Sometimes Gaffes Speak The Truth
McCain has become the second presidential candidate in only a few weeks to use the word “wasted” to describe the lives lost in Iraq. Barack Obama made the same mistake. Obama quickly came to his aid. You can read the full story here.
From the Oxford American Dictionary:
waste |wÄ?st| |weÉŞst| |weÉŞst|
verb
1 [ trans. ] use or expend carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose
I wish that instead of immediately back-peddaling from using this term, someone would argue the fact that this is exactly what has happened. Careless is exactly what this war has been.
We came to Iraq with virtually no exit strategy and we thought that once we toppled Saddam, the Iraqis would immediately be on our side. We thought we would be greeted as liberators. Sure, there are a lot of them on our side, but we grossly underestimated the power of those who aren’t.
And the last phrase in that definition, “to no purpose.” I would venture to say that most Americans you talked to could not give you a confident answer if you were to ask them what the purpose of this war is. The original purpose was to find the WMDs. They have not been found. I have a feeling that at the end of this thing, like Vietnam, the purpose will be to get out without embarrassing ourselves too much.
We have severely underestimated the cost of this war, and because of that, we have wasted time, money, and yes, lives.
Iraq, McCain, Obama, war, 2008 election, politics, gaffe
March 2nd, 2007 at 5:35 pm
You sum it up quite nicely. As distasteful and difficult it is to swallow, until someone can provide a concrete, sound reason for each life lost (including those hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives lost) each death will represent a tremendous waste. The fundamental justification for the invasion -disregarding any revisionist, after-the-fact excuses - was to eliminate the WMD and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. We accomplished the 2nd goal in less than 4 weeks - a goal that on it’s face violates the UN Charter. The first, and clearly primary goal (the WMD) can never be accomplished since there were no active WMD programs and only a miniscule odd assortment of degraded, moth-balled WMD left over from pre-Gulf War days that the inspection teams didn’t find, and which probably lost any lethality long ago.
If you paid $100 in advance for a television repairman to come to your home and, on the morning he was to come out, the television fell to the floor and smashed into a thousand pieces, wouldn’t you say that the $100 was wasted? Of course you would. So if lives were expended, and are continuing to be expended to accomplish the impossible, then yes Mr. McCain, they are being wasted.
November 18th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Okay, I’ve been the writer for this blog for the last several months now, and somehow had missed this previous author’s post, and Lance’s follow-up comment. Bravo to both. Well said. No one will read this, but I felt the need to comment. Odd, commenting on my own blog …
November 18th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I just read both; yours (Doug) and Lance’s reply. Very, very well said!