The Mercenary’s Cookbook

Do we all remember the outrage over Obama’s insistence that if he had the location of Osama Bin Laden, he would take him out, even if Bin Laden was is on the Pakistan side of the border? Such an action was said to be irresponsible and demonstrate Obama’s naivite regarding foreign policy. Turns out, the Bush Administration has attacked our ally a time or two.

Now, we have word that Bush is setting up a diplomatic mission in Iran, and considering speeding up the drawdown of troops in Iraq. It seems like only yesterday we were hearing about how talking with Iran would be the equivelant of capitulation.

Then this week, we have McCain taking up Obama’s position on troop strength in Afghanistan:

Then just yesterday, we have the ultimate in oddness: McCain’s foreign policy advisor claims it’s not McCain but Obama who is the most like Bush regarding foreign policy.

So what’s going on here? Are Bush and McCain really going to adopt Obama’s foreign policy? And how does that jibe with making Obama out to be a lightweight?

What you are seeing is the result of an unavoidable political reality. The policy difference between the two could not be more clear regarding foreign policy: Obama believes in maintaining diplomatic contact with all countries, friend or foe, Bush and McCain do not. Obama thinks we’ve done everything we can in Iraq militarily, and that our troops should come home and deployed eslewhere, like Afghanistan. McCain and Bush think we should stay until the job is done.  The polling shows that Americans are overwhelmingly on Obama’s side of this.

But this doesn’t mean Bush and McCain have flip-flopped. Bush has floated the idea of drawing down troops before every major election, and it’s always set to begin after the vote is cast. It didn’t take long after the last midterm election for the promised withdrawal to become a “Surge”. What McCain and Bush are doing is muddying the issue because they know Bush’s handling of Iraq is wildly unpopular, and that the Republicans can not maintain control of the White House if they openly campaign for continuing the occupation as they are now.

This is why those who support a continued occupation of Iraq support John McCain, and those who want to leave support Obama. Even though Obama is making the same noises about basing any decision on the reality on the ground, people know he’s committed to leaving. Supporters of McCain know that no matter what McCain says, if he’s elected the troops will remain. So proponents of both those positions are willing to fuzzy the issue by making leaving “contingent” on the Generals, or predicting, yet again, that things will be stable enough in Iraq to leave.

But make no mistake about it. If you believe in staying in Iraq, you should vote for John McCain. And if you think it’s time to leave, you should vote for Barrack Obama.

We are all probably familiar with the government policy of not allowing photography of the caskets returning from Iraq. Regardless of how one feels about that, this story struck me as a bit ridiculous.

Gina Gray was the director of public affairs at Arlington National Cemetery. I say was because she was fired. The cause of the firing is what is so disturbing. Apparently cemetery officials were installing new restrictions on the coverage of funerals of those who died in Iraq.

Here’s the thing, though: the family granted permission to have the funeral filmed. Gina Gray honored the family’s wishes, which is why she got fired:

Six weeks after The Washington Post reported her efforts to restore media coverage of funerals, Gray was demoted. Twelve days ago, the Army fired her.

“Had I not put my foot down, had I just gone along with it and not said regulations were being violated, I’m sure I’d still be there,” said the jobless Gray, who, over lunch yesterday in Crystal City, recounted what she is certain is her retaliatory dismissal. “It’s about doing the right thing.”

She is apparently the fourth director in the past four years. But there’s more:

Gray contends that Higginbotham [the cemetery's deputy superintendent] has been calling the families of the dead to encourage them not to allow media coverage at the funerals — a charge confirmed by a high-ranking official at Arlington, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Gray says Higginbotham told staff members that he called the family of the next soldier scheduled for burial at Arlington and that the family, which had originally approved coverage, had changed its mind. Gray charges that Higginbotham admitted he had been making such calls to families for a year and said that the families “appreciated him keeping the media out.”

But here’s the kicker. When she got her termination e-mail from her supervisor, Phyllis White, it said she ”failed to act in an inappropriate manner.” 

Sure, we aren’t seeing the Iraq War on the news so much these days, but politicians are looking for every possible opportunity to wrap themselves in your uniforms, and use your bravery to make any policy of their’s beyond criticism, because to criticize them is to criticize you brave soldiers, who have given so much so that they can pass their farm subsidies for ethanol to decrease our reliance on foreign oil. To be against corn is to spit in the face of all you fight for, the blood you’ve shed, the comrades you’ve lost. Can you look them in the eye and say their friends died for nothing and vote against corn? 

It’s not coming. It’s been here since the first boots hit Afghanistan. You’re sacrifices have been used for six years to ensure the attachment of endless riders and pork barrel projects, keeping the world safe for research into the potential of pig farts to ween us from the petrol of the Middle East. What un-American would say this is a war for oil? Just listen to the pols, and you know it’s a war for a new feeder road to I-10 in case the terrorists bomb the Port of Houston. They’ve wrapped themselves in your uniforms they never wore for you, dear friends. This multi-million dollar defense contract for a liscensed masseuse was for you. What patriotic American could deny you their millions?

Now, the Presidential campaign is under way, and it’s all about you. The Obama campaign wants to make the case that we ought to have a good reason to leave you in harms way, and that you have done your jobs, and it’s time for you to come home because it’s now up to the politicians to make it work. McCain wants to make the case that having been in war, we will finally win this thing some time after his re-election so you can come home victors. Then maintain a military presence, they way we keep you in Korea.

Yes, everyone knows you want what they want, and that for your sakes, we should stop denying you and give it to them.

Turns out, what you want isn’t nearly as clear cut as they would make it. Some recent surveys show the steady trend toward the Republican Party among military families since Vietnam may be reversing course:

 

A Los Angeles Times survey of 1,467 people, including 631 soldiers, veterans and their families, in late 2007 found that 57 percent of military respondents believed the Iraq war was not worth fighting — nearly the same as the overall population (60 percent).

Asked which party they trusted most to handle important issues, the military families chose Democrats over Republicans 39-35 percent, compared to a 39-31 percent ratio among the general population.

In its annual reader surveys, the Military Times specialist news group found Bush’s approval rate among the military had plummeted from 60 percent in 2005 to just 48 percent in 2007.

No doubt Obama will use this to claim you want to leave. And some of you do.  No doubt, this won’t keep McCain from claiming that as a former POW, he is you, and therefore what he wants is what you want. And some of you do. Truth is, you’re pretty evenly split right now. 

That won’t keep them from making you out to be some monolithic voice. Take a look at the dustup over the weekend about Clark’s criticisms of McCain’s foreign policy experience:

Clark says that being a POW, no matter how honorable, doesn’t make his foreign policy any less stupid. For McCain’s part, he said he had been Swiftboated, which, if you’re a Democrat, suggests Clark was lying about McCain’s service, or if you’re a Republican, that Clark was exposing McCain for the fraud he was. Or is that now vice-versa? The point is, as two men who served, they are you, and therefore can’t criticize each other without criticizing you, and to disagree with either one of them is to disagree with yourself. And I’m not talking the fake soldiers like Kerry – or McCain, depending on which one you feel was or wasn’t Swiftboated — but the real, honest to God heroes like Kerry. Or McCain. Depending. Because lord knows it can’t be both. Right? 

The fact is, no one speaks for what you want  but (drum roll….) — YOU.  As the polls show, you, like the rest of the country, come from all walks of life and political persuasions (ultra-liberal blogger Kos served during the first Gulf War), and like the rest of the country, you prefer one candidate or the other. Some of you believe in ethanol. Some don’t. Some think we should stay. Some don’t. And everyone who hasn’t been there wants to find you, provided you agree with them, so they can trot you out to bolster them. Better we all just deal with the fact that you don’t always agree with you, and for every one of you, there’s another you, except ten-times-braver and more bad-ass than you, who thinks you’re full of shit. Yet they’re out there serving their country for you anyway. Aren’t you lucky?