Obama Can’t Afford Military Mistakes

Throughout the Democratic Primary Senator Hillary Clinton has questioned Senator Barack Obama’s readiness to assume the role of Commander in Chief. Now, two recent occurrences indicate just how unschooled Senator Obama is in the military arena.

First, there was this Clintonesque type “oops” during his Memorial Day visit to Las Cruces:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is taking fire from Republicans after erroneously saying during his town-hall meeting with veterans in Las Cruces that his uncle was among the American soldiers who liberated Auschwitz during World War II.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Russians, not the Americans.

Then just a few days later, Obama’s spokesman, Bill Burton had this to say:

“John McCain’s proposal [to visit Iraq] is nothing more than a political stunt, and we don’t need any more ‘Mission Accomplished’ banners or walks through Baghdad markets to know that Iraq’s leaders have not made the political progress that was the stated purpose of the surge. The American people don’t want any more false promises of progress, they deserve a real debate about a war that has overstretched our military, and cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars without making us safer.”

Say what????

Senator Obama is promising to pull the troops out of Iraq. Don’t you think as a potential future Commander in Chief, he ought to be willing to spend some post-surge time on the ground with our generals in Iraq? Or maybe Senator Obama is afraid he might learn something while visiting. Something like:

According to the Military Times poll, more than 60% of active-duty servicemen believe the US is either “somewhat” or “very” likely to succeed in Iraq. But less than 20% of them think “the Iraqi military will be ready to replace large numbers of American troops” in 2 years or less. That suggests that a sizable number of the troops on the ground think that a precipitous withdrawal from Iraq would amount to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Imagine if a soldier, marine, or guardsman were to express that opinion to Obama’s face, in public, on the ground in Iraq.

Yeah, we couldn’t have that happen, could we?