Smith: A Veteran’s Perspective – None of the Democrat Candidates Are Fit to Lead

I am a veteran of the United States Army. I served two tours in the Middle-East, including one in Iraq. I’m proud of my service and America. And I am terrified of what will become of our beloved military and our national security if any of the Democrats I saw take the Debate stage on Tuesday night become America’s Commander-In-Chief.

Watching the top-tier candidates for president on the left blunder their way through answers on Middle-East policy while engaging in half-truths about the War in Iraq and the Iran/U.S. tensions from a few weeks ago made me profoundly uncomfortable. While septuagenarian multimillionaires argue about the Iraq war vote from 17 years ago, the lone veteran on stage outright lies about the origins behind the decision to kill Qasem Soleimani, and the billionaire who has no real reason to be there goes on about “climate change” as if it’s the primary threat to the lives of Americans, soldiers, and veterans realize they’re left with a sorry group of people aiming to be president of the United States.

The back and forth between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders about the initial vote to authorize the Iraq war points to a fundamental misunderstanding of where we’re at now in terms of our troop presence in Iraq and the issues that America will face in deciding if and when we will vastly reduce the amount of troops we have there. Sanders wears his “no” vote on the Iraq war like a badge of honor to shine his virtue towards his socialist base and supporters. While being anti-war and American interventionism isn’t necessarily a bad thing, nor is critique of the origins of the war itself, what Sanders misses is that no matter what his vote was then, we’re in Iraq now. Veterans and active-duty soldiers don’t want 17-year-later Monday-morning quarterbacking about the vote; we want an answer to the issues facing troops in the region now.

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