GOP Takes Out Full Page Targeting Space...In Columbus Dispatch?!?
Pardon the "GOP" designation. Freedom's Watch certainly isn't the Republican Party, although they are closely aligned with overlapping activists.
Open season on Zack Space? A group called Freedom's Watch seems to think so. In fact, they placed this full page ad on page 5 of the Columbus Dispatch today.
Digging around just a bit, I found Freedom Watch's press release regarding this ad, and others similar they've placed around the country today.
Washington, DC – Today, Freedom's Watch launched a print ad campaign urging members of Congress to “stop playing politics” and “fund the troops.” These full-page ads feature an open letter to Speaker Pelosi and members of Congress, highlighting the progress we are making in Iraq and calling for “Congress to show resolve, put aside politics and to unite behind victory” from Andrew Robinson, an Iraq war veteran. Andrew Robinson served courageously in the U.S. Marine Corps and was on his second tour of duty when he was wounded by an IED in June of 2006. These print ads appeared in seven newspapers across the country: The Arizona Republic, The Sacramento Bee, The Palm Beach Post, Evansville Courier & Press, Topeka Capital-Journal, The Columbus Dispatch, The [Scranton] Times-Tribune.
So my question for Freedom's Watch would be "What exactly does 'unite behind victory' mean?" Do they want an unconditional promise we'll stay in Iraq 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?
It's groups like this that just don't fundamentally get it. You can tell by how they frame their language. Of all the arguments to stay in Iraq, the "stay the course" or stay till victory is probably the weakest. Americans are concerned about what's going on with their children, or on their neighborhood block, or in their communities, right now. The whole argument pushed by pro-Iraq forever folks like Freedoms Watch are constantly framed in wildly in the future. After 4 years of fear mongering about the future from the Bush Administration and friends, Americans are smart enough not to fall in these traps anymore. They're ready to get things done now. That includes making sure our troops are safe at home, and ready to deploy against real threats to our liberty. Not stuck as peacekeepers in Iraq till who knows when without any promise of long term progress.
until enough people stand up and say, and make enough other people understand, that we aren't leaving the Middle East (no matter which excuse du jour is given) as long as our economy and way of life are dependent on the oil there. Instead of a strategy for freeing ourselves of this deadly dependency, we send troops to kill and be killed to keep our foot in the door of the largest remaining oil reserves on earth, lest our up and coming competitors for global dominance (China, in particular) get their hands on the controls.
Middle eastern oil is a "strategic interest" for the United States. We need to make it not so.
Which billionaires and war profiteers fund Freedom Watch?
I hope people will call Rep. Space and let him know that our troops have done the job they were asked to do: make sure there was no WMD threat from Sadam and change the regime. The troops were not trained to be nationbuilders. We should support the troops and bring them home.
I doubt it's a coincidence that this ad ran in the Dispatch on the day that Colin Powell and Steve Forbes are in Columbus to give motivational speaches to 20,000 people at Nationwide Arena.