How much total debt has Barack Obama created?

[patrice]

9. He's Commannder and Chief of the ARMED FORCES, Not. A. King. Do you think just maybe

the Armed Forces would have had SOMETHING to say about "ending" the wars "the day he walked into office'?

You're assuming all of it would actually have ended and not gotten worse in some way that wasn't even on the radar yet. Yes, the same thing CAN be said about continuing on that course, but in either case the Armed Forces ARE involved not only in those hypothetical decisions about the future, but also about the Armed Forces past experiences this last decade at least.

NO ONE, Commander and Chief or not, orders the Armed Forces into savage LOSS situations, without regard for the military's own understandings of HOW to validate those losses in SOME form of a solution. They ARE, they MUST be, an authentic and powerful part of the decision making process.

And if you're wondering:

How does a peace-person occupy this position with any integrity?

Peace, MUST be a personal choice, otherwise it is not Peace. Coercion does not result in peace. It IS my Human Right to CHOOSE Peace for my own reasons. All of my moral integrity is based upon the FREEDOM to make that choice for myself. If I have a right to that Freedom to choose Peace, for moral reasons in my case, so must I also respect the free choices of others, though they differ from mine fundamentally. As long as these different persons are authentically free (a VERY high standard there for any and all of us), and CONSEQUENTLY honest about an authentic CHOICE (not just something that is called a choice), I am required as a cultivar of freedom and all of the salutary benefits thereof to respect that choice.

So, the military, the people who we hope authentically CHOSE to risk THEIR lives, SHOULD have nearly as much power as the Commander in Chief in determining the course from a recent past of horrific losses, not only to themselves but TO THE PEOPLE WHOM THEY WERE REQUIRED TO HURT, into a future that does NOT, in effect, turn its back on what happened to them and to the people of Iraq and say, kind of, "Oooopps, guess that didn't work. We'll just change horses here. Sorry!!"

And yeah, I know MANY of them, the armed forces, did NOT authentically choose. And certainly the people of Iraq did not choose, but to me, that makes it even that much much more incumbent upon those who DO have the choices, to try to bring SOMETHING constructive out of their suffering and deaths. I KNOW that's not the ideal world, but this IS what happened.