Lance
Sam James
Josh Adams
fooser
jslef
Terry Woods
Ryan
davenate
Mike O
Brian McConnell
bleport
halldg
Reading on Walden Bookstore
Tyler D.
Hugo
Jon
goesdownbitter
jack3566Obama needs the remedial Commander-in-Chief Class
Note from Editor (2:39 PM): It appears this story actually is true according to Jake Tapper at ABC’s The Political Punch. We apologize to our readers and to Senator Obama for any inconvenience. Original story is still below.
Note from Author (3:30 PM): As for the Messiah’s essential claim that “they were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief,” that’s a little more nuanced:
“The purpose of going after the Taliban was not to get their weapons,” he said, but on occasion they used Taliban weapons. Sometimes AK-47s, and they also mounted a Soviet-model DShK (or “Dishka”) on one of their humvees INSTEAD OF their 50 cal.
And here’s the AP article showing the level of exaggeration. The ‘captain’ exists, the story is substantially different. It is only true in the “Clintonian” sense. Original story is still below.
This is just amazing. When I watched it the first time, I couldn’t believe the word’s falling out of Barack’s mouth.
Where to start:
-
Captains lead companies, not platoons
-
Platoons are never split up
-
According to this guy, the 10th’s deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan were a year apart
-
Scrounging for weapons due to some sort of supposed supply shortage is being laughed at by everyone who has been in theater.
Any this guy wants to be Commander-in-Chief?? Didn’t we reject a guy last time with a tendency to make up stories about the military (who at least served in it)?
And it is an indication of the type of people involved in Democrat debates- whether as participant, moderator, or audience- that this went right by them without so much as an eyeblink of challenge.
Filed under: Election 2008
How about these words coming out of the Commander-in-chief rather than diving into an expensive, illegal ,evil fiasco?
“But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history.
I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.”
In case you were not aware, this is what Obama said on October 26, 2003.
It would seem to me that Obama already had a good grasp of international affairs and the rational use of military force even then.
Yet Obama consistently votes for the war spending bills, gasdocpol. Obama’s anti-war stance is a fairy tale.
By the way, Mike, I don’t consider military service a qualifier for being the leader of the country. A good portion of our presidents were never in the military but did a good job.
Lance
We need to get out of Iraq more carefully than we got in. Bush/Cheney created a complex mess.
The war was a mistake. Only Obama can say that with a clear concience and credibility.
Hillary would need to put lipstick on that pig.
Neither do I, but I expect them not to spew fairy tales about the military either. Especially one giving a false impression to make his point when there are plenty of true impressions he could give (mainly the human exhaustion in the military) to make the same point. It clearly shows ignorance on details he is claiming to have a grasp of.
Obama voting for funding the troops in the field while opposing the action taken by the CinC in putting them there is a defensible position, though, Lance.
Details about military hierarchy and chronology of battles is less important for the Commander-in chief than having a grasp of international affairs and the political ramifications of military force. Obama was right on regarding these questions concerning the Iraq war.
True gasdocal; unfortunately, the question raised here has to do with truthfulness. Barack is going to have to produce said Captain to convince some that this was not made entirely of whole cloth. Otherwise, it doesn’t look just like a lie, but a badly done one; on the order of John Kerry’s ‘Cambodia seared in my mind’ whopper.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
Captain produced, by ABC News’s Jack Tapper.
I’m sure that won’t satisfy y’all, but the stories 100% true, and it’s your guys’ fault.
Nice President Bush
Consider that supporting war aid efforts doesn’t mean that the war itself is supported. To reject war aid effort once already there can be seen as slapping the face of our troops. Obama as a Senator can’t remove our troops, so his choice is between supporting them since they are already there or not supporting them. If he is President he will have a whole different decision to make.
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
Obama looks like General Patton compared to Bush.. And is clearly more mentally adept than Reagan ever was.
Don’t let the facts get in the way of the truth guys. Because the truth hurts. The story has been fact checked and Obama was right. The Captain in question was a Lieutenant at the time. I quote:
“Prior to deployment the Captain — then a Lieutenant — took command of a rifle platoon at Fort Drum. When he took command, the platoon had 39 members, but — in ones and twos — 15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.”
check out the link yourself. and pull your heads out of your asses:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
Don’t let the facts get in the way of the truth Rape-Public-Cans. Because the truth hurts. Now go on and swift boat this hero. The story has been fact checked and Obama was right. The Captain in question was a Lieutenant at the time. I quote:
“Prior to deployment the Captain — then a Lieutenant — took command of a rifle platoon at Fort Drum. When he took command, the platoon had 39 members, but — in ones and twos — 15 members of the platoon were re-assigned to other units. He knows of 10 of those 15 for sure who went to Iraq, and he suspects the other five did as well.”
check out the link yourself. and pull your heads out of your asses: You loser pukes are such a joke. It is cute how you play along as if you had a prayer of winning 08. See there is a price to pay when you support, enable, and excuse a dry drunk AWOL failure. GOP is DEAD.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
Acknowledgment of the ABC report has been added.
Can the Editor own his mistake? You were completely wrong about this story and you apparently don’t know as much about the armed services as you thought.
Be a man and admit you were wrong.
Dear Right-wingers,
Pwned!
Sincerely,
Jake Tapper
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
Wingnut Brigade Mowed Down At Obama Ridge
In last night’s debate, when Barack Obama floated that anecdote about US soldiers in Afghanistan who had an easier time getting the ammunition they needed from captured Taliban than through Army supply channels, I remember thinking — I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this story. Obama said he’d heard the story from an Army Captain describing his unit’s experience in-country.
Often in cases like this, even if the story is completely on the up-and-up, the pol will get some fairly inconsequential detail wrong. Or even if they get it all right, they get whacked around because some pundit who’s read a few John Keegan books decides it can’t possibly be true. And the rightwing blogs have apparently been going nuts over it since last night.
But Jake Tapper picked up the phone, asked the Obama campaign to put him in touch with the Captain, called the Captain in question, and the story checks in every detail
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/179742.php
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
I respect that you left up the original post; that’s something you’d never catch Drudge doing.
I would have hoped you’d be a little more explicitly contrite, but the acknowledgment is still worth something.
LOL. It’s true you clowns.
Apology accepted.
Check out the Freeper thread linked by Tapper. It’s not so much that the Dittoheads get things wrong — everyone’s wrong sometimes — it’s that they use any excuse to go nuclear and then fail to own those mistakes. To them, this is clear proof that “Barack Hussein Obama” is a moron, a traitor, a man unfit to lead, a “turd”, an “empty suit”, an “empty head”, “Ears”, an “Obamamessiah” with “cultish followers”, an experienced player of Candyland and Risk, a “God damned fool”, and so on. And when the story’s confirmed? Yawn. He’s still all of those things. Next.
Friends don’t let friends hang with Freepers.
check this out: http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/02/from-the-fact-3.html
Jake, note the updates above, especially the AP link. Sounds like Obama is plagarizing Clintonian ideas of ‘truth’.
*Yawn* Wow. This whole thing is overdone. So what? Obama was not perfect in details. The gist of his story, as he understood it from his sources, still makes the point he was trying to make.
To compare it to B. Clinton’s “truth” is kind of a stretch it seems.
It is fishy that the Obama campaign is not verifying the story. I think they will, but do not want to draw attention to the military officer.
Nothing more we can do until then but watch and wait.
The ammunition availablility in training- and only certain ammunition- was at issue. The captain says they should have had 4 uparmored Humvees; in 2003, there were very few uparmored Humvees, period. And those were going where the IEDs were.
I’m sure Barack would make a fine Quartermaster and keep a supply line 8,000 mile long running without a single hitch.
All that said, I accept the Captain have been produced, that there were some minor supply issues due to a two-front war (and the WWII Pacific vets are likely laughing at how minor this is) and that the story is NOT ‘made from whole cloth’. Just tailored to suit the political need.
Now, will this site also apologize to President Bush or Senator McCain as well?
Sure. If and when what we report or write is wrong or lacking in accuracy it would be helpful for us to acknowledge that.
Bill Clinton’s quote seems applicable here: “I like that about the Republicans; the evidence does not faze them, they are not bothered at all by the facts.”
Obama’s anecdote is true. Has that changed the headline of the post here? No, of course not. ‘Cause its a republican blog.
Mike,
Not unless something posted is found out to be untrue. Libel is a serious issue. We’ve had our run in with it before when something posted was stated as fact when it was not. If Obama’s camp is lying, we will make the most of it when the truth gets out, until then only speculations can be made.
Rob,
This blog is not oriented toward one political philosophy, we have several Obama supporters on this site, as well as people like myself who do not like the Republicans or the Democrats and take a different approach. The views are respective of the authors are their own.
And at what point did I flat call him a liar? I based my doubts off of what military people were saying (and linked to those statements). Definitively, a captain does not lead a platoon and they certainly didn’t have to fight the Taliban for weapons. The splitting of the platoon apparently did occur, long before they arrived in theater and was still within Army regs.
There was a valid point here of stretched troop strength and supply; Obama- out of ignorance and political hyperbole- stretched the story into something hard to recognize from the real issue.
BTW: Here’s an apology this place owes McCain, for example. Find the quote where John ever refered to a ‘100 year war’, which is so often mentioned on this site. A presence of troops, yes (ala Phillipines, Germany, Japan) but I challage the use of ‘100 year war’ as is constantly attributed to him. You know I have my own issues with McCain, but this is a pretty far stretch that ‘the editor’ has yet to acknowledge.
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
Thanks for correctly and prominently noting that the anecdote has been confirmed by its original source.
[...] Uncategorized Armchair Klauswitzes and snuff porn afficianadoes all over the right-wing blogsphere lost their collective wit last night after Obama laid this story on them: “You know, I’ve [...]
Barack Obama: 1
Right Wing Blab-o-sphere: 0
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
You ignorant, conservatard repukelikkers and keybored kommandos should just wake up and die right. The party sucked and the cops broke it up and are hauling you all off to jail.
Mike,
His actions speak for themselves, I have no doubt what he said, he really meant. His advisers are members of PNAC and he has the blessings of the Bush administration.
And I never said you called him a liar, but neither did John Slefinger on another article back in October (the Giuliani-Wired story). It’s just for libel issues.
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
BTW: Here’s an apology this place owes McCain, for example. Find the quote where John ever refered to a ‘100 year war’, which is so often mentioned on this site. A presence of troops, yes (ala Phillipines, Germany, Japan) but I challage the use of ‘100 year war’ as is constantly attributed to him. You know I have my own issues with McCain, but this is a pretty far stretch that ‘the editor’ has yet to acknowledge.
Will this help?
Mike, good job owning up, You earned the respect of this dirty commie lib.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFknKVjuyNk
Obama Winning is a Consequence of Bad Judgment
In the debate Barack Obama made a statement that might lend credence to Hillary’s new mantra about being ready to be Commander in Chief. Obama told a story that is rather nuanced. Yes it has elements of truth but some items are half truths desi…
Mike wrote:
Find the quote where John ever refered to a ‘100 year war’, which is so often mentioned on this site. A presence of troops, yes (ala Phillipines, Germany, Japan) but I challage the use of ‘100 year war’ as is constantly attributed to him.
Mike, let’s go back to the videotape! So someone in a town hall meeting asked McCain about Bush saying that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years, and he said: “Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.”
By Americans, he meant us — the ones the soldiers are protecting. It’s OK with him if soldiers are providing easy targets for insurgents, and it’s OK if that goes on for 100 years. McCain is fine with a hundred-year stretch of daily body counts in the desert. But you’re right, he didn’t use the word “war”. Somebody sure owes the senator an apology! Good for you, fighting for what matters!
The insurgency isn’t going away in the next couple of years, so the 100 year war is valid enough for me, not that being in other countries for 60 years is anything of an argument, Germany, the rest of Europe, and plenty of other places despise us for it. He also promised more war in another tape, saying there will be more post traumatic stress, more injuries, more everything.
Staying in those countries is like entitlements for foreigners. If an illegal immigrant comes here, conservatives don’t think we should pay for them. But we can pay for destroying and rebuilding everyone’s countries, and pay for protecting them by keeping our soldiers and bases there. Supporting that is supporting entitlements.
And it is an indication of the type of people involved in Democrat debates- whether as participant, moderator, or audience- that this went right by them without so much as an eyeblink of challenge.
What?
There are several inaccuracies that are discovered in the Republican debates that never get challenged… do you want a list? Don’t make it sound like the moderators, audience, etc let false statements pass on only the Democratic side - they both do it.
I don’t know how you guys lie when any debate watcher can call you on it… and by the way, John Weaver is NOT an anonymous source, and he was quoted in the McCain TIMES article… quit cherry picking sources to make your argument.
>Didn’t we reject a guy last time with a tendency to make up stories about the military?
It looks like you’re still siding with the discredited Swift Boat liars. This website is unbelievable… and you’re so blatant about it.
I guess you count on a lot of Fox News visitors… they’re the only ones who would believe any of this crap… ’cause they’ve heard these lies before.
“We apologize to our readers and to Senator Obama for any inconvenience. ”
I wonder: even though you turned out to be wrong, do you feel exactly the same way about Obama anyway? Did the facts turning out to be the opposite of what you assumed reverse your views, or were they the same no matter what the facts were?
[...] Multiple right wing bloggers, who believe they are experts on all things involving the military because they are true blue conservatives, have written all sort of reasons why this could not be true and that Obama is lying. There is one problem with their theories. Reality seems to have that old liberal bias yet once again. Jack Tapper fact checked the story: Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
“Mike, let’s go back to the videotape! So someone in a town hall meeting asked McCain about Bush saying that troops could stay in Iraq for 50 years, and he said: “Maybe 100. As long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed, it’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintain a presence in a very volatile part of the world where al Qaeda is training, recruiting, equipping and motivating people every single day.”
By Americans, he meant us — the ones the soldiers are protecting. It’s OK with him if soldiers are providing easy targets for insurgents, and it’s OK if that goes on for 100 years. McCain is fine with a hundred-year stretch of daily body counts in the desert. But you’re right, he didn’t use the word “war”. Somebody sure owes the senator an apology! Good for you, fighting for what matters!”
—————————-
Actually I find McCain’s quote to be even more strange. It’s basically illogical, or rather uses circular logic.
He states that Americans should be ok with a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years, provided that they aren’t being “harmed, wounded or killed”. But that’s kind of the problem isn’t it? No one minds that our troops have been in South Korea or Germany for the last 50-60 years precisely because they aren’t being attacked.
Well, they are being attacked and killed in Iraq which is why Americans want out. McCain is basically saying that we should continue to stay in Iraq until we reach the point where our soldiers aren’t being attacked and killed…..at which point we can then stay in Iraq for the next 50-100 years because then people wouldn’t mind….It makes no sense.
#
Platoons are never split up
. . .
#
Scrounging for weapons due to some sort of supposed
supply shortage is being laughed at by everyone who
has been in theater.
H’mm, my squad, the platoon weapons squad, was routinely
stripped from the platoon to serve with other companies,
even other battalions. It works that way, sometimes. The
idea that there is some hard and fast rule in the FM’s that
squads can’t be pulled from the platoon for any reason is,
well, downright un-military.
As to the ‘everyone is laughing at scrounging for weapons’ part, I’m in daily contact with a signals guy with the Rakkasans up around Diyala, and they may not be scrounging for weapons
today, but they are short on ammo and scrounging for parts
for everything else.
a signals
[...] (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) These bloggers called BS, because, you know, prior to last night’s debate there was no [...]
CNN’s ‘fact checker’ segment on this ended with:
“The unit was not split up and the soldiers did not have to ’scrounge’ for weapons.”
The key premise here is Obama’s assertion:
“they were actually capturing Taliban weapons, because it was easier to get Taliban weapons than it was for them to get properly equipped by our current commander in chief,”
That has been refuted by the Captain himself and CNN has corroborated that as a ‘Clintonian’.
[...] Sure enough, Tapper notes, rightwing bloggers jumped on the story doubting its veracity. Declaring the story impossible to verify, they drummed up the usual tsunami of horseshit from every corner of the web. While those on the right scream in protest about the anonymous sources from the NYT story on McCain, they prove that when it comes to smears, they practically invented the practice. Tapper had to be smirking as he assembled this smörgåsbord of links: Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
[...] Conservatives have weighed in on this story, many of them challenging its veracity (see HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.) [...]
Blackfive has been one of the top millblogs around for many years and anyone who doesn’t now of it hasn’t been keeping up with the people who actually fight this war. There are several posts and comments about all of this there, but probably the best is found here.
You might want to read a fair amount over there and find out what they think of Obama’s ‘concern’.
We need to get after the FCC to start fining the networks for only showing obama. They are the ones that trying to get him elected. Now for all of them to be so aggressive to get him elected, they have an agenda. People are like sheep, going to obama as though he is a cult leader.
He is like those nigerian con artists, he talks like a con and deceives and there is no substance behind it. He is going to spend us into the ground and possibly make us so vulnerable so that we are taken over by another country.
It was just stupid Carolyn Kennedy getting up there and saying that she was voting for him because her kids liked him and were inspired by him. Now the kids in colleges that are voting for him are still living at home with mom and dad and getting their bills paid for them. They are going to vote this guy in office and we will be the ones paying for thier choice. But the white kids will find out when they go to get a job after he re-instates affirmative action and all the jobs go to the blacks regardless if they are qualified or not.
You have Oprah promoting him saying”HE’S THE ONE” AND “IT’S OKAY TO VOTE FOR A BLACK MAN” instead of hillary. Well, thanks oprah for allowing us to do that. By the way wasn’t she the one who tells us to think for ourselves and now she is doing it for everyone? she also backed Bush, and campaigned for Arnold swartzanegger who by the way has bankrupt ca. and bush has done the same to america. Now, oprah is rich so she could care less, but the only time she comes to Ca. is when she wants to promote the person she wants in office. She has never done anything to help our economy. I told people after princess Diana died that I saw it on her face that she wanted people to love her the way they did Diana. Check back, she never started doing things until after Dianas death. She wants people to think of her like americas princess. Good luck with that.
I am mad, angry that the media is not legally giving everyone equal air time. I am angry the same people that voted Bush in office are voting Obama in too. The rest of us 49% has to pay for thier bad choices. I am mad that people are voting based on oprah telling them too.
Can’t you see people that he is all smoke and mirrors? He can’t do anything he says he will because there is no money. One guy told me “well he will end the war and then we will have tons of money” no we won’t. That is all borrowed money.
We have no weapons, no man power, no money. We have global warming, mad cow because the greedy dairy farmers feed other dead animals to their cows and consumers get mad cow. We have to think of China, and Korea who are real threats. Obama wants universal health care and computers in every home, where is the money coming from? He can’t do it. i am mad because people are acting stupid as though they have a drug in them and are not thinking.
Michelle obama has said that
The problem with suggesting he would not make a good Commander-in-Chief is that neither Hillary nor McCain would make good Commanders. McCain expressed his racist feelings toward Hispanics early in this campaign, and toward Asians in the previous campaign. While I can understand that his experiences in Asia might have promoted these attitudes;that is not the character of a good Commander-in-Chief.
Oh, I forgot my final point: Colin Powell. He would make a stupendous Commander. I believe he has the presence and tact to make a great Executive as well. If only he would run.
Hey, props for correcting a mistake. When Obama said that, it wasn’t something I wanted to believe either.
How well can our troops serve us if this is the way that we serve them?
* “Captains lead companies, not platoons”
A common mis-parsing of the sentence. Obama did not claim that captains lead platoons. He said he heard from “an Army captain who was the head of a rifle platoon”. It’s easy to misunderstand this. The man in question IS an Army captain who WAS the head of a rifle platoon.
* “Platoons are never split up”
He didn’t say the platoon was split up per se, but that it did not have its full numbers, and that the remaining numbers were sent elsewhere. Is that something that never, ever happens in the military?
* “Scrounging for weapons due to some sort of supposed supply shortage is being laughed at by everyone who has been in theater.”
No, it has been confirmed by some: http://www.intel-dump.com/posts/1203696668.shtml - I doubt Phil Carter just happened to stumble on the only two who could confirm this happening.
The ’scrounging for weapons’ charge was refuted by the Captain himself, as confirmed by CNN. This is what happens when one starts out with the ‘misstatement’ that you had spoken to a Captain, when it was your aide that actually got the story from the Captain and passed it on in a politically acceptable form..
Joe wrote: Actually I find McCain’s quote to be even more strange. It’s basically illogical, or rather uses circular logic.
He states that Americans should be ok with a troop presence in Iraq for 100 years, provided that they aren’t being “harmed, wounded or killed”. But that’s kind of the problem isn’t it? No one minds that our troops have been in South Korea or Germany for the last 50-60 years precisely because they aren’t being attacked.
Joe, you misunderstood his quote. He’s not talking about American soldiers. He’s saying that Americans on American soil aren’t being attacked. In other words, American soldiers in Iraq are preventing terrorist attacks over there, so he’s in favor of keeping them there for 100 years.
(typo: I meant “are preventing terrorist attacks over here“)
hey, how about fact checking all the lies that Bush Co. sold us to get us into Iraq? What a joke of an issue, and a sad attempt at an article. The basis of Obama’s story was true–that you can’t handle it is more of statement about you than anything. GOP is toast in 2008.
[...] at Thursday night’s debate has caused a firestorm in the right-wing blogosphere (here, here, here). The Weekly Standard has been particularly [...]
SkippyFlapJack wrote: Joe, you misunderstood his quote. He’s not talking about American soldiers. He’s saying that Americans on American soil aren’t being attacked. In other words, American soldiers in Iraq are preventing terrorist attacks over there, so he’s in favor of keeping them there for 100 years.
–
I don’t know about that Skippy. That’s not how I took it, and he also drew comparisons with Korea and Germany, so I don’t believe he was talking about Americans back home not being attacked.
But, supposing he did mean that, that’s an even more ridiculous claim in my book. Not to rehash the whole “There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded” argument but there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before we invaded, and the war has without a doubt hurt us in our fight against Islamic extremists.
But putting that aside for now, the idea that we are preventing terrorist attacks on American soil by remaining in Iraq is absurd. It sounds good, and people may feel good about the war by saying it, but it has no basis in reality, especially now that the Sunnis seem to have decided not to tolerate the Jihadists in their ranks anymore.