Victory over whom?
Sarah Palin’s convention proclamation that military “Victory in Iraq is within sight,” was highlighted in a subheadline by the BDN (Sept. 4) as a statement of apparent accepted validity, when it is in fact a meaningless slogan of the McCain campaign. Over whom will this “victory” be?
The United States invaded Iraq, a sovereign country, and declared war against no one. Indeed, the 65-month destruction of Iraq has been no war. It has been an illegal, brutal occupation that has displaced millions of Iraqis, killed and wounded tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, killed 4,400 American military personnel and wounded 20,000 more. It has decimated Iraq’s infrastructure and is on a fast track to bankrupting this country fiscally and morally.
Who is the enemy that will soon surrender? What is its nationality? The faceless, disconnected global terrorists are the clear winners of our occupation and our continued destructive policy of trying to inflict our will on the world with military might.
There can be no victory over our self-inflicted wounds; there only can be healing of the injuries and prevention of the cause.
Paul Newlin
Deer Isle
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Faulty intelligence
Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran. There you have it: the McCain foreign policy. This seems appropriate after the shock and awe bloodbath of the Bush years. Add to that the insatiable greed and unquenchable lust for power and a deep and abiding cowardice, and you have the sum of the last eight years of Republican ineptitude.
I hope this diatribe has been arousing. Bush and Cheney are poster children for schoolyard bullies. Signing statements (nearly 1,000), the willful disregarding of the Constitution, the undue secrecy regarding agreements with Big Oil that have nearly driven us all to bankruptcy are examples. They and their ilk have shaken our sense of self and hopes for any sort of future.
The murderous assault on our Constitution has been rubber stamped by a sycophantic Congress. Why do the laws we all must obey not govern the president? Why is it OK for the U.S. to tell sovereign nations such as Russia or Iran what they can or cannot do?
Sens. Snowe and Collins were sent to Washington to protect our Constitution and represent us, not to make life easy for a lazy frat boy.
Neither Bush nor McCain could get into the University of Maine. Their grades weren’t good enough. They got into college by the legacy route. I’d like to have a smart president.
James I. Scroggy
Blue Hill
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Beyond St. Paul
Let’s hear it for Sara Palin and John McCain. The media got taken again. But let’s not forget the following:
Facts: The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan go on and on. Iraq alone still costs taxpayers $12 billion every month; 55 young Mainers have died in these wars; and the U.S. is paying up to 100,000 Iraqi men $300 per month to join the Iraqi national guard.
Fact: More than 40 million Americans go without health insurance.
Fact: Fuel prices for Mainers are approaching $5 a gallon while oil companies continue record profits and tax breaks from a Republican administration.
Fact: Inflation is nearing 6 percent per year and Mainers are having trouble keeping up.
A McCain-Palin administration would be the equivalent of a third term for George W. Bush with more tax cuts for the rich. It is time for change. This is one Mainer who will be voting for Obama in November.
Dick Hoyt
Lubec
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Gender perspective
Maybe women look for different things in men. Cindy McCain’s parents started a business from the ground and did well. This used to be part of the American Dream. Her father believed that a woman, his daughter, was capable to play an integral part in his business.
John McCain was comfortable enough with his manhood to marry a woman who was accomplished and self-sufficient. Now she is called a “trophy” wife because she is attractive and McCain accused of marrying for money because she is successful.
Fast forward a couple of generations and you see the Palins. By every indication he is a man’s man kind of guy. I can’t imagine that he married his high school sweetheart with any thought about careers and the like. She gets involved in politics and he readjusts his work schedule to accommodate. She even has a baby later in life and he steps up, realizing that the child is also his child and responsibility. I remember when we wanted men to realize that and not call it baby-sitting.
Apparently the only way to be a friend of women is to help them destroy life that is developing inside of them. Dare we forget that this same husband has no legal rights to stop her from destroying this child, just the legal right to support it, if she should “choose” to carry it to term. I guess I just don’t get it, because both John McCain and Todd Palin look like pretty good deals to me.
Susan Davis
Stetson