[Peace-discuss] Gravel's lament: Fighting another dumb war

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Gravel's remarks on Obama and the war are unfortunately just right.  --CGE]


“When he hugs his children at night, when he puts them to bed, he has got to 
begin to think there are little girls like this in Afghanistan who are being 
killed and maimed,” Gravel told [Chris Hedges].

“If he can’t have that kind of a thought then his arrogance knows no boundaries. 
I saw this in the Senate during the Vietnam War. People detach themselves from 
the immediacy of the crime. They vote for the money. They vote for the policy. 
The picture of people dying is distant. My God, if you are sitting next to me 
and a bomb explodes and your arm is ripped off that is not distant. It is 
immediate. I saw the film by Robert Greenwald, 'Rethink Afghanistan.' It rips 
your heart out. And America under the leadership of Obama is a party to this 
crime. Close your eyes. Listen to the media. Listen to the pundits. Listen to 
the rhetoric. It is Vietnam all over again. What is the difference between our 
vital interests and the domino theory? We could leave Afghanistan and it would 
be as significant as when we left Vietnam.”

“Don’t be hoodwinked by Obama going to Dover [Air Force Base] to watch the 
caskets or going to Arlington to salute the graves, with his snappy salute,” 
Gravel says. “Adolf Hitler lionized soldiers dying. This is the old idea that it 
is honorable to die. It is not honorable to die in vain. People died in vain in 
Vietnam. They are dying in vain in Iraq and Afghanistan. And more people will 
die in vain because of the leadership of Barack Obama.”

“They don’t hate us because we are free,” Gravel said of the insurgents in Iraq 
and Afghanistan. “They hate us because we are killing them.”

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