Debate

I haven't heard anyone say anything about the "only building we gaurded was the oil ministry" comment from Kerry. Wasn't that canard shot down? The guy was just parking his tank and it happened to be in front of a building that happened to be the oil ministry? If so, isn't it kind of a big deal that an American Presidential candidate mistates a fact that has been used by a slander against us by our enemies? It seems that at the very least it mark him as predisposed to believe the worst about America. It is one thing to get a jibe about your opponent wrong, it is quite another to get one about our soldiers wrong.

What would it take for an American commander to say, "don't worry about those artifacts, we are here for the oil?" The underlying fact seems implausible to me. How improbably is it that at some point a military vehicle would be parked in front of a building that had some relation to the oil industry? It would seem more surprising if that had not happened at some point during the day.

And why would we care about the oil ministry anyway? If we were there for the oil what would the Sadaam's old paper work matter to us? It is like a burgaler steeling an account ledger instead of the money it records.

But Kerry's restating of this (I believe) discredited and implausible charge fits in with a larger theme that has been used against Kerry: he is not really very loyal to one of our most respected institutions. It fits with a pattern of believing the worst about our armed forces.