McCain Said U.S. Troops Kill Civilians

[democracy1st]

In their recent deep dive into negative, John McCain and Sarah Palin have hammered Barack Obama for supposedly saying our troops in Afghanistan are just "air raiding villages and killing civilians." One of McCain's recent ads calls the remark "dishonorable." Obama was actually calling for more troops in Afghanistan when he made the comment in August 2007 -- this smear was raised and debunked over a year ago.

Now, the Washington Times reports that John McCain himself once said something remarkably similar:

John McCain in 2000 said because of tactical decisions U.S. troops were put in the position of killing civilians in Kosovo -- something awfully similar to the comments he's now attacking Barack Obama for.

During a Republican primary debate in 2000 McCain called the Clinton strategy in Kosovo "obscene" because it forced troops into using tactics that meant civilians were going to get killed.

"In the most obscene chapter in recent American history is the conduct of the Kosovo conflict when the president of the United States refused to prepare for ground operations, refused to have air power used effectively because he wanted them flying -- he had them flying at 15,000 feet where they killed innocent civilians because they were dropping bombs from such -- in high altitude."

Sarah Palin said Obama should be "disqualified" for his remark about Afghanistan. Naturally, she should hold her running mate to the same standard.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/07/mccain-said-us-troops-kil_n_132689.html