PALIN SAYS:
(CNN) — Sarah Palin said Friday several of Barack Obama's comments about the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been "reckless" and disqualify the Illinois senator for consideration as the next commander-in-chief.
The comments are among the Alaska governor's most pointed to date regarding the Democratic presidential candidate's readiness to serve and come one day after she aggressively jousted with Democratic VP nominee Joe Biden.
"Some of his comments that he has made about the war…I think, in my world, disqualifies someone from consideration as the next commander-in-chief," Palin told Fox News Friday. "Some of the comments he's made about Afghanistan, what we are doing there, supposedly just air-raiding villages and killing civilians — that's reckless."
Palin was referring to an answer Barack Obama gave at a August 2007 town hall meeting with New Hampshire voters, during which the Illinois senator was asked whether he had plans to shift U.S. troops out of Iraq to other terrorist hotspots like Afghanistan.
"We've got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we're not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians, which is causing enormous pressure over there," Obama said of the U.S.'s mission in Afghanistan.
Those comments were immediately seized by GOP critics. The Republican National Committee sent out a press release shortly after calling them "offensive," and demanding he apologize. The McCain campaign has also highlighted the comments several times this campaign season.
AP FACT CHECKER SAYS:
(AP) A check of the facts shows that Western forces have been killing civilians at a faster rate than the insurgents have been killing civilians.
The U.S. and NATO say they don't have civilian casualty figures, but The Associated Press has been keeping count based on figures from Afghan and international officials. Tracking civilian deaths is a difficult task because they often occur in remote and dangerous areas that are difficult to reach and verify.
As of Aug. 1, the AP count shows that while militants killed 231 civilians in attacks in 2007, Western forces killed 286. Another 20 were killed in crossfire that can't be attributed to one party.
No doubt Obama's comments do little to boost morale among the troops. And surely they paint the US in a rather negative light-but let's face, you invade two countries in two years and either directly or indirectly cause the deaths of dozens of thousands of civilians, you are going to get bad press.
No, the bigger issue I have is that according to Palin and some other GOP stalwarts and assinine commentators, telling the truth is a "disqualification" for the presidency. God forbid that a candidate would say: "We f*%&ed up and need to change strategy to fewer innocent people die." The facts are the US is killing more civilians in Afghanistan than Taliban insurgents. Is it somehow better to ignore that figure? Or to claim it just isn't true? Or is it better to admit error and try to change for the better? Man, the GOP sure likes to throw around that personal responsibility stuff when it comes to Wall Street and banking, but hates to apply the same standard to the US military.
Sources:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/03/palin-says-obama-comments-disqualify-him-for-the-presidency/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/14/AR2007081400950.html
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