McCain’s Swiftboat Surrogate: Muslims… ‘are going to kill us’
18 July 2008 12:00 pm by Taylor Marsh
BY TAYLOR MARSH
Republicans release a docu-drama on Obama. It dissects and delineates with lots of dates, but does it score?
Meanwhile, one of McCain’s swiftboater pals gets freaky on fear.
One of John McCain’s fellow POW’s in Vietnam defended the war in Iraq, saying, “The Muslims have said either we kneel or they’re going to kill us.”
In a phone call with reporters arranged by the McCain campaign, Colonel Bud Day added: “I don’t intend to kneel and I don’t advocate to anybody that we kneel, and John doesn’t advocate to anybody that we kneel.”
Whose kneeling? This is getting creepy way too quickly.
Try reality. NewsHour’s Gwen Ifill interviews Obama, talking about the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan and more.
OBAMA: … The problem has always been a broader strategic question, and that is, was it wise for us to go in there in the first place? And once we were in there, you know, was it wise for us to continue a long-term occupation in Iraq? That remains the question.
So John McCain wants to argue about tactics. You know, have we seen a reduction in violence in Iraq? Absolutely. And that’s a testament to the extraordinary work of our U.S. military.
Can we sustain spending $10 billion a month, putting enormous strains on military families, at a time when the central front on terror, Afghanistan and the hills in northwest Pakistan, are deteriorating, and we are seeing brazen attacks against U.S. military bases in the region by al-Qaida operatives?
And what I have said continuously is that, in light of the problems that we’re having in Afghanistan, in light of other security threats that we have out there, nonproliferation issues, Iran, what we’re doing with respect to China, what we’re doing with respect to North Korea, it is important for us not to be single-minded about Iraq.
And it is time for us to begin a phased redeployment and have a timetable attached to that, something that the American people and the Iraqi government have said that they are prepared to see.
