McGovern's Words of Wisdom

Bring Our Troops Home from Mideast This Year

President Barack Obama holds my admiration with high hopes for his message of change in Washington, D.C. It is puzzling, however, that he has adopted most of the previous administration's formula for dragging out the withdrawal of our troops from the mistaken war in Iraq for nearly three more years. Very little "change" here.
Three years ago, public opinion polls indicated that a majority of Americans believed our policymakers were wrong in ordering troops into Iraq. It is widely accepted that this sentiment more than any other factor in the 2006 congressional elections resulted in Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate.
Are we now going to ignore for another three years the public mandate of 2006 against this costly, pre-emptive war based on deceit? And how can we justify putting thousands more U.S. troops into Afghanistan? We have exhausted our treasury. We are also close to exhausting our soldiers.
Can there be any doubt that the enormous war cost has contributed to the financial crisis here at home? The expense of waging two Middle East wars, plus the loss of revenue caused by the previous administration's tax cuts, have skyrocketed the national debt to a record high. Do we ever consider what the interest alone is on our $10 trillion national debt -- much of it paid to China?
Frankly, we cannot afford a two-war commitment year after year if we want to balance the federal budget and restore our economy. The huge bonuses that directors of failing corporations have awarded themselves and their chief executives have rightfully angered people, but those figures are peanuts compared with the $12 billion a month we have poured into Iraq and Afghanistan over the last six years.

...I urge President Obama to bring our troops home from the Middle East this year. A good target date for completing an orderly withdrawal from two ill-conceived and costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would be Thanksgiving 2009.
For our sake and God's sake, let's get out of there and begin healing our own bankrupted land.

Makes absolute sense to me. Why not to OBushama?