GEORGE MCGOVERN: My Advice for Obama

JUNE 1, 2009

MOST Americans probably agree that we have elected a highly articulate, talented president in Barack Obama. He has also given us a potentially great Secretary of State in Hillary Clinton. It makes me proud to witness these two recent political rivals working together to strengthen and enrich America at home and abroad. Recognizing the major economic crisis our new leader has inherited, we must hope his proposed economic plan will be helpful.

I think it will. But as someone on the sidelines, may I suggest a few other steps?

First, why not order all U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan by Thanksgiving? They should be greeted at home with a duplication of the GI Bill of Rights that I enjoyed as a combat bomber pilot following World War II . . .

The second step I would take is to ask Congress to shift half of our military budget to other sources of national security. For almost 50 years, American foreign and national-security policy were believed to require a military budget big enough to win wars against Russia, China and a smaller country such as North Korea simultaneously. We waged what was called a Cold War against an alleged "Sino-Soviet bloc . . . "

. . . our military budget is higher than ever -- $515 billion annually, not including the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan.

This figure is greater than the combined military budgets of the rest of the world. We could defend ourselves with an arms budget half that size. If we directed the $250 billion we could save annually into national health care, improved education, a better environment and restoring our infrastructure, the nation would be more secure, better employed and have a higher standard of life. Or the savings might be used for annual reductions in the national debt.

read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124381226265170437.html

If that means you and your family are on the street, well...

I guess you just didn't "get" the "American dream!"

Obama is still trying to get us out of these wars responsibly and anyone that thinks it can be done responsibly by Thanksgiving isn't paying attention to current events. I'm still willing to give him the time I was not willing to give to McCain.

IMO, George McGovern is the smartest man who ever ran for president (at least in the last century.)

Here he is absolutely right. The way to get out is to pack your bags and go. Someone can always make up a reason to delay. So what?

He is also right about the military budget. It is a waste of money. We can spend it better. Citing that such as Nixon, or Bush for that matter, won elections does not make them right. (I used to let my math students vote on what the right answers to problems were. When the wrong answer won, I would point out that was a lesson on democracy. Nixon and Bush prove it has flaws.)

I'll bet you are too young to have been around when McGovern ran against Nixon. So I'll tell it to you straight, you can hardly go wrong listening to McGovern.

--imm

Nixon's campaign made Karl Rove look like a boy scout.

Remember Lee Atwater? He learned everything he knew from studying Nixon's campaign.

Is that something like "Peace with honor?"

We learned in Vietnam that we CANNOT control the destinies of other nations. We went in there to keep the communists from taking over. We spent 50,000 US lives, ten years, and hundreds of billions of dollars, making the South Vietnamese into a force that could stand on its own. We left, and two years later the communists took over.

If we had never gone in in the first place, the only difference would have been 50,000 US lives, 2 million vietnamese lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars saved for the exact same result.

There is NOTHING we can do to prevent Iraq's collapse. The Iraqi people will have the government they want, eventually, one way or another. "Leaving responsibly" is not about giving them the government they want - it is about giving them the government WE want.

And I want no part of that.

Ditto for Afghanistan.

Yes, millions of Americans and Vietnamese died as we tried to prevent the spread of Communism. I believed all along that the Vietnamese just wanted to be left alone to pursue their destiny. Turns out that's what has happened in the 30-plus years since the end of the war.

I visited Vietnam earlier this year. Saigon (Ho Chi Ming City - but no one calls it that) looks sprawling and busy similar to what I expected. The "hard core" capital of Vietnam, Hanoi, is trying hard to emulate Saigon - rather than the other way around that Nixon, et al feared.

One of the high points for me was visiting the new casino in Hanoi. Yes, in Hanoi. I'll see that spread of communism and raise you $100.00. :-}

Is there any reason to think that our occupation of Afghanistan will turn out any better than the 19th century occupation by the British or the 20th century occupation by the Russians?

The president has set his own priorities which make an early exit impossible if those (national security) goals are going to be his overriding ambition. I don't happen to believe there is a significant threat to our national security as the president describes in his justifications for staying. Neither, it appears, does Mr McGovern. Absent those nation-building, grudging ambitions, the military could easily craft an early exit which ensured the safety of our withdrawing forces.

Even though he is mostly right.

:rofl:

--imm

McGovern, yet.

What are some other of your positions?

And did you admire Paul Wellstone?

I was not trying to say that he is a bad person or anything. Just that he was a bad politician.

Oh and Wellstone is one of my all time favorite politicians, right up there with Huey Long and FDR.

To a large degree, he was running AGAINST the "establishment"

"The McGovern Commission changes to the convention rules marginalized the influence of establishment Democratic figures (some of whom had lost the nomination to McGovern). Many refused to support him, with some switching their support to the incumbent President Richard Nixon through a campaign effort called "Democrats for Nixon". In addition, McGovern was repeatedly attacked by associates of Nixon, including the infamous Watergate break-in, which eventually led to Nixon's resignation in 1974." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_mcgovern

pnorman

Having to fight off the dirty tricks of the Nixon campaign, while simultaneously having absolutely zero support from the Democratic party was bound to fail.

The McGovern campaign was my first campaign, and we got absolutely no help from the Democratic party in terms of money, manpower or material. McGovern was simply fighting two party establishments, and he was bound to fail.

If we don't roll back the unsustainable military Empire then everything else is meaningless. All the political and social progress our nation has made in the last 100 years will collapse upon itself. The election of Obama will be rendered a footnote in the story of our epic decline and fall.

real cuts.

K & R

...for the reminder. I had forgotten that before I was an Obamaite I was a proud
MCGOVERNITE