Korean Job Discussion Forums

[igotthisguitar]

GOP Senator Says War "May" Be Criminal
By MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press Writer
Fri Dec 8, 5:47 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Oregon Sen. Gordon Smith, a Republican who voted in favor of the war in 2002 and has supported it ever since, now says the current U.S. war effort is "absurd" and "may even be criminal."

In an emotional speech on the Senate floor Thursday night, Smith called for changes in U.S. policy that could include rapid pullouts of U.S. troops from Iraq. He said he never would have voted for the conflict if he had known the intelligence that President Bush gave the American people was inaccurate.

"I for one am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day," Smith said. "That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore. ... So either we clear and hold and build, or let's go home."

A spokesman said Friday that Smith did not mean to call the war criminal in a "legal" sense.

Smith is up for re-election in 2008. His comments come a month after Republicans lost control of Congress � in large part because of voter unhappiness with the Iraq war � and shortly after the Iraq Study Group issued a blistering criticism of the administration's handling of the war.

Smith said he is "tired of paying the price of 10 or more of our troops dying a day. So let's cut and run or cut and walk, but let us fight the "war" on "terror" more intelligently than we have because we have fought this war in a very lamentable way."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_republican_senator

[Octavius Hite]

May???? All war is criminal, only wingnuts and warmongers think otherwise.

[Gopher]

[Octavius Hite]

I won't argue over every war in history, thats a fools errand, I will however say that WWI and WWII should be the markers that signaled the end of war.

While I don't think war is unavoidable, I do think that we should have an international body that can prosecute those that start wars. We should all be working within that framework.

Those who start the wars should be prosecuted.

[Gopher]

[igotthisguitar]

[Milwaukiedave]

I'm from Oregon and he is one of my two senators. I wouldn't believe anything he says. He knows he's up for a tough election fight in 2008 because he's consistanly for the war, and trying to undermind the fact that Oregon voters passed a law approving doctor assisted suicide.

Everytime you turn around he's trying to paint himself as a moderate, but he's far from that.

[cbclark4]

I think what the senator was referring to as criminal is keeping the troops in harms way for no good reason.

There's a story in Colin Powell's book that goes something like this.

We had an airstrip somewhere in vietnam that was being defended by some soldiers, so it goes he asks some officer:

Why are the soldiers here?

They are defending the airstrip?

Why is the airstrip here?

The airstrip supplies the soldiers?

So the scenario is Baghdad:


We need to patrol the streets.

Why patrol the streets?

To prevent attacks on the patrols.

Who attacks the patrols?

The Iraq people.

Why patrol the streets again?

cbc

[Kuros]

[cbclark4]

[igotthisguitar]

*bump*

[saw6436]

War only becomes a criminal act when you lose said war.

[Ya-ta Boy]

[saw6436]

I've always felt it was the British that started WW1 through their spearheading an arms race over control of the high seas.