It looks like immigration is the underlying issue in the campaign, with the healthcare debacle rarely mentioned.
"Military people wary of steps to war" by Bryan Bender | Globe Staff November 02, 2014
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — With the roar of fighter jets overhead, the crowd gathered at the Young Veterans Brewing Co. to sip beers named “Jet Noise” and “Night Vision” and hear an election-year message most of the country seems to be missing.
Here in Virginia’s Second Congressional District, which has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of military households, there is lots of talk about the escalating military campaign against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, a battle that many local pilots, sailors, and special forces troops are waging.
Not on the campaign trail. It's been the usual divisive pablum over race and gender, with lip $ervice paid to cla$$. I've seen this show before, and it's gotten old. Issues of war and peace in the campaign? Bravo for the last-minute introduction.
And did the Globe just admit boots on the ground without knowing it?
But some of the patrons who came to hear Republican Representative Scott Rigell on a recent evening expressed concern that the nation is failing to weigh the stakes and the potential consequences of another open-ended war in the Middle East — one that once again will be shouldered primarily by communities like this one.
Obama blundered in based on all the self-serving propaganda in said same paper, and this self-created terror group that is everywhere yet nowhere, losing yet winning, is another played pos.
“No one is going to say they are against the war or the troops but they are not engaged enough to do anything about it,” said independent voter Meredith Weiner, 27, a military contracting officer. “They don’t really care.”
Yeah we do. The poll numbers that reflect the American public's disdain and hatred for any more wars. It's something we agree on, and yet the representative government heads in the oppo$ite direction.
As for being against the wars, we have said that loud and clear. Instead I get self-serving spin from the war promoter who goes and talks to Weiner?
Marty Oard, 52, a self-described Democrat and retired Coast Guard engineer who was selling burritos from his food truck, “Karnage Asada,” said he believes the United States is not doing enough to confront the threat of ISIS.
But he expressed frustration that the country at large — and in particular Congress — is paying too little attention.
I was covering it Monday through Friday, and will soon again.
Voters such as Weiner and Oard may be overstating the national mood, but it seems clear that war and terrorism are not at the top of the agenda. A recent CBS-TV poll found only 7 percent of those surveyed believe global conflicts are of paramount concern, with another 16 percent citing terrorism. Economic concerns were far ahead at 34 percent.
All the fear-mongering regarding self-created and contrived threats have exhausted the American people, even if they don't know the massive amount of staged and scripted fraud they are being fed.
Rigell and his Democratic opponent, retired Navy officer Suzanne Patrick, disagree on a host of issues. But they are in lock step in their belief that the nation has gone to war with very little forethought.
How about that, huh? For once a good partisanship.
Congress recently voted to give President Obama authority to train and provide arms to moderate Syrian rebels in the fight against ISIS. But it adjourned and took to the campaign trail without holding a debate, let alone a vote, on the new US-led air campaign, which also includes 1,500 US military advisers in Iraq.
That will be Obama's legacy. Not healthcare, not immigration, not climate, not a Peace Prize. It will be the endless war he has bestowed upon his successor and us, and it is the prime reason his popularity is down and why we have a massive failure of a presidency that audaciously promised hope and change. Turned out the change was for the wor$e here in AmeriKa, as it always is.
Rigell has been a vocal proponent of holding a vote on the war in Congress and continued to carry that message at the brewery, insisting that the use of force must only come after “judicious restraint” and “only as a last resort.”
He said in an interview he believes strong action must be taken to confront the militant group that has seized parts of Iraq and Syria — and he is open to the potential that more US military forces may be required. But he also insists the strategy has yet to be fully vetted and said Congress should evaulate the threat posed by the group.
So there really is no choice, is there?
“It is not theoretical to members of the military here and their families,” Rigell said. “We’ve lost a lot of good men and women” in the past decade.
Patrick, his opponent, said voters have questions about what the military operation may look like in coming months and what it can achieve in the Middle East.
“We don’t know what is contemplated and we need to know,” she said . “I think there are many in this country who feel the global war on terror has undermined our international standing, has created intergenerational enemies for this country, [and] many are very reluctant for a continuation of those operations.”
Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat and member of the Foreign Relations Committee, agreed that a congressional debate about the war is needed.
“To what extent is this a threat we need to be concerned about?” he asked. “Is it imminent or is it long term?
While the US-led air strikes that began in August have slowed the advance of the Islamic State in some areas, the group has consolidated some of its gains.
Meanwhile, it remains unclear when local ground forces, including the Iraqi Army or Syrian rebels, will be able to go on the offensive. That could put more pressure on Obama to reverse his promise that US combat troops will not be needed.
Well, boots are already on the found and the whole semantics around this are distorted at best, deceptive at worst. Either way, not good for propaganda pre$$.
Yet the conflict has had relatively little attention in many congressional campaigns.
Yeah, it is amazing how the important issue of war never really makes it into political campaigns or debate.
“To the extent that it is an issue, it is largely being used by Republicans to paint a picture of [President] Obama as weak and indecisive,” said Douglas Lee Kriner, a political science professor at Boston University.
Thomas Wilder, a thickly bearded 30-year-old who served as a combat engineer in Iraq in 2004 and is one of the proprietors of the brewery, said more questions need to be asked about the war’s direction.
What do you think I've been doing for the last eight years?
There is a danger that the conflict could last for years, as occurred with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Wilder said as he poured a “Pineapple Grenade.” “Nobody wants that.”
Well, some do.
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