Silent Patriot posted about this last week, as did many other outlets, a rare moment of candor out from an unexpected source. Whodathunk a Republican cheerleader for "liberating" Iraq from Saddam Hussein would admit that it has always been all about the oil? Whoops! Honesty is clearly NOT a Republican value, because McSame had to backtrack and claim that he didn't mean this Gulf War.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) clarified his comments Friday after suggesting the Iraq war was motivated by U.S. reliance on foreign oil.
His explanation: He was talking about the 1991 Persian Gulf War, not the current conflict.
It was the second time in as many days that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee had to clear up his comments. On Thursday, he backed off his assertion that pork-barrel spending led to last year's deadly bridge collapse in Minneapolis.[..]
He sought to clarify his comments after his campaign plane landed in Phoenix. He said he didn't mean the U.S. went to war in Iraq five years ago over oil.
"No, no, I was talking about that we had fought the Gulf War for several reasons," McCain told reporters.
One reason was Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, he said.
"But also we didn't want him to have control over the oil, and that part of the world is critical to us because of our dependency on foreign oil, and it's more important than any other part of the world," he said.
"I want us to remove our dependency on foreign oil for national security reasons, and that's all I mean," McCain said.
Regarding the current conflict, he said, "The Congressional Record is very clear: I said we went to war in Iraq because of weapons of mass destruction."
You have the video. Does it sound like he's talking about the first Gulf War?
Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to set a date for withdraw. That's what they want to do is get everybody out. I believe that would lead to catastrophe and chaos and that we would have the whole region including the whole region and the country in such turmoil that we would be required to come back to the region. And I just want to promise you this. My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will - that will then prevent us - that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East.
Anybody in the media think to remind McCain that neither Clinton nor Obama was in the Senate during the first Gulf War? They're looking to withdraw from a conflict that ended 17 years ago? Huh? Is this another McCain Moment? C'mon media, if Clinton or Obama had something this patently false, you'd be covering it for days.
