Here's why I voted for McCain, and it's the same reason why I'm depressed as hell this morning. The war in Iraq is a very personal issue for me, since I spent a year of my life over there. 5 years after the war started, I don't think the reason we went into Iraq in the first place should be an issue anymore. Maybe we shouldn't have gone in, but it's all semantics now because we are there. I feel, as a country, it's our responsibility to clean up the mess we've made. We toppled a government, we shouldn't leave until there is a new, stable government in place.
That's my biggest problem with Obama, he ran his campaign based around us "withdrawing" (and by withdrawing I mean losing) a war. I think once this country goes to war, we need to do everything we can to achieve victory. I don't think defeat should be an option. And if we leave in the near future, it will be a defeat. Any security gains we've made there in the last two years can be lost overnight.
I know far too many Vietnam veterans who have had to live with the fact that their country basically abandoned all their sacrifices and gave up on the war they gave so much to win. I didn't want "my war" to end up like that. I feel like the friends that I've lost over there deserve better from the country that put them there in the first place. Make no mistake about it, they wanted to be there. They believed in the mission. I saw the Iraqi people rejoicing in the streets for weeks after Saddam was put down like the animal he was. I saw first-hand the civilians risking their lives to give us information about insurgent activities, because they believe in our mission. I believe in the mission too.
I think it's absolute crap that the very government who was so quick to send our military to war is now so quickly trying to end it before we've done what I feel we are obligated to do. It reminds me of the saying "What's popular isn't always right, and what's right isn't always popular." It's a shame we won't have a leader who will stand up for what's right.
