Some Can Call Iraq Deaths a Waste, Some Can’t

Democrat potential presidential candidate from Illinois Senator Barack Obama apologized for saying American lives had been wasted in Iraq. But it’s true. American lives have been wasted. For Obama to use that word does not diminish the courage and sacrifice of the people who have been killed in Iraq. However, Obama apologized anyway, just in case any military families felt he was diminishing our soldiers’ courage and sacrifice. He said that right after he’d made the statement he realized he had “misspoken”. But he hadn’t misspoken. He had uttered a statement of fact. It was embarrassingly politically correct for Obama to apologize. I wish he had not said he’d used the word "wasted" inappropriately. When Barack Obama said our soldiers lives had been wasted, it was an entirely appropriate word for him to use. Anyone putting a negative spin on Obama’s word usage is a person who is looking to find fault with Obama. Obama has never supported the war in Iraq. He can call soldiers lives wasted if he wants to. They have been wasted. However, potential Republican presidential candidate Senator (R-AZ) John McCain should not have used the word “wasted” when referring to American lives lost in Iraq, McCain said "Americans are very frustrated, and they have every right to be. We've wasted a lot of our most precious treasure, which is American lives.” That was a terrible gaffe. McCain is a neocon. He has always supported the war in Iraq; he has always said president Bush was right to attack Iraq. McCain intends to run his campaign for Republican nominee for president on the premise that the US must stay in Iraq as long as it takes to be victorious. He is fighting tooth and nail for more American soldiers to go to Iraq and be killed. John McCain and his fellow neocons in the Bush administration are the reason US soldiers are being killed in Iraq. Only when McCain’s poll numbers started to drop, did he suddenly express the belief that the lives of American soldiers in Iraq were wasted. Words have power. And some people can rightly use certain words and some people cannot. However, in these days of everyone striving for politically correct rhetoric, a person can be forgiven for fondly looking back at the days when President Harry S. Truman published the following letter on December 6, 1950 in the Washington Post to Music critic Paul Hume. Hume had given a bad review to Truman’s daughter’s singing concert. (Incidentally, Hume was 34 years old at the time, and Truman had publicly called columnist Westbrook Pegler “a rat”.) “Mr Hume: I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay. It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry. H.S.T.” Ah, the good old days.