VoteVets.org co-founder Jon Soltz has just provided a roadmap to dismantling rightwing talking points and holding Senator John McCain accountable on the Iraq War. Soltz, who served in Iraq and Kosovo, debated HumanEvents.com's Ericka Anderson in a segment hosted by MSNBC's Norah O'Donnell. This is must-see TV because it offers a preview of how the majority of voters who seek to end the Iraq War can effectively frame the issues and priorities in the coming presidential contest. To view the MSNBC segment, click here.
In this bit of earned media coverage, VoteVets is raising issues and concerns of troops and veterans in a brave, blunt way. In short, Soltz accuses McCain of failing America by following Bush's failed policy of retreat from Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
O'Donnell cued up the new VoteVets.org ad, which features Rose Forrest -- an Iraq veteran and mother -- who asks McCain to be straightforward about his priorities. Forrest, who served in Anbar Province with the National Guard, says:
"John McCain says it's okay with him if the U.S. spends the next thousand years in Iraq. That's some commitment to the Iraqi people, Senator McCain. This is my little boy. He was born a year after I came home from Iraq. What kind of commitment are you making to him? How about a thousand years of affordable healthcare? Or a thousand years of keeping America safe? Can we afford that for my child, Senator McCain? Or have you already promised to spend trillions in Baghdad?"
O'Donnell then asked Soltz, "Why are you running ads against McCain, a fellow veteran?"
Soltz swiftly landed a combination of hard-hitting points:
"We all respect John McCain's service in Vietnam; he's clearly an American war hero. But he's not in touch with what Americans want in this war. I mean, as an Iraq War veteran, representing over 15,000 veterans across VoteVets.org, we want John McCain to give us some straight talk. Is he going to continue the failed policies of George W. Bush in Iraq -- and retreat from Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan -- or is he going to take the fight to the enemy?
This is a great ad. It doesn't attack Senator McCain's service; it attacks his policies. And going into the election in November, we have a right to ask him for some straight talk. He can't do everything he says -- cut taxes for the richest people in America, keep us in Iraq in an endless war.
America has priorities. And one of them is keeping America safe, and one of them is not having a destroyed economy when he's finished. And that's the point of this ad."
Clearly set back on her heels, Anderson spluttered that the ad was "an illogical argument," that America does not have to make "a false choice" between Iraq and health care, or between Iraq and our national security.
Then Soltz pressed his advantage, citing his experience as an Iraq veteran and the fact that most Americans agree with VoteVets on the issue of not remaining mired in a bloody civil war in Iraq. He pointed out that before the U.S. invaded Iraq, there was no Al Qaeda in Iraq, and that Osama Bin Laden is in Afghanistan (or at least, not in Iraq). So the policy of keeping our army focused and stuck indefinitely in a civil war in Iraq is a policy of retreat.
Soltz stated:
"The people in our organization have been to Iraq. We've seen it first hand. We don't need Republican talking points to tell us the deal on the ground in Iraq. There was no Al Qaeda there when we invaded the country. Just today, Al Qaeda controls 10 percent of Afghanistan. I mean, the question is -- when you have 90 percent of your army in Iraq, and you have only 10 percent of your force structure in Afghanistan -- the question is, What is the central function of the War on Terror?
John McCain is going to be like George W. Bush on the situation with Al Qaeda, which is a policy of retreat. Al Qaeda is in Afghanistan. The American military is stuck in a bloody civil war in Iraq. We need to take the fight to the enemy in this country, and defeat the people that attacked this country. John McCain and George Bush are failing our country."
Anderson was reduced to parroting over and over the falsehood that all Barack Obama wants to do is end the war in Iraq immediately.
Soltz slipped in this gem: "Some of us will not forget about the people that attacked this country on 9/11. For some reason, the Republican Party and the conservatives in this country have lost their way. It's like you don't care about the people that attacked our country. And our military is decimated right now."
Anderson, defeated, merely repeats over and over that "We have a job to do in Iraq, and it's not done yet."
But what lingers is Soltz's question: "Osama bin Laden is not in Iraq. Can we agree on that?"