socio-politics

Links to the op-eds:

Obama’s Piece

McCain’s Piece

why Shipley would not publish McCain’s piece:

Shipley’s response

When I first read the two pieces and NYT opinion editor David Shipley’s reason for not publishing McCain’s op-ed, it just seemed to me like a couple children were bullying and teaming up against the old guy that still thought he could hang out with the kids without anybody finding it weird……then i read each thing a couple more times. Now I still think that Shipley and Obama are kind of smug bastards, but the kind that I can agree with, while McCain is still old and weird.

It just seemed very shady to me that the NYT editor refused McCain’s piece but approved Obama’s, and while it still does seem that way to me (for obvious reasons), McCain’s piece kind of is just crap. He does not say anything new, just the same old anti-liberal, pro WINNING rants. He never gets into implications of the United States initiating a war that most people (in the world…….) agree that they should not have initiated, and then just being concerned about winning, though having winning purely be what’s best for the United States. The thing is, Iraq was at least stable under Hussein, which is a bizarre thing to say, but it is true, not to mention that Hussein was our ally again Iran. So, we got involved in a war that we can admit we should not have, but instead of stopping, we just try and get back to the situation that we had before the US screwed things up.

Oh, and not to mention that $5000 per second that is being spent, and the 4000+ American casualties, and the 1,000,000+ Iraqi casualties.

And after McCain was rejected, he refused to resubmit the piece. A spokesperson for McCain said that McCain’s stance on Iraq “will not change based on politics or the demands of the New York Times,” which brings up a few more questions, namely, HOW DOES ASKING FOR CLARIFICATION MEAN ASKING FOR A CHANGE IN POLICY? That alone exemplifies McCain’s inability to justify himself.

On the other hand, Obama did lay out some new groundwork for what to do in Iraq. Given the recent comments by Iraqi officials, his approach just seems to make much more sense, if not purely for the reasonable withdrawal facets. He also speaks of things like Afghanistan and Pakistan, which McCain conveniently ignored. And there is the interesting aspect of piece actually involving a PLAN…..other than just repeating how badly Americans love to win.

This is a war that has been going on for far too long, and people really need to consider what winning means to them, especially when it involves life and death. I do not understand how McCain just redundantly speaks of winning, without speaking of the repercussions of the United States “winning” a war that they never should have began in the first place……not to mention that a United States, Britain, Australia, Italy, etc. partnership sure as hell better be able to win against Iraq. I hope that after we win, McCain has a long, satisfying patting of his own back.

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