<p>The ABC headline you quoted is false. Clinton made two “pledges” during her interview with Stephanoupolis.</p>
<p>a) She pledged to vote against every Iraq appropriations bill in the Senate that does not contain a firm change in policy and troop withdrawals.</p>
<p>b) She pledged to immediately begin withdrawing US troops from Iraq as quickly and safely as possible as soon as she is President.</p>
<p>The question she refused to “take a pledge” on was Stephanoupolis asking her for a specific number of troops in Iraq at the end of her first term. She said that it would be irresponsible for any President to commit to a number without even knowing what she will inherit in 15 months or what the military planning for a safe troop withdrawal looks like. Any number that any candidate would offer for 5 years from now, without access to any of the military planning in the Pentagon, would be be pulled out of thin air. Clinton won’t do that.</p>
<p>Let me give an example. Richardson first proposed “no residual troops” in a debate. He was immediately asked a follow-up, “what about guarding the embassy” and he said something, well now that you mention it, we might have to leave the standard marine guard contigent that guards any embassy in Iraq. Well, that is just talking out of his hat. You can’t keep an embassy in Iraq with the standard Marine color guard. It’s preposterous. You can’t even stay in Iraq with just the large force protecting the green zone because you have no supply route.</p>
<p>It’s easy to throw out cheap campaign pledges. I want a President who is serious about the job and knows that withrawing 250,000 American personnel from Iraq is not something that can be done without a military plan of operations to get them out safely.</p>
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<p>The polling shows that most Democrats want a withdrawal from the Iraq quagmire to begin immediately. However, most Democrats want that withdrawal to be well planned, safe, and responsible. Only Kucinich and Richardson are calling for precipitous withdrawal leaving our equipment behind (i.e. all troops out in less than a year). Neither are showing much strength in the polls.</p>
<p>"Our best argument against Hillary is not that she will end the war. It’s that she won’t. </p>
<p>And that she’s being dishonest when she says she will. And that she’s just another spineless Democrat like John Kerry who can’t stand up to any criticism, and won’t tell the country what she really thinks about the war. And that her political gamesmanship sends the wrong message to our troops and our enemies. </p>
<p>If there is little operational difference between Hillary Clinton and say, Mitt Romney on Iraq, then why change? If no one who gets elected in 2008 will end the war, why not stick with the party that you would normally trust in wartime? </p>
<p>So what Hillary told us on Sunday is that she will refuse to be pinned down on a date certain for withdrawal. (She won’t even apologize for her 2002 vote!) Until she does, her pledge to end the war should be laughed at, and this should be used to drive a wedge between Hillary and her anti-war base. "</p>
<p>While I have no love for Hillary, neither of the 2 leading Republican candidates have a backbone either.</p>
<p>Both Romney and Giuliani have already “flip-flopped” on so many issues (not to mention Bush II) and have come up with some rather lame excuses for their change in positions.</p>
<p>My nightmare is a showdown btwn Hillary and Rudy - yuck!</p>
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<p>Uhh, neither party has a monopoly on good leadership or failure during wartime (during WWI, WWII and the Korean War - this country was led by Democrats).</p>
<p>And as long as the Republican Party is being led by neo-cons, I, being a life-long Republican, don’t trust the party to lead us in the right way out of this one.</p>
<p>That’s absurd. Romney has fully endorsed “the surge”. Clinton has opposed it and back up her postion with a series of votes against continued funding of the Iraq war – one of only 22 Senators in May voting against the supplemental Iraq appropriation.</p>
<p>Clinton is committed to withdrawing troops from Iraq. But, she is not willing to do cheap campaign pandering and commit to “x” number of troops on “x” date without any military planning to achieve that number. You don’t just snap your fingers and use a time/space machine to transport several hundred thousand Americans from Iraq to the United States. Withdrawing from Iraq is a major military operation, especially if you don’t plan to abandon the entire stockpile of military equipment for use in an Iraqi civil war.</p>
<p>Others may want an irresponsible, pandering President. I don’t.</p>
Shouldn’t the question be: Do any of the candidates who believe that American lives should be sacrificed as part of the occupation of Iraq have sons or daughters at risk?</p>
<p>John McCain’s youngest son is serving in Iraq (Marines - joined at 18) and an older one is at the Naval Academy.</p>
<p>“Do any of the candidates who believe that American lives should be sacrificed as part of the occupation of Iraq have sons or daughters at risk?”</p>
<p>Ok, but the Democratic “frontrunner” has said that the occupation will remain.</p>
<p>If any Americans remain in Iraq, their lives are at risk.</p>
<p>You are correct. However, if we are including daughters there are a couple of other young women whose disinterest in military service in a time of war is of note.</p>
<p>What is the relevance of the Bush girls being in the news? Clinton, Kerry and Gore were all at one point in favor of war in Iraq and are still very supportive of war in Afghanistan, yet no one asks them if they will “send their kids to war”.</p>
<p>All military personnel are adults – the last time I checked, they don’t NEED their parents’ approval. The issue isn’t whether or not President Bush’s daughters, or the Gore or Kerry girls, served in the military. Adult children have the right to make their own choices and decisions, and are not obligated to decide on a course of action based on their parent’s politics.</p>
<p>^^Even if they publicly support their parent’s vociferous determination to continue an occupation by a military that is - by its own admission - lowering its recruitment standards in order to maintain its ranks.</p>
But, the relevance is that Bush didn’t “send his kids to war” either.</p>