived the explosion. Instead, he got out of his cockpit while the a/c and the deck were burning with fuel from his ruptured tank, and jumped off the front of his a/c to safety. He was lucky to survive, and getting the facts wrong about that episode don't help. He has lots more stuff that stinks--like the way he treated his wife when he came home. She had been injured in a car crash while he was in Vietnam and wasn't pretty any more, so divorced her for a rich, pretty trophy wife.
McCain is an angry old dwarf. There is no way he can express his hostility, hate, and rage other than in needless and endless wars. Vote for him at your peril--and the peril of your children and grandchildren.
Please, no more jokes and comments about his age!Try to remember that there are ton of voters who think of 70 as young, and we all actually vote.I admit, I was taken back when he answered a question about his choice of a running mate in November by saying, "Probably, my prostate gland." But that is no excuse for age jokes!
If McCain were to apply for any management job in any major corporation, he would not qualify based on his age.
For us to overlook the unfortunate effects of aging on the brain and the body just because McCain thinks he's Superman is dicey at best.
The last old fart we elected left office under the throes of severe Altzheimer's disease.
I love old people, but I don't want them handling my money or my life.
Hmm... I love when "open-minded" people turn out to be the most prejudicial... McCain is younger than Buffet and I'd let him handle my money anytime...
I'm 63, hoping to be as spry a 90 as McCain's mom or Don Pardo...
But I still laugh at the McCain age jokes.
Just like I laughed at the JFK youth jokes ("What do you want to be when you grow up?" "President of the United States." "No, I mean when you grow up.") until I learned my father and JFK were the same age--43, and of course my father was OLD.
And age is a factor anyway, because for every lucid 85-year-old, there is a 75-year-old Alzheimer's victim, and after one in the White House, lots of people don't want a second one.
Loading comments…
Posted February 25, 2008 | 11:17 AM (EST)