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Obama Won’t Visit Iraq With McCain - Good |
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John McCain invited Barack Obama for a photo-op trip to Iraq together: (h/t Needlenose)
Over the weekend, Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of McCain’s top surrogates, laid the groundwork for McCain’s criticism in a television interview in which he noted Obama’s absence from Iraq and floated the idea that Obama and McCain should go together to be briefed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Asked whether he’d be willing to take such a trip, McCain told the AP: “Sure. It would be fine.”
“I go back every few months because things are changing in Iraq,” he said. McCain questioned whether Obama has ever been briefed by Petraeus. “I would also seize that opportunity to educate Senator Obama along the way.”
The Obama campaign quickly responded in the negative:
“John McCain’s proposal is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don’t need any more ‘Mission Accomplished’ banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge. The American people don’t want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer.”
Of course, Obama is right. This is nothing more than a cheap political stunt. But it’s worse than that. George Bush and John McCain love to take pictures with their Iraqi “friends” but those friends have a disturbing habit of turning up dead shortly thereafter:
The fact is, people are dying for these photo-ops. Being associated with the U.S. is bad enough in a country where every side seems to be against us. Being publicly photographed shaking the enemy’s hand is literally a death sentence.
Whatever the way forward is in Iraq, our politicians need to stop using Iraqi stooges for political gain. You don’t need to have been there to be taken seriously when talking about the war, and you certainly don’t need a picture of your with a scared looking sheik to be legitimate. So don’t go to Iraq! All you are doing is making your friends into targets.
Obama was right to deny McCain’s political stunt. These photo-ops kill people.
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