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Subscribe to RSSWASHINGTON and SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum blamed a suicide bombing that killed 12 Americans yesterday in Afghanistan, in part, on President Obama.
"I think this is part of the consequences" of giving a timeline for when U.S. troops will leave Afghanistan, Santorum said yesterday at a fundraising dinner for Congressman Steve King (R-IA).
“[T]his is a dangerous enemy that has something that no enemy of the United States should have,” Santorum said, “And it was given to them by President Obama. And that is hope. They were given hope because the President of the United States said that he’s putting a timeline as to when American troops were going to leave. Once he’s done that, once he did that, he gave the enemy the hope that if they simply survive until then and maintain some level of activity that America will leave, and I think the best thing we can do for our troops is give them the best possible chance for success. And this President has not--, and I think this is part of the consequences.”
The suicide car bombing was “the single deadliest assault on Americans in the capital since the war began,” the New York Times writes.
Despite the death of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and the ouster of Moammar Khaddafy, Santorum derided President Obama as a “weak horse” on foreign affairs.
“America’s foreign policy, it is pathetic,” Santorum said. "And as a result, we are vulnerable. We haven’t seen it yet, but it’s only a matter of time before a weak America is going to be preyed upon, because they do not believe this president has the ability or the courage to stand up and fight for ourselves.”
Santorum said, if he were president, “[W]e would commit ourselves to success in Afghanistan.”
What would constitute success in Afghanistan and when would U.S. soldiers leave under a President Santorum?
“Success would be very clearly defined as the Taliban being, the threat of the Taliban would be diminished to the point it would not be significant to the security of the country of Afghanistan,” the former Pennsylvania senator said, adding, “[T]he issue is whether we will have, whatever government left behind, would be stable and secure enough to survive whatever threat. No one can suggest you can eliminate a threat, but you can reduce it to where it is not significant and once we have that accomplished, then we pull back and transition out of the country.”
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Mr. Sanitorium is absolutely correct in one regard. You do NOT disclose any tactical or strategic information to the enemy. That is common sense 101. Why do you think military units are not allowed to disclose deployment dates and locations in advance until maybe a month or two out? And then that is only to the Soldiers and families themselves. The media and public don't know until about the time it happens. Why are service members very careful about disclosing that information or of when their leave from a combat zone is occuring? This is called Operational Security. You want to deprive the enemy of any information that could be used to potentially harm or disrupt military operations. The President could have easily kept this information from being in the mainstream media and just told the Secretary of Defense his intentions of when the pullout would be. It would then be passed down to the appropiate Generals to be implemented.
But in war it's strategy, like saying we're going to do such and such and the whole time we have other plans of action, it's to make the enemy believe one thing when you actually do the opposite, get the message. Like cheating on your wife and you tell her you're going fishing, while she's contemplating that, your banging the girl next door..........Shogun
We all know that the GOP will never nominate Sanatorum. Just as they will not permit Romney to be beaten by a Cain. Sanatorum is in a delirium if he thinks otherwise. Time to go.
"Santorum was defeated 59% to 41% in the 2006 U.S. Senate election by Democratic candidate Bob Casey, Jr. This was the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent Senator since1980."
And yet Sanatorum thinks he has a chance at the GOP nomination. That only shows the irrationality of his thinking.
Some politicians insist on humiliating themselves further once it is clear that the people have rejected them. Santorum began a loser and will finish in worse shape than he began.
This is truly simple. If you are out then get out. What is the game now counting body bags? Only a fool tells the enemy we are leaving next year and lets them enemy kill your people. This cross all political lines. Who wants to the last man out?
Exactly, cleareye, the bozo lost his last election by 15 percentage points, and took that as a mandate to run for president. Who could possibly pay any attention to him, except to marvel at his inability to communicate in intelligible English? (Of course, that never seemed to deter Bush supporters.)
Face facts ..the republicans are war mongers! If they had their way we would be in Iran and Syria and several other places over there too. They love to wage war and if they had their way we would stay there till hell froze over. As for the date to leave Iraq? Bush set that date of did you forget that???
And if you ever read your history about Afghanastan you would no its useless to even be there. They have always been fighting among themselves and no matter how long we stayed they would continue to do so. It is time for them to decide for themselves what they want for their own future. They have to chose to live in the dark ages or move forward into the future.
Personally I would disarm every Male over there as they seem to suffer from a major ego problem. Why else would they supress women for so many centuries and blame the females because the men are not able to control their own libidos? These people are smart enough and manipulative enough to know how to play others into bringing in fighters and funding..they have done it for centuries. Funny how they never seem to want to fight their own battles just so they can say they didnt kill another muslim. They need to quit being cowards and chose for themselves how to live. Did they ever think that if they stopped fighting that we would not need to be there in the first place???
We have helped them enough. It is time to come home and rebuild OUR country. We have paid heavily in blood and money and our country is beginning to crumble just so the republicans can pay for their little wars..at our expense...but what easier way to skim then to start wars..after all we cant account for the cost of every bullet. Wonder how much Bush and Cheney got stashed away or ours?
Santorum is a joke!
Some one needs to worry about the people still there because you obviously don't. As far as I know Bush and Cheney have not been in office for 3 years. So the problem is with this administration and not the one we voted out. All the whining doen't change the fact that Obama said he would bring the troops home. Then just do it. Getting Americans killed now is the joke. I feel for the guys left behind. Better yet maybe you will volunteer to take their place on the line. I remember Nam and the time I was most afraid was the day we left. I didn't want to be the last body bag out.
the scary thing is that the republican will win the election, not base of this issue but on religious believes and idiotic people like this one, that are so war-hungers, when they get to Wash. the first they do is give tax breaks to the rich de-regulate industries, allow them to regulate them-self is like telling the wolf to gard the sheep and third an the must scary is another war in another distant place.
Has anybody else noticed that a lot of Republican candidates seem loony tunes?
President Obama's foreign policy makes a mockery of what the GOP used to call "foreign policy" which, was short for"Kill 'em All and Let God Sort it Out."
"Santorum blames Obama, in part, for Afghanistan bombing". This guy needs a trip to the Wizard of Oz to get a brain.
This should be considered treason at its highest level. Remember how for years people were not allowed to question Bush during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.....the GOP said that simply questioning the President would show that we are not united and give our enemies the upper hand.
Now, not only are they questioning the Commander-in-Chief, they are directly blaming him for an attack of which there have been countless numbers of over the decade of our presence.
This goes beyond politics......people like Santorum are the pure scum of the earth and everything that is wrong about this country. This shows that people like Santorum don't give two ***** about the country or our troops....all they care about is politics. If Republicans don't come out in droves and condemn his statement; they are as guilty as he is.
I sure as hell hope people see through this rhetorical buffoonery.
Oh but you see it is only treason when the dems or liberals or even independents question REPUBLICAN leadership. This is different - this is a man they have hated since he won the election. He angers them on so many levels. He is smart, strong, reasonably progressive and oh yes, he is African American. They just can't deal with all that good stuff being part of one man. It is all so foreign to them.
Just bring the guys home now. What is the point in leaving them there? If we are out then get out now.
Yeah! Only to build up forces in the Mid-East. What are we staging for?
Sanatorum = Sanitarium. Doesn't he know that a napkin is not a paper towel?
Too funny, Santorum- it's not to Obama's credit that bin Laden died, but let a suicide bomber kill troops and Obama's to blame? You can't make stuff that wacky stand up to even casual scrutiny...
Let the truth be said....
Why are any of the news outlets even covering this guy. He is as useless as a screen door on a submarine as my dad used to say. Hoestly, folks, if not one of you challenged him on his commentary, then you truly are in the wrong profession. Don't let these crazy people of the republican party continue to have a free forum for their hate filled rhetoric about the President.
This clown needs to go and he should take all the other clowns who have been so busy in recent weeks trying to convince us how intelligent they are. They have failed miserably. Every last one of them.
There is no way we an feasibly continue to fund these wars. They are not like WW2 where the enemy had a uniform and was easily identifiable. Afghanistan's cost forced the Russians to withdraw after 10 years, and economically we need to withdraw also.
Santorum is reaching when he blames a plan to withdraw the cause of the bombing. Bush put us there, and now it is time for the Afgans to tow the line.
Dear MSNBC,
Tell us something we DON'T know. "Republicans blame Obama..." is NOT news.
"and Democrats still blame Bush/Cheney..."
All you have to do is read any political thread on the "vine" to see the product of partisanship. It is quite frightening actually. We have been engaged in political warfare and finger pointing for so long that people have stopped thinking for themselves. We have forgotten that we are here to serve each other and yes, in fact, we are our brothers keeper.
Just think for a minute how different life would be if politicians truly had "service to others" at the core of their being. Unfortunately, they are a product of our society just like the posters in these threads. We have corrupted freedom so that we are engaged in an ever downward spiral of moral relativism. We have bought into the fallacy of the "self-made" man. We have become so individualistic, that we completely dismiss anyone that doesn't think exactly the way we do. It is time to wake up.
Can you not all see where this is taking us?
Your naive idealism is charming, almost refreshing, but - unfortunately - it's blinding YOU to where all this is taking us...lol.
The difference is that Bush/Cheney (et al) ARE to blame, and the "finger pointing" for the gross economic disparity in the US CAN be laid directly at the door of 40 years of failed Republican ideology.
There is no equivalency between the two parties today; Repubicans are a well-funded, highlly organized criminal mob; Democrats are just bungling cat burglars.
It would be nice to twitch our noses and have voters "...think for a minute how different life would be if politicians truly had 'service to others' at the core of their being..." and vote genuine public servants into office. But that's not happening today because our Constitution's "we the people" clause has been hijacked by corporatons ("capitalists"), "big money" interests (Republican Party) who've conscripted media to lie, distort, fear-monger and otherwise "con" people into voting against their best interests.
I get what you're saying in theory, but the Republican party is too dangerous a threat to democracy to pretend we can wish our Constitution back to health. It's going to be a long fight aginst some entrenched interests, and "we the people" can be dolts when it comes to thinking for ourselves. The OWS demonstrations is only the beginning of the long road to ridding ourselves of the money buying our Congress and finally returning the emphasis tof our legislative body back to representing the interests of "we the people" not "we the coporations."
And the most critical piece of the big money corrupting our Congress is undoing Citizens United - our conservative Supreme Court's satanic piece of work that gave corporations status as "people," which was nothing but a partisan bid to open the floodgates even wider, allowing even MORE corporate money to corrupt (i.e., steal) our elections.
Hey its treason to talk about the president in a time of war!!! oh wait, thats just when hes republican, carry on
A couple of things:
1) This was a NATO convoy. NATO hasn't announced a timeline for leaving, and NATO is likely to ALWAYS have a presence in Afghanistan, at least for the forseeable future, as a security stopgap while the locals gain strength and skill.
2) Santorum is a schmuck.
Republicans are idiots. Actually, no, they know what they are doing. The are ass holes.
So true, republicans are true ass holes.
So, send in a cadre of Nancy Pelosi's SanFrancisco "boys" to put the big fist to them! Better have them put their clothes on first, though, the rest of the country demands that people wear clothes!
So, what's.... new ? All republicans do, is blame President Obama for all the ills of the world !
Bunch of Cretins !
Santorum does not know it takes a Senate and a Congress to get anything done. But it is all one persons fault and none of ther
republicains it took to pass everything. It was not just Dem's but both!
Santorum is determined to leave no logic untortured.
Santorum lost his seat as a Senator for Pa for School tax evasion. Lied about where he lived so his kids could to a better school district and not have to pay the higher School tax his children went to public school. He wants to become President because he cannot make it in the real World by getting a real JOB!
Santorum lost his seat as a Senator for Pa for School tax evasion. Lied about where he lived so his kids could to a better school district and not have to pay the higher School tax his children went to public school. He wants to become President because he cannot make it in the real World by getting a real JOB!
I distinctly remember Rick Sanatorium being one of the ones who has spent the last 2 1/2 years deriding President Obama for not ending Bush's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan! And now that he is, of course, it is the wrong thing to do! How do you spell Republiscum-HYPOCRITE. At 1% in the polls, I don't think anyone is listening to Rick anymore, do you?
A social conservative: The peculiar species that is a fanatic for small government unless that means small government, in which case, it's a fanatic for a bloated, imperial military; the conflation of religion and the state; and government regulation of the private moral choices of individual citizens.
WTF, he makes it sound so easy! The way he's saying it it's like it's already been accomplished, all troops are back home already and Afghanistan will live happily ever after. Bet you whe he becomes the president he would not know where to start, lol!