Vets for Freedom, a Republican front group funded by the Republican Jewish Coalition and Freedom's Watch, launched a political action committee, the Vets for Freedom PAC (VFFPAC), on May 16, 2008.
A week later, on May 23, 2008, VFFPAC released a political ad entitled "Senator Obama: Talk to Commanders or Meet with Dictators?".
Although the stated mission of the VFFPAC is "to help candidates—mostly combat veterans—who believe in achieving success in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the overall War on Terrorism, get elected to the United States Congress and other Federal positions," the PAC's ad is absent any such message. It is clearly an attack ad on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
The video itself features SGT (Ret.) Garrett Anderson of the Illinois National Guard, who served in Iraq in 2005 and states that, in April 2008, he and twelve other combat veterans traveled to meet with Sen. Obama, who was not available to see them. SGT Anderson also says that Sen. Obama has never once sat down and talked one-on-one with Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. Commander in Iraq, but has stated that he would be willing to meet without precondition the leaders of terrorist countries like Iran.
SGT Anderson also points out that Sen. Obama has not been to Iraq for over two and one half years.
To be more precise, not only has Sen. Obama not been to Iraq since January 2006, when he was part of a Congressional delegation (CODEL) led by Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) which also included Sen. Christopher Bond (R.-Mo.) and Rep. Harold Ford (D.-Tenn.), but he was actually only in Iraq for a mere two days.
Sen. Obama spent the two days in Iraq before separating from the delegation to "spend eight days in Israel, Kuwait, Jordan and the Palestinian territories." The rest of the delegation later went to Afghanistan and Pakistan without Obama.
Update CNN reported May 25, 2008: (h/t pm)
Obama, speaking to reporters on his campaign plane late Saturday, [May 24, 2008,] also took on Sen. John McCain's suggestion that Obama's lack of military service makes him unqualified to criticize him on veterans issues.
"I will cede to no one the ability to talk about veterans issues," Obama said. "My grandfather was a veteran.
3 comments:
Obamas' prime constituents, the Black voter have been avoiding military service for years. Their enlistment numbers are in great decline.
See the Story:...
Army Recruitment Goals Endangered as Percent of African American Enlistees Declines
by David R. Segal and Mady Wechsler Segal
SOURCE: http://www.prb.org/Articles/2005/ArmyRecruitmentGoalsEndangeredasPercentofAfricanAmericanEnlisteesDeclines.aspx?p=1
(November 2005) Since virtually the beginning of the all-volunteer U.S. military in 1973, African Americans have enlisted for service in the armed forces at much higher levels than their percentage of the total U.S. population. After reaching a high of 28 percent in 1979, black enlistment levels hovered around 20 percent until 2000.
But the past five years have seen a drop in overall African American enlistment levels that has reduced black participation in the armed forces to percentages not seen since 1973. Black enlistment rates in the Army (see Figure 1) and the Marines have declined precipitously since 2000. These trends may spell trouble for the Army, which has depended on blacks to meet its recruiting goals and reenlistment targets.
...the decline in African American military enlistments during the first five years of the 21st century has been striking. Their enlistments have declined from 20 percent in 2000 to about 15 percent today—the level African Americans were enlisting in the military in the first year of the volunteer force, and a low for the all-volunteer era. This trend has been particularly true for the Army, where NPS African American enlistments have dropped from 23.5 percent in 2000 to 14 percent, exactly the proportion of the American population that is black.
... Go to the URL or search keywords "black enlistment"
My son wanted to enlist and I had to tell him to wait to see who was going to be Commander and Cheif. Since he was a child he wanted to join but if Obama is going to be his boss he decided to hold off at least until November.
Wise of him to wait. He could be enlisting for the African Campaign in Kenya.
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