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Obama was supposed to give a major speech on Iraq, I read a couple of days back. No doubt he’ll be disowning his previous positions, just like Grandma and his Reverend and Church.

I understand that Senator Obama was a Bill O’Reilly guest recently and gave his assessment of the recent troop surge in Iraq. The next time the senator is asked about his position concerning the surge, remind the questioner that the surge is about five years too late. Before the war began, the Army Chief of Staff (I know his name but cannot spell it) at that time advised Bush that some 200,000 plus troops would be needed to successfully prosecute the Iragi war. After publically excoriating the general, Rumsfeld ignored the general’s advice, and forced him to retire. History has shown that the general was right on the mark. The point is that the additional troops have made a difference now and would have made a significant difference then. Because of Bush’s and Rumsfeld’s cockiness and arrogance, many young (and old) lives (American (military and civilian), Iraqi (military and civilian), et al, have been needlessly lost. And the number of other casualties must be astronomical. This war has been and still is a tragedy and blunder of colossal proportions. It doesn’t matter whether casualities are down as a result of the surge, the fact remains that because the war should not have happened in the first place, any amount of casualties is still far too many and we should “Get Out Now.” The surge proves that if Bush had deployed the right number of troops initially, many deceased troops would still be alive today, and casualties on all sides would have been far fewer. So any way you slice it, there is always an angle that one can use to criticize this illegal war. Bush will always be on the hook for sending too few, ill-equipped troops (at least initially) to fight the insurgent war in Iraq. Those “nutty,” so-called conservatives such as O’Reilly, et al, (McCain, Limbaugh, etc.) who agree with Bush (no matter how wrong he may be) should not be allowed to forget these little facts. The ever-present “smerk” on Bush’s face make it seem like it pleasures him to send those young people in harms wa. The military should never be used in the casual manner in which it appears to have been used in Iraq. (After all, it is made up of living, breathing human beings). The military should only be used as a last resort, and only after every other instrument of the government has been used. Even then, it should only be used to defend the country, not to fulfill some fantasy of cocky and arrogant national leaders. Across the board, our national leaders have demonstrated incredible ineptness and gross dereliction of duty in dealing with Iraq. The constitution tasks the president to be the commander-in-chief of the armed forces. It logically follows then that if one demonstrates that he or she is unfit or unwilling to properly carry out this crucial constitutional responsibility, in my opinion, then he or she is unfit to be president. I have concluded that anyone who continues to support Bush in his unwarranted adventurism in Iraq should never be elected president, especially McCain. I believe that individuals such as McCain, Cheney, Lindsay Graham, Gulianni, Liebermann who are staunch Bush and war supporters have nothing to boast about or to be proud of concerning Iraq. Instead, the whole lot of them ought to hang their heads in shame! All the best to Senator Barack in his bid to become president; HE HAS MY VOTE!