Wednesday, March 09, 2011

You Know It's a Bad Idea When...

...both John McCain and John Kerry agree on it.

With regards to creating a 'No-Fly Zone' over Libya:

a. Whenever I'm considering military options, the last people I usually ask for an opinion are; a guy who got himself shot down and spent the bulk of the war in a POW camp, and another one who got four draft deferments before volunteering for a service which was unlikely to see combat, then volunteering again for a branch with an extended training period that kept him out of the War for as long as possible, and then finally, once finding himself in combat, had himself followed around with a camera so that he would have some really neat footage with which to launch his political career. After he collected enough self-inflicted gunshot wounds to be sent home on a technicality.

Oh, and then I wouldn't want said loser to have tossed his ill-gotten medals away (the ones he wrote his own commendations for) and then call his comrades in arms 'baby killers' and 'war criminals'.

News to McCain and Kerry; you guys LOST your war. Let me get the opinion of someone who has actually won one, or at least had been on the winning side.

b. John Kerry ran for President on an anti-Iraq War platform, after, mind you, having voted for use of force against Saddam Hussein, after having decided that yes, there were indeed WMD's in Iraq, and with the cynical expectation that being on the record in favor of the Iraq War was a good career move...until it wasn't... because Hillary Clinton (another pro-War democrat back then) was making political hay out of opposition on the issue. She at least had the brains not to run in 2004.

And the sophisticated, nuanced Kerry lost to a man that his own party considered a mouth-breathing, warmongering, illiterate who couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a compass. How must that make you feel, John Boy?

c. Kerry has a history of voting in favor of wars/military action in which it is fairly certain that no one is likely to be shooting back at us: Kosovo, Bosnia, and now Libya. This is probably due to his own wartime experience of making sure he shot himself in order to be sent home, rather than taking a bullet from the enemy. Then again, when you're the scion of the New England Upper Crust and Country Club Set, if you're going to be shot you don't want it to be with that cheap stuff made in China; only the finest American ammunition will do the trick.

John Kerry may have been the first (and only) man in American military history to care enough about appearances to ensure that he shot himself in a manner, and with bullets, that met the highest standards for quality, class, bearing and breeding of the smart Martha'sVineyard Social Scene.

d. John McCain is probably senile. If you doubt this, just review his 2008 Presidential campaign. Anything he has to say, I should think, is suspect.

e. Who gives a fuck if Muslims are killing each other? It's what they do, anyway. Hell, it's what they do BEST. So far as I'm concerned, the more they kill amongst themselves means the fewer we'll have to kill later on. I'd love to see Khadaffi standing trial for the Pan Am 103 bombing, but if leaving him free for a few months longer means a few hundred thousand more dead inbred nomads, then I'm all for it.

It's bad enough that we're saddled with Barack The Indicisive; that's a handicap that no nation should ever have to endure, but much like John Kerry's, this is a self-inflicted wound. It gets even worse when aging Cold Warriors -- from opposite ends of the political spectrum, with different experiences of a war in which they were both defeated -- can both agree that committing even more Americans to combat is a great idea. Particularly when you look at the track records of the men in question.

Both men probably cry themselves to sleep at night because there is no more Soviet Union; McCain because he misses the heady days when the world was this-close to nuclear annhiliation, and Kerry because his cherished childhood idols (Stalin, Kruschev, et. al.) were proven to be so badly wrong about Socialism.

American Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen shouldn't be sent into battle as a public relations stunt. We've had enough of that in Afghanistan and Iraq. They should only be sent into battle to destroy the enemies of this country utterly and completely. Libya shouldn't be a 'No-Fly Zone'; it should be a 'No-one-left-alive Zone'. That's what you call 'Victory', something neither Kerryor McCain has any experience of. If we're not willing to do that, if we're not willing to WIN and leave a lot of bodies in our wake, then we shouldn't be sending anyone.

John McCain's only talent is for straddling fences and antagonizing conservatives, and Kerry's for marrying other men's wealthy widows. One lost an election to a man with absolutely no qualifications whatsoever, and the other lost his to a man who couldn't pronounce 'nuclear' properly, but at least had the moral clarity you'd expect to find in your smartest of parakeets.

Would you follow either into battle? I wouldn't follow either through my own front door. And over Libya? These are two of the people who helped to craft and shape the successful debacles in Iraq and Afghanistan. What makes you think they'll have any clue as to what to do in Tripoli?

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